IPD: Engineering adds structural department, three new hires

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. — IPD: Engineering, a Syracuse–based engineering firm, today announced the addition of a structural department and three new employees for the division. The

Food Bank elects new board members and executive committee

Nonprofits, People on the Move

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The Food Bank of Central New York has elected three new board members, for the fiscal year that began in July 2014.

St. Joseph’s appoints Blumin as associate dean of students for College of Nursing

Employee Benefits & Human Resources, Health Care, Nonprofits, People on the Move

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The St. Joseph’s College of Nursing recently appointed Nicole Blumin as associate dean of students for the college. She will be responsible

Carrols agrees to buy 64 Burger King restaurants in three states

Banks & Credit Unions, Construction, Design & Real Estate, Employee Benefits & Human Resources, Sports, Entertainment & Tourism

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Carrols Restaurant Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: TAST) today announced it signed agreements to purchase 64 Burger King restaurants from subsidiaries of Heartland Food

Tech Garden fuels nine firms with Grants for Growth awards

Health Care, Insurance & Financial Services, Law, Accounting & Taxes, Small Business, Subscriber Only, Technology

SYRACUSE — The Tech Garden, an affiliate of CenterState CEO, on Aug. 18 provided nine area firms with a financial boost with funding awards through its Grants for Growth program. The Tech Garden awarded nearly $475,000 in the program’s 11th round, the organization said in a news release. The investments will leverage more than $919,000

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SYRACUSE — The Tech Garden, an affiliate of CenterState CEO, on Aug. 18 provided nine area firms with a financial boost with funding awards through its Grants for Growth program.

The Tech Garden awarded nearly $475,000 in the program’s 11th round, the organization said in a news release. The investments will leverage more than $919,000 in matching funds to support “emerging” regional companies.

This program has now been operating for nine years, Robert Simpson, president and CEO of CenterState CEO, said in his remarks to open the event.

“It has been a really important piece of the ecosystem of support for startup companies who are looking to grow and expand [their] products, develop new technologies, and get those technologies to market,” Simpson said.

CenterState CEO is the region’s primary economic-development organization.

In this latest round, the Tech Garden selected seven recipients for a $25,000 “Proof of Concept” grant and two firms for a $150,000 “Concept to Marketplace” investment.

Companies apply for awards in one of the two categories based on their growth stage.

“Concept to Marketplace”
The Tech Garden awarded “Concept to Marketplace” investments to Ephesus Lighting, Inc., which is based at the Tech Garden and is partnering with Syracuse University (SU).

Ephesus Lighting designs and manufactures light-emitting diode (LED) lighting products for the industrial and sports markets.

The Tech Garden awarded another $150,000 grant to NexID Biometrics of Potsdam, which is collaborating with Clarkson University.

The firm is commercializing “liveness detection biometric-security software to enable faster and more secure fingerprint scanning in electronic devices,” according to the news release.

The firm specializes in detecting fake fingerprints, Mark Cornett, COO of NexID Biometrics, said in his remarks during the event.

“Fingerprint sensors are very vulnerable to fakes as well as severed fingers, unfortunately … and what’s worse is that these things are easily produced with everyday household materials,” said Cornett.

NexID Biometrics wrote and commercialized software that Clarkson University had developed, he said.

The company plans to use its investment to “compress” a strategy that it had expected to unfold over the next few years into a matter of months with the introduction of touch ID technology opening up the consumer market, he added.

“We’re doing a lot of marketing and we’re also doing a lot of product development for the mobile market space and embedded market space with these funds,” said Cornett.

“Proof of Concept”
The “Proof of Concept” grant recipients include Avatar, a biochemisty firm that partnered with the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Avatar uses solid waste from the pulp and paper industry and converts it to value-added chemistries like fermentable sugar for the fuel, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries.

The recipients also include Tuzag, which partnered with SU as it develops an “anonymous tailored ad system,” a software platform that can deliver “highly customized” digital advertisements.

People using Internet-connected devices will see only the ads that are relevant to them, and their user data will be “completely private and secure,” as described in the news release.

The recipients also included three companies that collaborated with Cornell University, — Euphony, Infinivation Biomedical, and ZYMtronix.

Euphony is creating software that reproduces human speech, which has uses for speech therapy, entertainment, artificial intelligence, and other natural language-processing applications.

Infinivation Biomedical has designed a “wearable” medical appliance that can regulate fluid pressures on the brain. At the same time, it is “highly portable” and attaches to an intravenous (IV) pole, allowing the patient to move about freely, without requiring qualified staff to monitor and calibrate the device.

ZYMtronix is supercharging enzymes to create a variety of new chemistries that harness and recycle renewable materials and energy sources for use in pharmaceutical productions and other chemical applications.

The list of grant winners also included MacKintock, an industrial software firm that partnered with SUNY Cortland; and Quansor, a firm that focuses on water-quality testing, and partnered with SUNY Binghamton.

MacKintock is developing hardware and software for machine integration that allow manufacturing equipment and machinery “to be intelligent” and enable machinery to handle tasks such as communicating maintenance concerns, facilitating remote-operation capabilities, and reporting on output in real-time.

Quansor is developing a sensing technology that continuously tests drinkable water systems for the presence of toxins.

To date, the Grants for Growth program has awarded 50 grants and investments totaling more than $2.7 million.

Grants for Growth is made possible with $5 million in funding that New York State Senator John DeFrancisco (R–Syracuse) helped secure for the program, the Tech Garden said.

“It’s not … a lot of money but sometimes the dollars that are given just to get that seed money to get going will generate interest and it’ll generate others to get involved in the business, the financing of the business, and it could be the difference between success and failure,” DeFrancisco said in his remarks during the event.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

Anelli Xavier opens Buffalo office, plans further expansion

Construction, Design & Real Estate, Insurance & Financial Services, Law, Accounting & Taxes, Subscriber Only

SYRACUSE — The Syracuse–based law firm of Anelli Xavier has opened a new office in Buffalo, adding to its existing upstate offices in Syracuse, Rochester, and Albany. The firm, which focuses solely on defending clients accused of driving while intoxicated (DWI), has handled cases throughout New York, says Tom Anelli, managing attorney at Anelli Xavier.

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SYRACUSE — The Syracuse–based law firm of Anelli Xavier has opened a new office in Buffalo, adding to its existing upstate offices in Syracuse, Rochester, and Albany.

The firm, which focuses solely on defending clients accused of driving while intoxicated (DWI), has handled cases throughout New York, says Tom Anelli, managing attorney at Anelli Xavier.

Anelli spoke to the Business Journal News Network on Aug. 14. The Anelli Xavier firm is headquartered at 269 W. Jefferson St. in Syracuse.

The Buffalo office opened in July, says Anelli. The firm also has plans for additional offices in other areas of New York state.

“In 2015, we hope to open in the Hudson Valley … probably an office in White Plains … and then, also hopefully in 2015, we hope to open in Long Island,” Anelli says.

The law firm has not yet pursued real estate for an office on Long Island, he adds.

Anelli Xavier has between 25 and 30 total employees, including 15 attorneys. The firm plans to hire at least one attorney before the end of this year.

Lawyers from the firm’s Rochester office will handle the cases in Buffalo until it hires new attorneys for the office, says Anelli.

He also notes that any of the firm’s lawyers could handle cases in the Buffalo location, or any of the firm’s upstate offices.

Anelli Xavier doesn’t currently have any support staff in its Buffalo office, so the administrative staff in its Rochester location handles those functions as well, says Brent Xavier, president and partner in the Anelli Xavier law firm.

The firm will add support staff as its market familiarity and case load increase in Buffalo, he adds.

Xavier spoke to the Business Journal News Network in a separate interview on Aug. 15.

“Essentially, we’re a statewide practice,” explains Xavier. “As New York attorneys, we’re able to handle cases anywhere in the state.”

The firm has handled DWI cases in all of New York’s 62 counties, including the smaller areas of the upstate region, says Xavier. “They’re the markets we also advertise in,” he adds.

Xavier credits that business to the firm’s Internet-marketing efforts.

“The bigger markets … where the radio [advertising is] in the mix, we typically have an office presence there as well,” he adds.

Xavier declined to disclose any revenue figures for the Anelli Xavier law firm.

Radio ads
Radio listeners in the Syracuse market hear Anelli’s advertisements on various stations. The firm uses similar ads to introduce consumers in new markets to its brand and the DWI defense services it provides.

The advertising campaign generally takes three to four months to “ramp up” consumer awareness of Anelli Xavier in a new market, says Anelli.

“So it doesn’t make a lot of sense to build an office out and have somebody sitting there doing nothing while the market becomes accustomed to our ads,” he explains.

As the market branding continues, Anelli Xavier will work with a company called HQ and use a “virtual office environment” in a given market until it can secure its own office space, according to Anelli.

HQ is a member of the Luxembourg, Brussels–based Regus Group, which describes itself as the “world’s largest provider of outsourced workplaces for companies of any size.”

The law firm pays a monthly fee to use the space until the market “matures,” and it then researches possible places for new office space.

As the Anelli Xavier firm seeks an office space, “generally we’ll set up near an entertainment district or a spot that we believe will be most convenient” for people who might eventually seek its legal services, says Anelli.

The “DWI guy”
In his radio ads, Anelli has branded himself as the “DWI guy,” which he says evolved from the way he perceives people talking about business trades.

“Who’s your construction guy, who’s your siding guy, who’s your pool guy,” says Anelli, noting the “common speak” he was referencing.

His passion for defending clients accused of driving while intoxicated prompted the pursuit of his own practice to focus on that area of the law.

Prior to launching his own firm in April 2004, Anelli was affiliated with a website called drunkdrivingdefense.com as a representative in New York.

“I was traveling all over New York state handling DWI defense, because it was Internet-based advertising and it covered the entire state,” says Anelli.

He eventually became a father and didn’t want the constant traveling to keep him from seeing his family, he explains.

After meeting Anelli, Xavier joined the firm as a partner in 2007, figuring he had “something to lend” with his business background.

“I saw what he was doing here. I saw the phone ringing … and I thought he was on to something. It just developed from there,” says Xavier.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

Syracuse launches Whoosh mobile-parking system

Construction, Design & Real Estate, Sports, Entertainment & Tourism, Subscriber Only, Technology

SYRACUSE — Drivers parking in downtown Syracuse have a new option for making a payment at a parking meter. Whoosh, a mobile-phone application, went live on Aug. 18, allowing individuals to pay for parking directly from their devices. Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner made the announcement the next day, while speaking to reporters along the 300

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SYRACUSE — Drivers parking in downtown Syracuse have a new option for making a payment at a parking meter.

Whoosh, a mobile-phone application, went live on Aug. 18, allowing individuals to pay for parking directly from their devices.

Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner made the announcement the next day, while speaking to reporters along the 300 block of South Franklin Street in Armory Square.

The app, which is in use in more than 30 sites in the United Kingdom and France, is making its U.S. debut in the city of Syracuse, the mayor’s office said in a news release.

Residents can “download an app on their phone and pay for parking on their phone,” Miner said in her remarks at the sidewalk news conference.

“You don’t have to go through the rain or go through snow banks to put your credit card or coins or dollars into the parking meter,” said Miner.

Several parking-meter stations in Armory Square now include a pink-colored sign with information about Whoosh, indicating a driver can use the app at that parking meter.

The city of Syracuse is initially deploying the Whoosh system in the Armory Square area, but plans to expand it throughout downtown Syracuse and into the University Hill area, Miner’s office said.

“We will be extending this to all of the meters in the city eventually, but this is where we’re starting out [Armory Square] with our highest demand areas of downtown and some places on the East Side,” Miner said.

Whoosh is a download available on iOS or Android devices. Users download the app, register their vehicle’s license plates, and a credit card to which they will charge their parking payment, Miner said.

Whoosh charges a convenience fee of 35 cents to each transaction.

To pay for parking, users can open the app on their phone, choose their vehicle, and enter an amount of time they estimate they will need for parking.

If time is running short, Whoosh sends a notification to users’ phones, alerting them that their paid parking time is about to expire with an option to extend the parking time, if desired, according to Miner’s office.

The system does not change the maximum amount of time that a driver can remain parked at a given meter. The meters have a two-hour maximum, Miner said.

A group of representatives from Whoosh, who will dress in bright pink shirts, will visit Armory Square in the next seven to 10 days to provide tutorials and information on the system, Miner said.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

USDA: New York crop production mostly projected to increase this year

Energy, Environment & Sustainability, Manufacturing & Engineering, Subscriber Only

Farm crop-production prospects for New York state in 2014 are mostly higher compared with a year earlier, according to Blair Smith, state statistician of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) New York field office. Yield forecasts for output of corn, grain, soybeans, alfalfa, hay, and oats are higher than last year. However, production of dry

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Construction set to begin on Ithaca Marriott

Construction, Design & Real Estate, Sports, Entertainment & Tourism, Subscriber Only

ITHACA — Nine years after Jeffrey Rimland, a Long Island developer, proposed a hotel in the heart of downtown Ithaca, construction will finally begin in September. The hotel is sited at 120 South Aurora St., along the eastern edge of the Commons. The Ithaca Commons is a two-block pedestrian mall built in 1974 that serves

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ITHACA — Nine years after Jeffrey Rimland, a Long Island developer, proposed a hotel in the heart of downtown Ithaca, construction will finally begin in September.

The hotel is sited at 120 South Aurora St., along the eastern edge of the Commons. The Ithaca Commons is a two-block pedestrian mall built in 1974 that serves as the center of the area’s civic life. The plot of land sited for the hotel comprises only 0.19 acres or 8,000 square feet. The final design includes an 11-story structure with 159 rooms (including eight suites), restaurant/bar/lounge, fitness center, meeting rooms, and a board room encompassing 100,000 square feet of covered space. The building cantilevers out 12 feet at the fifth floor. The multi-million dollar project (final cost not released), is scheduled to open 17 months after construction begins. The hotel will carry the Marriott brand.

Rimland’s interest in Ithaca began in 2003 when he bought the Rothschild Building at 215 E. State St. Originally a department store, Rothschild closed its operations in the 1980s. The 77,000 square-foot building was subsequently converted to office space. Rimland’s idea for a hotel crystallized in 2005, because he always had difficulty getting a hotel room when he visited Ithaca. It took three years to re-acquire an adjacent piece of land, which he had originally ceded to the city. Then Rimland had to contend with the financial collapse of 2008 when banks were reluctant to lend money. He sought a partner for the project and chose Urgo Hotels of Bethesda, Maryland. City Council approval of the design also slowed the process, compounded by the need to “value-engineer” the cost of the project to ensure profitability.

Rimland Equities was founded in 1984 by Rimland, the company’s CEO. The privately owned and operated real-estate-investment firm owns and invests in both commercial and residential properties. Rimland’s headquarters is in Medford Long Island with offices in Bridgehampton, Catchogue, and Ithaca.

Rimland was approached by Urgo Hotels, a Bethesda–based hotel developer. “Don [Donald J. Urgo, Sr., president and CEO] has had an interest in Ithaca since one of his sons attended Cornell,” says Mathew Jalazo, director of development at Urgo Hotels. “He saw the need for opening a downtown hotel that would become the gateway to the Commons. Both [Urgo and Rimland] were excited to be part of the community and build a hotel that was spectacular, not prototypical.

The result was a joint-venture … Urgo’s role is to develop the project and manage it.”

The project is financed by one bank — M&T. Jalazo says Urgo has had a long relationship financing unique projects with the bank’s Washington, D.C. office. Cooper Cary, a national architectural firm with offices in Atlanta, New York, and Washington, D.C., designed the project.

Urgo Hotels develops, owns, operates, and asset-manages hotels. The company’s portfolio includes 31 hotels with 4,303 rooms located in the U.S, Canada, and Eleuthera in the Bahamas. In just the last two years, Urgo has added 13 hotels with 1,701 rooms. It is a brand-approved operator of leading hotel chains such as Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, and Westin.

This spring, William H. Lane Incorporated was chosen as the construction manager for the project; groundbreaking is scheduled for early September. William H. Lane, Inc. was founded in 1967; its diverse portfolio includes extensive experience in the market sectors of industrial, educational, health care, municipal, utility, and hospitality.

Contact Poltenson at npoltenson@cnybj.com

N.Y. manufacturing index falls in August

Energy, Environment & Sustainability, Manufacturing & Engineering

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported Aug. 15 that its Empire State Manufacturing Survey general business-conditions index fell 11 points to 14.7 in

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