ENDWELL — Delta Engineers, Architects & Land Surveyors, P.C. announced on Nov. 3 it has acquired OKKS Studios, Inc., based in Chevy Chase, Md. 

The deal was a stock swap based on independent valuations of the two firms. The principals of the combined firm operate now as OKKS Studios, a subsidiary of Delta Engineers, Architects & Land Surveyors, which also has an office in Vernon (Oneida County) and headquarters at 860 Hooper Road in Endwell (Broome County).

“We met the OKKS principals, Tom Sachs and Greg Knoop, 6 to 8 months ago through mutual friends,” says Anthony Paniccia, Delta’s president and CEO. “It became apparent at the outset that our two firms were a good fit, because OKKS was largely an architectural firm outsourcing 60 percent of its work to engineering firms and we are mostly an engineering firm. Of the 13 employees at OKKS, seven are architects and four are junior architects, which complements the three architects on Delta’s staff.”

OKKS, which was founded in 1970 as Oudens + Knoop Architects, P.C., leases 5,000 square feet in a single location in Chevy Chase. The firm specializes in the fields of health care, government and public-sector facilities, higher education, technology companies, security planning, and “class-A” office buildings, working across the U.S. and in more than 80 countries worldwide. Sachs and Knoop will continue to manage the Maryland office.

Following the acquisition, Delta employs 118 people total. That’s up more than three-fold since 2008, according to an article in the Oct. 25, 2013 issue of The Central New York Business Journal. In that story, Paniccia said Delta’s goal was to grow employment, first to 150 people and eventually 200 employees, through both organic growth and acquisitions.

Delta, founded in 1976, occupies 38,000 square feet at the Endwell headquarters, and another 6,000 square feet in Vernon. The Business Journal estimates the annual revenue of the combined firm at $13 million to $15 million.

Delta (www.deltaengineers.com) serves the building facilities, precast concrete, transportation, land surveying, and environmental markets.

Paniccia received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Clarkson University and his law degree from the Lincoln Law School of San Jose. He is registered as a professional engineer in 43 states and has worked at Delta Engineers, Architects & Land Surveyors for 19 years.

Contact Poltenson at npoltenson@cnybj.com

The former director of an upstate New York business-advocacy group is settling into his new role as president of the Empire State Chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. (ABC).

Brian Sampson left his role with Rochester–based Unshackle Upstate in October and started his new duties with the state’s ABC chapter on Oct. 13.

He had worked for Unshackle Upstate since 2009. 

Sampson assumed the role that Steve Lefebvre had vacated in December 2013 to move back to Delaware.

Sampson, who lives in Rochester, will work through all of [the] ABC Empire State Chapter’s offices and its members statewide. 

“It’s a position that tends to be a bit more mobile, while our headquarters are there in [DeWitt], I’ll be bouncing between all of the offices,” he notes.

Besides its main office in DeWitt, the ABC Empire State Chapter operates offices in Buffalo, Albany, and Ronkonkoma in Suffolk County, which serves the Long Island and metro New York City area, according to the ABC website.

ABC had also previously operated an office in Rochester, but due to some restructuring, closed it. But the organization plans to establish a new Rochester location “relatively soon,” says Sampson.

ABC is a national construction association devoted to merit contractors. 

“Merit shop contractors are typically non-union contractors,” says Sampson. He spoke with the Business Journal News Network on Nov. 4

The Empire State chapter serves nearly 400 members throughout New York state.

ABC had joined Unshackle Upstate as a member in 2011, Sampson says.

When asked what he found appealing about his new position, he indicated that ABC stands for the principles of free enterprise and open competition.

“We need to create an environment where contractors can be free to bid whatever work they choose to bid. We shouldn’t have laws and regulations that tilt the playing field in the favor of some groups at the detriment of others,” says Sampson.

He contends ABC needs to be “more aggressive” in how it pursues those beliefs in New York.

In his first few weeks as chapter president, Sampson has been focused on the proposed amphitheater on the western edge of Onondaga Lake in the town of Geddes. The Onondaga County Legislature on Nov. 3 voted to borrow more than $49 million for the project.

The county legislature and Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney have decided the amphitheater construction will include a project-labor agreement (PLA), says Sampson. 

A PLA sets the terms and conditions of employment on a construction project, including wages, hours, and work rules.

“PLAs tend to be [anti-competitive] because they restrict the willingness and the ability of merit-shop contractors to bid that work because of the work rules [involved],” Sampson contends.

He says a PLA typically stipulates that for every one employee a non-union contractor has assigned to the job, the contractor has to hire four people from a union-affiliated contractor.

“That’s just not fair to the contractor, nor is it fair to the people they employ, or their families,” he asserts.

In his time as director of Unshackle Upstate, Sampson points to the state’s property-tax cap, which state lawmakers approved in 2011, as one of the accomplishments of his tenure.

It was part of the Unshackle legislative agenda in both 2009 and 2010, he says. Then Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo made it part of his campaign in 2010. Sampson contends the tax cap has helped both homeowners and the business community.

“From the business community’s standpoint, the largest tax a business pays is its property taxes. If we can make it more competitive and less costly, then our businesses will have a little bit of an advantage that they didn’t have before,” says Sampson.           

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

SYRACUSE — A new state title-agent licensing law that went into effect Sept. 29 means the clock is ticking for title agents across the state, who have until Jan. 1, 2015, to submit their license application.

The New York State Land Title Association, Inc. (NYSLTA) supported the new law, which will bring a new level of transparency to real-estate finance, says Robert Treuber, executive director of the association. Formed in 1921, NYSLTA offers membership to title-insurance companies licensed in the state, abstract companies, title-insurance agents, law firms, individual attorneys, surveyors, and others actively engaged in real estate. 

The new law also guarantees a level of professionalism in the title-agent field, he contends.

Title agents conduct searches on properties undergoing sale to make sure the new owner will have free-and-clear title to the property and they write an insurance policy to protect the new owners from unforeseen claims, fraud, and other risks. The vast majority of lenders require title insurance before approving financing, Treuber notes.

The problem in the past was that there wasn’t a lot of transparency behind this process and homeowners weren’t sure what all their fees were paying for, says William Collins, a title officer with Rochester–based Frontier Abstract & Research Services, Inc., which also has an office at 224 Harrison St. in Syracuse. The company services all of New York’s 62 counties.

“Agents are now going to have to give a lot more disclosure than we used to,” Collins says.

This aspect of the law creates some challenges because different counties across the state handle real-estate transactions differently, Collins says. 

For example, title agents in zone 1 — which includes Broome, Erie, Livingston, Monroe, Niagara, Onondaga, Schenectady, and Wayne counties — do not include recording fees and charges among their billable services. Those costs have always been charged by the attorney overseeing the transaction. But now, title agents must track down those costs and disclose them even though they aren’t actually charging them, Collins says.

As part of the new law, title agents will also have to apply for a license if they wish to continue working as a title agent, Treuber says.

He doesn’t expect the licensing requirement to affect overall business practices or increase the cost of title services, but it will add some additional paperwork for title agents.

“I would not say they are in any way onerous,” he adds.

Agents will also have to meet mandatory pre-licensing education and examination requirements or apply for a waiver, Treuber says. Those waivers apply to attorneys in good standing and professionals who can demonstrate five years of continuous experience as an agent.

For that reason, Collins encourages his colleagues to submit their license applications well in advance of the Jan. 1 deadline. 

He expects this may be more difficult for smaller companies that don’t have a lot of free time to devote to filling out applications or the money to hire someone to oversee the process.

The state Department of Financial Services will regulate and administer the title-agent licensing law, including overseeing the licensing process.