SYRACUSE  — Syracuse Behavioral Healthcare (SBH) has acquired the Learbury Centre at 329 N. Salina St. in a deal that closed March 21.

The purchase gives SBH, which provides treatment and rehabilitation services for people with drug and alcohol addictions, a new home for its Syracuse outpatient clinic. And in 2013 the nonprofit organization plans to relocate its administrative headquarters to the newly acquired building.

“This anchors SBH in downtown Syracuse,” says Jeremy Klemanski, the organization’s president and CEO. “It’s only two blocks from [St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center], which is a great partner in behavioral health services.”

SBH paid $2.83 million to acquire the 55,000-square-foot Learbury Centre from Pietrafesa LLC. It also plans about $1.2 million in renovations that will turn part of the building into an integrated substance-use disorder and mental-health clinic for outpatients. 

The organization is funding 20 percent of the purchase and renovation costs with its own cash. Alliance Bank, N.A. is financing the remaining 80 percent of the costs. 

Syracuse–based Hueber-Breuer Con-struction Co., Inc. will be the contractor for the renovations, which include new roofing, new windows, and a renovated interior for SBH’s relocated clinic. Associated Architects of Syracuse is the architect. 

The work is slated to start in late spring or early summer and will transform 17,000 square feet of space in the Learbury Centre into the outpatient clinic. Renovations on the space, which is the former home of Jacobsen Rugs, should be complete in time for the clinic to move in by the fall of 2012, Klemanski says.

Patients will enter and exit the clinic through an entrance that is separate from the rest of the Learbury Centre, according to Klemanski. Parking for patients will be in the back of the building, he adds.

“The front of this building’s operation will remain for tenants,” Klemanski says.

SBH plans to continue to lease out the Learbury Centre’s third and fourth floors. It will also continue to lease 16,000 square feet on the building’s first and second floors to Empower Federal Credit Union until 2013.

Empower plans to leave the building in 2013, according to Klemanski. In the summer or fall of that year, after the credit union moves out, SBH will relocate its administrative offices and residential-services offices into the vacated space.

Those offices currently take up 10,500 square feet in the Regency Tower at 770 James St. The offices are scattered throughout the tower, while the Learbury Centre offers contiguous space, according to Klemanski.

“We currently occupy several suites,” he says. “While the Regency Tower has been good about trying to accommodate us, having people spread all over the place is just not efficient.”

SBH currently employs 215 people, and the organization says it has doubled in size in the last five years. It projects 2012 revenue of $12.82 million, up from budgeted revenue of $12.21 million in 2011. 

The organization, which operates in Rochester as well as Syracuse, served 5,423 people last year. SBH is growing as more people seek help for substance-abuse problems, according to Klemanski.

“The biggest driver we’re seeing is it’s becoming more socially acceptable to reach out for help,” he says.

Martin McDermott, senior vice president of Syracuse–based JF Real Estate, brokered the Learbury Centre sale. Two brothers, Robert and Richard Pietrafesa, owned the building through the holding company Pietrafesa LLC until Robert passed away last year, McDermott says.

However, the building was up for sale when Robert Pietrafesa was still alive, according to McDermott.

“It was time for them to sell,” McDermott says.

Scott Lickstein from Newman & Lickstein Attorneys at Law represented SBH in the sale. Francis Stinziano from Gilberti Stinziano Heintz & Smith, P.C. represented Pietrafesa LLC, and F. Paul Vellano Jr. from the law firm Menter, Rudin & Trivelpiece, P.C. represented Alliance Bank, according to SBH.

Other SBH moves

Opening the outpatient clinic in the Learbury Centre sets up a chain of SBH moves scheduled to play out over the year. The first of those moves is the expansion of the clinic itself. 

SBH is relocating its outpatient operations from a building it owns at 847 James St. The clinic currently has 10,500 square feet in that building, meaning it will gain about 6,500 square feet with the relocation to the Learbury Centre.

That gives SBH enough space to hire more mental-health counselors, Klemanski says. The organization plans to hire 11 new staff members to work with patients as well as three to five clerical workers. That is on top of the 45 workers who currently work at the clinic — although Klemanski says only about 30 of those employees are at the clinic at one time.

The new mental-health counselors will be important because about 68 percent of SBH’s outpatient population needs treatment for both mental-health and substance-abuse issues, Klemanski says. The clinic will save patients from having to coordinate with different care managers in different locations because it will be able to address both sets of needs, he adds.

“To be able to do it in one setting is really where the future of behavioral health care is going,” Klemanski says.

The larger space will also give SBH the ability to see more outpatients, according to Klemanski. It currently has about 400 outpatients, and that number could increase slowly to 500. Between 10 percent and 25 percent of outpatients it sees come to the clinic every day, Klemanski estimates.

After moving outpatient operations from 847 James St., SBH will be able to consolidate its Syracuse inpatient operations in that building, which is 27,400 square feet. The building already holds the 40-bed Willows Inpatient Rehabilitation center. 

The Willows will be joined at 847 James St. by a detoxification center. The detoxification center is moving from 714 Hickory St. and will expand from 18 beds to 25 beds with that relocation. It will also likely add four or five staff members, although the number of new hires has not been finalized, according to Klemanski.

“The detoxification and stabilization beds will be in the same site as the inpatient rehabilitation beds,” he says. “All of the inpatient medical staff — doctors, nurses, food-service staff — will no longer have to travel between buildings.”

Some renovations will be needed to prepare the building at 847 James St. for detoxification beds. Showers will be added to bathrooms in the building, and counseling offices will be converted to bedrooms. Other work includes changing a child-care area to a physical-fitness space and converting a waiting area into a family visitation space.

SBH has not selected a contractor for that work or established cost estimates. Associated Architects of Syracuse is the architect for the project, Klemanski says.

All work will be complete at 847 James St. and the detoxification center will move in by mid fall, Klemanski says. 

“Renovations are relatively minor in that building,” he says. “They’re mostly aesthetic, with the exception of adding the bathrooms.”

Finally, SBH will convert the space at 714 Hickory St. vacated by the detoxification center to four supportive-living apartments. The apartments will be for people who were homeless or had experienced substance-abuse or mental-health issues in the past, according to Klemanski. 

The four new apartments will give SBH a total of 13 units in a block it operates between 714 and 720 Hickory St.

“It returns back to more of its neighborhood setting,” Klemanski says. “You walk down the block, that’s a residential neighborhood, Hickory Street.”

The apartment conversions should be complete by January 2013, according to Klemanski.

“Our plan is that by Jan.1, everybody is in their new home and up and fully running,” he says.

First Niagara Financial Group (NASDAQ: FNFG) is planning a new focus on small-business banking.

“It’s an untapped market for us,” First Niagara Retail Banking Director Scott Fisher says. “We were missing a slice of the market.”

The Buffalo–based banking company added a new team of 40 bankers throughout its footprint who will focus on small business. For First Niagara, that means companies with up to $2 million in annual sales.

The bank did serve those customers before, but it was largely through branch managers and was not a distinct business area, Fisher says. Compared to the industry as a whole and its competitors, First Niagara wasn’t tapping the small-business market as much as it could have been, he adds.

The banking company is planning to close an acquisition of 195 HSBC Bank branches in May. Adding the locations in upstate New York, Westchester County, and Connecticut will make First Niagara a major force in the Syracuse, Utica, and Binghamton markets.

When the HSBC acquisition is completed, First Niagara will have nearly 430 branches, $30 billion in deposits, $38 billion in assets, and more than 6,000 employees in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

The deal will virtually double First Niagara’s New York branch network to more than 200 locations and add more than 1,200 employees to its work force.

The deal will also bring First Niagara some business-banking accounts.

The new group of small-business bankers, which includes some former HSBC staff, began work in February. Over time, that group should account for about half of First Niagara’s small-business activity, Fisher says.

He declined to share specific targets on loan volume, but says the bank expects to double its lending from 2011. So far, customer response has been positive and First Niagara’s small-business loan pipeline is expanding, Fisher says.

Bankers have been reporting an increased demand for credit among small businesses, he adds, indicating an improving economy.

The bankers who started in February have plenty of small-business experience, Fisher says. They know the space and the companies in it.

First Niagara will also seek to separate itself from competitors through an updated set of small-business banking products and with quick decisions.

“They want it yesterday,” Fisher says of small-business people. “They’re busy. They wear multiple hats at their company.”

The new group will focus on acquiring new customers and expanding the bank’s relationship with existing clients.

Widening First Niagara’s presence in the small-business space will benefit its branch network, says David Kavney, Central New York market executive for First Niagara. Two of the new small-business bankers are in the Central New York market.

“These companies are tied in closely with their owners,” he says. “This small- business banker position is going to line up well with our branch system. We see this as a great opportunity.”

During the fourth quarter of 2011, First Niagara took $17 million in charges related to branch closures and severance costs. The staff reductions were aimed at enhancing the bank’s capabilities in both small-business banking and wealth management by adding new staff in those areas, CFO Gregory Norwood said during a conference call in January.