New Ithaca-area BJ’s Wholesale Club opens

Get our email updates

Stay up-to-date on the companies, people and issues that impact businesses in Syracuse, Central New York and beyond.

LANSING — BJ’s Wholesale Club, Inc. has opened a new Ithaca-area location in the village of Lansing. The store, which is 85,000 square feet, is

Profit rises in Q4, 2011 at Tompkins Financial

Banks & Credit Unions

ITHACA — Tompkins Financial Corp. (NYSE Amex: TMP) earned $9.4 million, or 84 cents a share, in the fourth quarter, up 5.6 percent from a

Area unemployment rates rise

Employee Benefits & Human Resources

Unemployment rates inched up a bit across the region in December, according to figures released today by the state Labor Department. In Binghamton, the rate

Net income slips in Q4 at Key

Banks & Credit Unions

Net income from continuing operations attributable to common shareholders at KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) totaled $201 million in the fourth quarter, down from $292 million a

Behlmer to head up CNY region for BNY Mellon

Banks & Credit Unions

BNY Mellon’s Central New York region has a new top executive. Frank Behlmer was recently appointed to the newly created role of regional executive for

Community Bank Q4 profit rises nearly 20 percent

Banks & Credit Unions

DeWITT — Community Bank System, Inc. (NYSE: CBU) reported that its fourth-quarter net income rose 19.5 percent to a record $19 million as it benefitted

Cornell University relaunches humanities building project

Construction, Design & Real Estate, Health Care, Subscriber Only

ITHACA — Cornell University will relaunch the design phase of its new humanities building now that the buildings and properties committee of the Cornell Board of Trustees unanimously approved the measure Jan. 19, according to the Cornell Chronicle. It’s the first new building at Cornell in more than 100 years.The process was put on hold

Already an Subcriber? Log in

Get Instant Access to This Article

Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.

Learn More and Become a Subscriber

Speedy Awards relocates to Crossroads Plaza

Construction, Design & Real Estate, Manufacturing & Engineering, Regional News, Subscriber Only

NEW HARTFORD — Speedy Awards & Engraving, Inc. has a new home and plans to add some new products as the company’s owners work to continue the growth they generated in 2011. Speedy co-owners Anthony (Tony) and Lyn Taurisano, who are brother and sister, found out in September they would need to find a new

Already an Subcriber? Log in

Get Instant Access to This Article

Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.

Learn More and Become a Subscriber

NEW HARTFORD — Speedy Awards & Engraving, Inc. has a new home and plans to add some new products as the company’s owners work to continue the growth they generated in 2011.

Speedy co-owners Anthony (Tony) and Lyn Taurisano, who are brother and sister, found out in September they would need to find a new location. Pulam LLC, comprised of Georgio’s Village Café co-owner Judy Gorea and business partner Gayle Pulizzi, purchased the building and announced plans to relocate Georgio’s from 60 Genesee St. to Speedy’s old location at 64 Genesee St. Gorea says in the new location, she will be able to connect her restaurant to her other business, Georgio’s Village Cocktail next door. Currently, the businesses are housed in two separate buildings where connecting them is not an option, she says.

The Taurisanos worked with Pavia Real Estate Services to search for a new location, but it only took one trip for them to find the perfect spot in the Crossroads Plaza at 8411 Seneca Turnpike in New Hartford.

“It was one of the first ones we saw, and we liked it right away,” Lyn Taurisano says of the new space.

Her brother Tony says the site had a lot of appeal, from the ample parking to the ability to have the space revamped to suit their needs.

The Taurisanos signed a 10-year lease with renewal options with plaza owner David Mazloom and spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s moving into the new location. Speedy Awards & Engraving opened for business in the new space on Jan. 3.

“It’s laid out the way we wanted it,” Tony Taurisano says of the new space. Because they could design the store for maximum efficiency, at 2,100 square feet, the new space offers more usability than Speedy’s old 2,200-square-foot space. The old space was divided between two floors, which meant a lot of running up and down the stairs, he says. The new space is all on one level.

And even though the space is slightly smaller, the Taurisanos were able to expand the showroom from 480 square feet to 832 square feet.

“We’ve got a nice pick-up area now,” Tony Taurisano adds, speaking of the counter where customers pick up their completed orders.

Lyn Taurisano says she’s excited the new space provides room for Speedy to carry and display more items.

“We’d like to expand the apparel,” she says. Speedy already offers screen printing and embroidery work on apparel, but never really had the space to display samples of that work, she says. Now she’s hoping to add a new display in the showroom so customers can see that work.

She hopes the new items on display will catch the eye of current customers — which include a lot of businesses, school districts, and nonprofits — and that the new location will attract the notice of new customers.

“I think the convenience is going to help a lot,” Tony Taurisano says of the plaza’s location on Seneca Turnpike in a busy retail section just down the street from places like Sangertown Square Mall and the Consumer Square and The Orchard shopping centers.

“I think we’re a lot more visible, too,” Lyn Taurisano adds. Along with a mention on the shopping plaza sign along Seneca Turnpike, Speedy should benefit from traffic to other businesses in the plaza, which includes Morehouse Appliances and Cartridge World, she says.

The Taurisanos declined to provide revenue figures or sales projections, but say that 2011 was a good year for growth in the business, and they hope to carry that growth over into 2012.

To promote the new location, the Taurisanos have done some print advertising and are actively working to stir up interest and followers on social-network sites like Facebook, where they had 80 fans, and Twitter, where they had 54 followers, as of press time.

The Taurisanos’ parents, Michael and Angela Taurisano, founded Speedy Awards & Engraving in their basement in 1975 before moving to Genesee Street in 1983. Both Lyn and Tony work at the business full time and have one full-time employee. Speedy (www.speedyawards.com) serves Oneida and Herkimer counties, as well as all 50 states through its online ordering options.

PAR completes sale of logistics-management subsidiary

Manufacturing & Engineering, Regional News, Subscriber Only

NEW HARTFORD — PAR Technology Corp. (NYSE: PAR) completed the asset sale of its PAR Logistics Management Systems (PAR LMS) subsidiary to ORBCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ: ORBC) on Jan. 12. The sale is valued at about $6 million in cash and ORBCOMM common stock, with the potential for an additional earn-out of $4 million. “We are

Already an Subcriber? Log in

Get Instant Access to This Article

Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.

Learn More and Become a Subscriber

NEW HARTFORD — PAR Technology Corp. (NYSE: PAR) completed the asset sale of its PAR Logistics Management Systems (PAR LMS) subsidiary to ORBCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ: ORBC) on Jan. 12.

The sale is valued at about $6 million in cash and ORBCOMM common stock, with the potential for an additional earn-out of $4 million.

“We are very pleased with the completion of this transaction, as the sale of PAR LMS is a solid step in the implementation of our strategic plan,” PAR Chairman and CEO Paul B. Domorski said in a news release. “Our company will continue to focus on improving shareholder value by developing innovating technologies and growing our profitable business segments in hospitality technology and government solutions.”

PAR’s main business is hardware and software products for the hospitality industry including point-of-sale systems for quick-service restaurants like McDonald’s — PAR’s largest customer — and scheduling systems for spas and hotels.

PAR LMS focused on the cold-chain trucking industry, providing monitoring products that allowed customers to track their products during shipping. LMS was a long-time subsidiary of PAR, but the company brought it into the spotlight in recent years as it worked to grow that business.

However, when discussing the company’s third-quarter earnings in 2010, PAR came under fire from one investor because the LMS subsidiary was losing money. PAR LMS had received federal funding for five years to develop transportation solutions, but lost that funding.

During a conference call with media and investors, Justin Borus, a managing member of Lazarus Investment Partners, LLP of Denver, Colo., called out company officials for the toll LMS was taking on overall earnings at the company. The LMS division, with that loss of federal funding, took a 3-cent per share bite out of PAR’s earnings that quarter.

“How do you justify not selling this business or doing something with it?” Borus questioned company officials at the time.

PAR officials countered by saying new clients, such as Chiquita Brands International, Inc., proved that LMS was on the right track for growth.

And, LMS revenue did pick up in 2011. LMS revenue grew 21 percent in the second quarter with new customer additions like Alliance Shippers and 14 percent in the third quarter as concern for food safety resulted in increasing demand for cold-chain monitoring and reporting products. PAR officials never broke out LMS’s revenue, but said early in 2011 that it comprised about 3 percent of PAR’s total revenue.

Borus did not respond before press time to requests for comment on PAR’s sale of the LMS division, first announced Dec. 28. PAR officials declined to comment beyond the information they provided in the news release, and ORBCOMM did not respond to requests for further comment.

When the deal was announced, ORBCOMM CEO Marc Eisenberg said his company expected to offer customers increased features, higher levels of integration and increased sales through the addition of PAR LMS, its customers, and its employees. Neither company released information on how many PAR employees were impacted by the sale.

ORBCOMM (www.orbcomm.com), a machine-to-machine data-communications company, has customers including Caterpilar, Inc.; Doosan Infracore America; Hitachi Construction Machinery; and Volvo Construction Equipment. For the third quarter of 2011, ORBCOMM reported net income of $555,000 on revenue of $13.9 million.

PAR Technology Corp. (www.partech.com) is a provider of restaurant and retail technology including point-of-sale systems and hotel-management systems. PAR reported 2011 third-quarter revenue of $59.8 million and net income of $1.2 million. The company, headquartered in New Hartford, also provides computer-based system-design and engineering services to the Department of Defense.

Utica-Rome consumer confidence rises in Q4 2011

New York News, Subscriber Only

Area still has lowest confidence in the state Utica-Rome–area residents increased their willingness to spend in the fourth quarter of 2011 along with consumers in most other parts of the state. Overall consumer confidence in the Utica-Rome metropolitan statistical area (MSA) rose 3.7 points to 56.2, according to the Quarterly Consumer Confidence Survey from

Already an Subcriber? Log in

Get Instant Access to This Article

Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.

Learn More and Become a Subscriber

Area still has lowest confidence in the state

Utica-Rome–area residents increased their willingness to spend in the fourth quarter of 2011 along with consumers in most other parts of the state.

Overall consumer confidence in the Utica-Rome metropolitan statistical area (MSA) rose 3.7 points to 56.2, according to the Quarterly Consumer Confidence Survey from the Siena (College) Research Institute (SRI). Utica-Rome was one of seven MSAs in New York State where consumer confidence rose.

Even with the increase, confidence in Utica-Rome floundered below levels seen in the rest of the state. Utica-Rome was home to the lowest confidence level in New York.

Binghamton had the next-lowest confidence level. Consumer confidence in the Binghamton MSA jumped 6 points in the fourth quarter, but still languished at 56.8.

“Numbers in the fifties are disturbing,” says SRI Director Donald Levy. “What that means is that you have widespread belief in the market that next year is going to be a bad year.”

None of the survey’s results reflected optimistic consumers. Rochester had the highest consumer confidence in the state, gaining 7.4 points to 70.7, but still did not get above the SRI survey’s break-even point.

The survey’s break-even point, which is 76.01, is the point at which more consumers respond with optimistic answers than pessimistic answers. That means results below 76.01 indicate a majority of consumers responded pessimistically.

“Breaking even, if you stop to think about it, is not great,” Levy says. “You want to be a full dozen points over breaking even. That’s an economic environment where people are feeling that things are good.”

Consumer confidence also grew in the Mid-Hudson MSA, where it climbed 4 points to 60.3. In the Buffalo MSA, confidence increased by 3.5 points to 64.6, and in Long Island it inched up 1 point to 62.8. New York City hosted the smallest move upward — 0.9 points to 66.1.

Confidence moved in the opposite direction in Syracuse and Albany. It fell 2.5 points to 60.6 in Syracuse and dropped 2.4 points to 62.7 in Albany.

“Syracuse is standing out,” Levy says. “It’s certainly someplace that was, across the board, moving in the wrong direction in the fourth quarter.”

SRI made random telephone calls to adults over the age of 18 to conduct the survey. Each MSA index is based on more than 400 respondents, with the exception of New York City and Long Island. SRI averages results from its monthly consumer-confidence surveys to develop quarterly indexes for New York City and Long Island.

Current and future confidence

Utica-Rome’s boost in overall confidence came from bolstered current and future confidence levels. SRI measures overall confidence by combining current and future confidence readings.

Current confidence in Utica-Rome climbed 3.8 points to 62.6, while future confidence moved up 3.7 points to 52.1.

Binghamton also experienced rising current and future confidence. Current confidence in Binghamton climbed 3.8 points to 62.9. Future confidence spiked 7.3 points to 52.8.

In contrast, current confidence in Syracuse tumbled 4.9 points to 65.6. Future confidence dropped 1 point to 57.4.

Buying plans

SRI asked consumers in each of the nine MSAs about their buying plans over the next six months. Consumers in each area indicated whether they planned to buy a car or truck, a computer, furniture, a home, or a major home improvement.

The percentage of respondents planning to make a purchase increased in 24 of the 45 categories across the state, when compared to results from SRI’s third-quarter 2011 survey. The percentage planning to buy decreased in 18 categories and held steady in three.

In the Utica-Rome MSA, consumers’ purchasing plans increased in three categories — cars and trucks, computers, and furniture. The portion of consumers planning to buy a car or truck rose 3 points to 10.5 percent. The historic average for that category is 10.9 percent.

The portion of consumers planning to buy a computer rose 0.3 points to 11 percent, above the historical average of 8.7 percent. And the portion of consumers planning to buy furniture increased 0.5 points to 13.9 percent. It remained above the historic average for that category, which is 12.7 percent.

Plans remained unchanged for homes at 2.9 percent. That’s slightly above the historical average of 2.4 percent. Buying plans for major home improvements fell 6 points to 15.4 percent, below the historical average of 17.5 percent.

Get our email updates

Stay up-to-date on the companies, people and issues that impact businesses in Syracuse, Central New York and beyond.

Get our email updates

What's New

Upcoming Events

Tompkins Chamber 2025 Annual Celebration & Award Ceremony

Boys & Girls Clubs of Syracuse (BGCS) 2025 Clubhouse Classic

Women in Business Roundtable

CNYBJ Job Board

Get Instant Access to This Article

Get Instant Access to This Article

Get Instant Access to This Article

Get Instant Access to This Article

Get our email updates