DeWITT — Byrne Dairy Inc. is increasing its dry storage and warehousing capacity at the former Magna Powertrain/New Venture Gear plant in the town of DeWitt.

The company’s space now totals 100,000 square feet, up from 60,000 square feet of space.

The OX Group LLC, through its subsidiary ONX1 LLC, on Oct. 19 announced that it modified its leasing agreement with Byrne Dairy to increase the space. ONX1 manages and operates the former manufacturing and parts-distribution facility.

The additional space will accommodate Byrne Dairy’s increased dairy-food production at its ultra-pasteurization processing plant located near the New Venture Gear Drive location, the OX Group said.

OX Group now refers to the facility as the NVG Industrial Campus, says Robert Trafford, managing partner of ONX1 LLC. He spoke to CNYBJ from Huntsville, Alabama on Oct. 31.

The expansion requires Byrne Dairy to relocate to another section of the facility to accommodate the additional square footage, OX Group said.

Byrne Dairy is moving from the structure’s southeast corner into the northwest section of the building, according to Trafford.

“We expect them to be in their space by Thanksgiving,” he adds.

Byrne Dairy’s move also “better locates them” for OX Group to work with the company for any future expansion purposes with more loading docks available.

“As we anticipate an increase in our production and distribution operations, this expansion will allow us to plan for future growth in New York State while remaining cost competitive in the dairy food market. We value our relationship with the team at ONX1 and appreciate the opportunities they are providing,” Dan Wood, VP of operations at Byrne Dairy, said in the OX Group release.

Byrne Dairy is currently one of six tenants with operations in the NVG Industrial Campus.

The other tenants include Orlando, Florida–based CHEP, which manufactures pallets and containers; Custom Assembly, a manufacturing assembly group for off-road, sport-utility vehicles; and Rome–based Birnie Bus Service, which is using about 10,000 square feet of space, according to Trafford.

“Byrne Dairy was the first one in the door [in February 2014] at 60,000 square feet and we’ve just transitioned them over to a 100,000-square-foot space … We kept the same economic terms,” says Trafford.

With the current six tenants, the NVG Industrial Campus is “roughly 20 percent occupied” and still has about 1.2 million square feet available for use.

Trafford says that occupancy rate should increase soon.

“We’re actively in negotiations with some deals that … should dramatically enhance that [occupancy-percentage] number over the next three or four months,” he says.

Federal Express also has operations on the east side of the NVG Industrial Campus, but it’s not a building tenant, says Trafford.

He had subdivided and sold what was formerly the property’s east parking lot to a Federal Express developer.

The company built a 157,000-square-foot building in that location, he adds.

OX Group ownership
ONX1 purchased the 1.7 million-square-foot New Venture Gear plant from Syracuse Properties in the fall of 2012.

At the time of the purchase, Magna International occupied the plant. Magna in 2004 had purchased the business from New Process Gear, a Chrysler Corporation-owned company, according to the OX Group news release.

OX Group is a Florida–based real-estate development and management company specializing in the “restoration and repurposing of high quality, high profile” facilities formerly used for industrial purposes.

OX Group has multiple sites across the country, including subsidiaries, ONX1 and ONX3, which owns and operates the NVG Industrial Campus in DeWitt and the Silver City Industrial Park located in Sherrill.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

SKANEATELES FALLS — The 159,247-square-foot former Welch Allyn building, situated on about 59 acres and located at 4619 Jordan Road in Skaneateles Falls, was recently sold.

Kohilo Wind LLC purchased the property in August, according to a news release from Cushman Wakefield/Pyramid Brokerage Company, which helped the arrange the sale.

Michael Kalet and George W. Lee of Cushman Wakefield/Pyramid Brokerage exclusively marketed and facilitated the sale of the property on behalf of the seller.

The purchase price and other financial details of the sale were not provided.

Kohilo Wind (https://kohilowind.com) is a manufacturer of non-traditional wind turbines that require less than 3 miles per hour of wind velocity to operate. The company says its turbines are “unique” in that they condition the wind through a diffuser system not used in traditional turbines. That harnesses the energy more efficiently and increases power production, even at low wind speeds, it says.

The company sells turbines for rooftops, grain silos, gazebos, towers, ballasts, mobile wind trailers, lighting poles, boats, RVs, ATVs, golf carts, and new handheld wind-powered cell-phone chargers, according to its Facebook page.

Contact The Business Journal News Network at news@cnybj.com