Inner Harbor aquarium project to begin with design phase

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SYRACUSE — The upcoming $85 million Inner Harbor aquarium project will begin with the design phase. The Onondaga County Legislature narrowly approved the project in a 9-8 vote during its meeting of Aug. 2. Like the legislators who voted against it, some segments of the community believed county officials could’ve spent that money on other […]

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SYRACUSE — The upcoming $85 million Inner Harbor aquarium project will begin with the design phase.

The Onondaga County Legislature narrowly approved the project in a 9-8 vote during its meeting of Aug. 2. Like the legislators who voted against it, some segments of the community believed county officials could’ve spent that money on other matters, such as poverty in the Syracuse area.

But in the end the project was approved, following 10 months of debate about it after McMahon first announced the aquarium initiative in early October 2021.

The aquarium project is an expansion of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo, Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon told local reporters following the county legislature’s vote. The project idea came from the Friends of the Zoo, he said. McMahon credited zoo officials, such as executive director Ted Fox and his team, for their work in giving county officials “the confidence to undertake this [project].”

The county executive called the aquarium project a “tourism year-round asset … that we can sell.” He also noted that the county doesn’t have many year-round assets related to tourism. The project is “in direct support” of Onondaga County’s hospitality industry and restaurants.

“It will bring in visitors. It will keep and capture spending here from families. It is a quality-of-life piece of infrastructure for families here in Onondaga County,” McMahon said. “It’s a job creator. Hundreds of construction jobs will be created during this project. Hundreds of jobs at the aquarium and at the restaurant and hospitality industry will be created because of this aquarium.”

McMahon also sees the project as an opportunity to “build on synergies” with other public investments in the K-12 STEAM space. Onondaga County has the only county-wide STEAM school coming online in the state of New York, he noted. STEAM is short for science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. The STEAM school will be housed at the downtown building that was previously home to Central High School.

The aquarium project will also provide “unique opportunities” for the county to partner with its higher-education institutions and research, McMahon contends.

“It will provide great opportunities to tell one of the greatest stories we’ve had in our community with the cleanup of Onondaga Lake and its tributaries and work in the history of this lake and what it’s meant to our community and how for the first time in a generation what is happening around it as it becomes the epicenter for recreational and leisure activity once again,” he said.

McMahon also called the aquarium a “workforce retention and recruitment tool” for the businesses that are investing millions and millions of dollars here and “the ones that were on the precipice of landing here in Onondaga County.”

He also sees the aquarium as the “stimulus needed for neighborhood revitalization in that harbor that has been stalled.” In addition, Onondaga County heard from private donors earlier that day who are interested in partnering, he added.

Once the aquarium design is finished, then the county will issue a request-for-proposals (RFP) for operators.

“We will then be able to tell you what that looks like. Do we have a public-private partnership? Do we have a nonprofit partner?” McMahon said in his remarks.

The Rosamond Gifford Zoo and zoo director Ted Fox will be “deeply involved.” The county will also issue an RFP for a general contractor for the project. Local people, minority and women-owned businesses, veteran-owned businesses, and apprentices from Syracuse Build will be working on this project.

Syracuse Build is a mayoral initiative, housed within CNY Works, supported by CenterState CEO’s Work Train. The program has helped residents get involved in pre-apprenticeship programs and work toward credentials in “high-demand” sectors, including construction; electrical mechanics; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, or HVAC; advanced/high-tech manufacturing; commercial driving; and software development, as described in a CenterState CEO news release.

Salina 1st project is under way with site remediation

Construction, Design & Real Estate, Subscriber Only

SYRACUSE — The early work on the Salina 1st project, south of downtown Syracuse at 1081 S. Salina St., has focused on site remediation. Crews have been involved in site work and remediation because the property is a brownfield, Gail Montplaisir, a real-estate developer from Washington, D.C., working with Taurus Development Group, tells CNYBJ in

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SYRACUSE — The early work on the Salina 1st project, south of downtown Syracuse at 1081 S. Salina St., has focused on site remediation.

Crews have been involved in site work and remediation because the property is a brownfield, Gail Montplaisir, a real-estate developer from Washington, D.C., working with Taurus Development Group, tells CNYBJ in an Aug. 19 phone interview.

The work involves moving soils to where they’re needed and removing soils from the site, which have to be tested because they’re contaminated.

“As part of the DEC program of which we’re a part, they get tested and then they get taken to a particular landfill that is already equipped to accept polluted soils.,” says Montplaisir.

DEC is the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

During the week of Aug. 22, crews were scheduled to install the infrastructure for the stormwater-management system.

“For a project like this, there’s quite a large stormwater-management containment facility and that will be under the parking lot,” says Montplaisir.

Crews then attached various pipes to that big tank, which will eventually take the stormwater out to different areas and out to public services.

She anticipates vertical construction will begin either late this year or the beginning of next year once all the site work concludes. Construction on the Salina 1st project is scheduled to be completed by 2024.

Montplaisir was among those who spoke at a June 2 event to mark the start of the construction process. Besides Montplaisir, Emanuel Henderson of JHP Industrial Supply Co. and Eli Smith of E. Smith Contractors are spearheading the Salina 1st project.

The partners describe Salina 1st as a “catalytic,” mixed use, community development project. The 52,000-square-foot facility will include residential, retail, light industrial, and incubator/shared-office space.

E. Smith Contractors of Syracuse and Taurus Renovation & Construction are overseeing the construction effort.

Salina 1st is the first all minority-led commercial development in the history of Syracuse, per a June 2 news release about the project. With an estimated investment of more than $10 million, the Salina 1st project seeks to “embrace, not displace” neighborhood residents and aims to “hire within the community.”

“We were one of the first projects to kind of stake our flag on the south side and say we’re going to move this forward and since then we’ve seen a lot more interest in the south side as well as a lot more development of project and some really big ones, which is great, so that can’t help but encourage the revitalization,” Montplaisir tells CNYBJ. “We’re really, really pleased to be a part of that.”

Co-owner, store manager share their stories leading to Parthenon Books

Small Business, Sports, Entertainment & Tourism, Subscriber Only

SYRACUSE — When Stephen Case returned from a trip to Greece in August 2021, he had the urge to open a bookstore in downtown Syracuse. In his travels around Greece, he says he saw the Acropolis and visited some “cool” bookstores and coffee shops, which added to his desire to see an independent bookstore open

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SYRACUSE — When Stephen Case returned from a trip to Greece in August 2021, he had the urge to open a bookstore in downtown Syracuse.

In his travels around Greece, he says he saw the Acropolis and visited some “cool” bookstores and coffee shops, which added to his desire to see an independent bookstore open in the downtown area. Case is a broker and owner of Acropolis Realty Group / Acropolis Development in downtown Syracuse.

“It was my concept,” says Case, referring to the downtown’s first bookstore since the early 1990s. “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time.”

Parthenon Books has been operating at 333 S. Salina St. since June 25. It’s located in the same space where Rainbow Kids previously operated.

The bookstore is part of Acropolis Center, which is owned by both Case and Ryan Benz.

Both men are also co-owners of Parthenon Books. Besides the bookstore, Benz also operates the restaurant Oh My Darling, just a short distance from Parthenon Books on South Salina Street.

“I thought [Benz] would be instrumental in helping with the café. So, we’ve got a little café in the bookstore,” says Case, who spoke with CNYBJ on Aug. 24.

Case says he and Benz spent about $500,000 to open the bookstore, including buildout, furniture, fixtures, and inventory.

Selena Giampa manages Parthenon Books, which held a ribbon cutting June 30. The approximately 4,000-square-foot store has four full-time employees and about five part-time employees.

“This is [Giampa’s] dream … to run an independent bookstore,” says Case.

Store manager’s new beginning

Case had all the components to launch the downtown bookstore but still needed someone to manage the operation.

Giampa had been working for the Research Foundation for SUNY at SUNY ESF when she says her position was eliminated in July 2021 due to pandemic. She has a friend who works as a massage therapist who soon after asked Giampa if she could do anything, what would it be if money wasn’t an issue.

“I always wanted to run a bookstore,” says Giampa, who spoke with CNYBJ on Aug. 23. She had moved back to Central New York from Phoenix, Arizona about 15 years ago and “couldn’t believe” that no one had opened a bookstore in the downtown area.

Not long after the interaction with her friend, Giampa says her friend and an acquaintance were looking at a commercial space in downtown Syracuse with Stephen Case (that space is now home to Parthenon Books).

As Giampa recalled it, before the meeting ended, Case asked his clients if they knew of anybody with knowledge of operating a bookstore.

“Steve and I met and I told him how weird and serendipitous it was,” says Giampa.

Their meeting in early July 2021 convinced Case that a downtown bookstore would soon happen.

Giampa had worked at Borders stores in Syracuse and Arizona for about 12 years in roles that included inventory manager and café manager, per her LinkedIn profile. She also had worked as a clerk for the central branch of the Onondaga County Public Libraries for four years.

“Books have always been sort of a thing that I’ve wanted to surround myself with,” she notes.

Trade-Mark Construction of Syracuse handled the construction work to prepare the space for business. Trade-Mark started its work in March of this year, according to Giampa.

“There was a lot of build out,” she recalls.

A distributor offered the bookstore a list about 10,000 titles for selections to determine the store’s first order, Giampa says. Parthenon Books is also setting up accounts with independent publishers. The store will also accept used books but that’s done by appointment because “we’re really really selective about what we want,” Giampa tells CNYBJ.

Parthenon Books also hosts events involving book clubs, local authors, trivia nights, and is open to helping local nonprofits with fundraising events. The store has a café that offers products from SkyTop Coffee of Manlius, SugarTop Bake Shoppe in Salina, and the Westcott Cookie Company of Syracuse.

“Being as locally focused as possible is a huge part of our business model,” Giampa notes.

The name Parthenon Books is a nod to the history of ancient Greece and the bookstore’s operation space in Acropolis Center. The Parthenon was a temple on the Athenian Acropolis that was dedicated to the goddess Athena.

“We have a mural in our store that is a nod to the goddess Athena as well,” says Giampa.

Cake Bar opens second downtown Syracuse location

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

SYRACUSE — Cake Bar, a local bakery and bubble tea shop that opened in The Salt City Market in January 2021, debuted a second downtown Syracuse location in August. Cake Bar opened its new café at 252 W Genesee St. on Friday, Aug. 12. The space, which was most recently occupied by the Bamboo House

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Margaritas Mexican Cantina expanding in Armory Square & beyond

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

SYRACUSE — Just three years after opening, Margaritas Mexican Cantina is expanding its location at 203 Walton St., nearly doubling the restaurant’s space and seating. Alejandro Gonzalez and his business partner Jose Avalos opened Margaritas in September 2019. Gonzalez worked for years in the restaurant business before venturing out on his own. While born in

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SYRACUSE — Just three years after opening, Margaritas Mexican Cantina is expanding its location at 203 Walton St., nearly doubling the restaurant’s space and seating.

Alejandro Gonzalez and his business partner Jose Avalos opened Margaritas in September 2019. Gonzalez worked for years in the restaurant business before venturing out on his own.

While born in the U.S., Gonzalez grew up in Mexico. After he returned to America, much of his restaurant experience was in Mexican restaurants. It was the growing popularity of Mexican cuisine, however, that truly influenced what type of restaurant he wanted to open.

Mexican food is the second or third-most popular restaurant cuisine, he says, and you really can’t go wrong serving good drinks and big portions of tasty food.

“I think I was one of the first ones to revolutionize the Mexican restaurant concept,” Gonzalez says. Instead of having the same old booths and playing the same old music that other restaurants used, he instead chose colorful furniture, vibrant and authentic Mexican dishes, upbeat music, and served margarita towers at his restaurant.

“It makes people not just want to come here for the food but also for the atmosphere,” Gonzalez adds. With wait lists three to four hours long, especially on the

weekends, the concept is working, and it’s the impetus behind the renovations underway to expand the restaurant.

Margaritas can currently seat 142 people and will add another 130 seats in a dining room that’s expanding from 3,000 square feet to 6,000 square feet. The restaurant is expanding into vacant space from which the restaurant’s space was partitioned. “We’re just knocking down the wall,” Gonzalez says. Once complete, Margaritas will occupy just over 10,000 square feet between the dining room, kitchen, and bar.

Remodeling was underway at press time with a projected late August completion. Margaritas worked with Innovation Construction, Inc. of Ohio on the project. The company specializes in working on Mexican restaurants.

“It’s going to change the whole atmosphere,” Gonzalez says. The work also includes a new larger bar, new lighting, and the possibility of bringing late-night food and drink offerings to Margaritas. Currently, the restaurant is open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays and closes at earlier times the rest of the week.

Gonzalez expects he needs to add between 15 and 20 employees at Margaritas, bringing the total to nearly 90 people.

Barring construction delays, Gonzalez was expecting to celebrate the newly renovated space in mid-September.

“It’s been a good ride, and we have more to go,” he says of Margaritas Mexican Cantina’s growth. Along with a second location in Rochester, Gonzalez and Avalos are hoping to open a third eatery in Florida soon. They are also looking at taking their restaurant concept overseas as well.

“I’ve been looking at a place in Luxembourg,” Gonzalez says. He is also considering Bucharest, Romania as a possible site. “They have a really good nightlife there,” he quips.

Gonzalez believes the Margaritas concept with large potions and that Margarita tower would be well received in Europe.

The Armory Square restaurant (www.margaritasmexicancantina.com) enjoys a diverse clientele including office workers for lunch, couples and groups during the dinner hours, college students and people looking for a fun date spot in the evenings, and a lot of families on Saturdays and Sundays.

May named director of digital services for City of Syracuse

Subscriber Only, Technology

SYRACUSE — Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh on Aug. 26 announced the appointment of Kelsey May as director of digital services for the City of Syracuse. In this role, May leads all efforts to implement new and modernize existing digital systems in city government. She is also responsible for leveraging technology that will support improvements to

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Jefferson Clinton Suites in Armory Square transitioning to the Best Western brand

Sports, Entertainment & Tourism, Subscriber Only

SYRACUSE — The Jefferson Clinton Suites at 416 S. Clinton St. in Syracuse’s Armory Square area is transitioning into operation as the Best Western Syracuse Downtown Hotel and Suites. The hotel is working on interior renovations that will likely continue for a few more months, says Stephenie Jones, general manager of Best Western Syracuse Downtown

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SYRACUSE — The Jefferson Clinton Suites at 416 S. Clinton St. in Syracuse’s Armory Square area is transitioning into operation as the Best Western Syracuse Downtown Hotel and Suites.

The hotel is working on interior renovations that will likely continue for a few more months, says Stephenie Jones, general manager of Best Western Syracuse Downtown Hotel and Suites. Jones spoke with CNYBJ on Aug. 11.

The hotel includes 68 total guestrooms, 40 of which are suites.

Visions Hotels, which is headquartered in Corning, bought Jefferson Clinton Suites in December 2019 from the previous local ownership. Visions Hotels buys hotels and has them join national brands, according to Jones.

“You get more visibility. You get the brand backing as far as marketing and advertising,” Jones says in explaining the reason for a hotel to join a brand name hotel group. She says she wasn’t involved in choosing the brand.

Visions Hotels, which started as an independent company with three or four hotels, now owns more than 50 hotels, primarily in upstate New York, but also some in Pennsylvania and New England, according to a hotel listing on its website.

Visions owns the hotel at 416 S. Clinton St. but Syracuse Hospitality Developers operates the hotel and will have a d/b/a of Best Western Syracuse Downtown Hotel and Suites, Jones notes.

Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, Best Western Hotels & Resorts is a privately held hotel brand within the BWH Hotel Group global network, per its LinkedIn profile. It has 18 brands and about 4,700 hotels in more than 100 countries and territories worldwide.

When Visions bought Jefferson Clinton Suites, the company set aside funding to conduct renovations. However, with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, all the renovation plans were put on hold. Jones went on to tell CNYBJ that in order for the hotel to get the new branding, it had to have certain criteria in place.

Visions Hotels has its own construction operation that handled the renovation work at the Jefferson Clinton, which is ongoing.

The last time the hotel had any renovation work done was 2015, Jones notes.

The project work focuses on the hotel’s lobby area, with an effort to keep the original marble from 1927, Jones says. Lobby renovations include furniture, lighting, and breakfast-area updates. The project also involves adding a market.

“We’re still keeping that historical boutique feel … all the awnings will be replaced,” she says.

In the rooms, almost all the furniture is gone, Jones tells CNYBJ. The hotel is donating the furniture to area organizations.

Crews are also replacing all the tile work in the rooms with pergo floors. The work is also targeting the tile work in the bathrooms as well. Rooms will also have all new kitchen appliances.

The renovation work started in mid-February but “due to the quirks of working with an old building,” crews ran into some difficulty. The work was targeted for completion in July but will continue through October or November, Jones says.

Originally built in 1927 by Gustavus A. Young, the hotel was fashioned in the Beaux-Arts style and is one of the last remaining hotels from that era in the area.

City of Syracuse recognized for use of winter-weather operations tool

Subscriber Only, Technology

SYRACUSE — Esri, a company that focuses on location intelligence, presented two City of Syracuse departments with its Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award for their work on the city’s winter-weather operations tool released this past winter. The recognized departments are the Office of Accountability, Performance & Innovation (API) and Department of Public Works (DPW),

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The recognized departments are the Office of Accountability, Performance & Innovation (API) and Department of Public Works (DPW), Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh announced on Aug. 25.

Selected from more than 100,000 eligible candidates, API and DPW were recognized for the departments’ “collaborative, innovative” use of mapping and analytics technology, as well as leadership in the field of government technology, at the annual Esri User Conference held this summer.

The City of Syracuse was one of 193 organizations and the only public-sector entity in New York state to be honored. Others recognized functioned in sectors that included commercial industry, defense, transportation, nonprofit work, telecommunications, and government, Walsh’s office said.

As one of the snowiest cities in the U.S., a large portion of Syracuse’s municipal operations involve managing the significant amounts of snow that blanket the city each year. The City of Syracuse began to look for new ways to use GIS and leverage spatial data and insights to make better government decisions and provide “efficient, effective and equitable” services for residents.

After seeking guidance from Esri, the city implemented the winter-weather operations (WWO) product this past winter.

“As a city that embraces winter, Syracuse was excited to be the first to put Esri’s winter weather solution into action,” Walsh said. “By partnering with Esri to support this digital platform, it allows for our City operations team to focus more on snow response, and to monitor and adapt our snow operations to provide the most effective, efficient and equitable service to our constituents.”

The tool takes live data from sensors on plows, transforms it using real-time data analytics, feeds it into an online platform, and produces spatial analytics that aid in decision-making.

The multifaceted product ultimately produces a live web map for residents to monitor where and when streets or sidewalks were plowed and gauge real-time conditions before heading out in snowy weather.

It also produces an internal fleet-management system for the DPW to track resources, plows, and illegally parked cars preventing plows form clearing streets. It also generates an operational dashboard for city leadership to measure performance and improve operational costs, Walsh’s office said.

“We are excited to take this technical solution and the knowledge gained to use GIS more strategically as an organization,” Conor Muldoon, deputy chief data and innovation officer of API, said. “The data-driven framework developed for this tool will be used to improve many other City services, such as optimizing our routes and introducing turn by turn navigation for the City’s snowplow fleet this winter.”

Founded in 1969 in Redlands, California, Esri focuses on geographic-information system (GIS) software, location intelligence, and mapping. It works to help customers “unlock the full potential” of data to improve operational and business results, per Walsh’s office.

Esri software is deployed in more than 350,000 organizations globally and in over 200,000 institutions in the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, including Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, nonprofits, and universities.

Esri staff annually nominate hundreds of candidates from around the world for consideration, and Jack Dangermond, founder and president of Esri, selects the finalists. The SAG Awards are intended to demonstrate an appreciation for organizations using GIS technology to understand complex data and meet challenges around the world.

CEO FOCUS: TCGplayer acquisition highlights strength of local tech and innovation economy

Business Mentors, Subscriber Only

TCGplayer [on Aug. 22] announced it has signed an acquisition agreement with eBay. The deal, reportedly worth $295 million, will enable the company to continue to operate independently and grow in Syracuse. “In just over 10 years, TCGplayer has grown from a startup to an e-commerce leader with nearly 700 employees.” I am often asked

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“In just over 10 years, TCGplayer has grown from a startup to an e-commerce leader with nearly 700 employees.”

I am often asked what an acquisition like this means for our community. To me, it is something that we should celebrate, because acquisitions like this are the true mark of a healthy and robust innovation ecosystem. Not only is this a win for TCGplayer and its employees, but it also shows that this community is supporting the creation of companies that can attract this type of investment. As Central New York’s innovation ecosystem continues to grow, I anticipate more companies will seek investments in small and mid-sized cities, like Syracuse, that are growing tech hubs.

Beyond the local and direct impact for TCGplayer, this deal will also help drive further growth and opportunity for the region. In just over 10 years, TCGplayer has grown from a startup to an e-commerce leader with nearly 700 employees. As all of TCGplayer’s employees had stock in the company, this deal is an important opportunity for new wealth creation for those employees, which will undoubtedly ripple through our local economy.

Throughout its history TCGplayer has focused on innovation, continually evolving to meet opportunities, while also being a community-focused leader. In 2019, given its growth trajectory, the company moved its headquarters into the Galleries building in downtown Syracuse. The unique, street-level offices revitalized a landmark but underutilized space in the central business district, and quickly became the anchor of a growing tech corridor on Warren Street. TCGplayer Founder and CEO Chedy Hampson is a graduate of the Syracuse City School District (SCSD) and has continued his commitment to our community’s youth by showing them the opportunities that exist in the tech field through SCSD Career Connections events. Additionally, he has pioneered innovative workforce strategies to help local residents advance their skills and transition careers at the company.

I am incredibly proud and excited for Chedy and the entire team at TCGplayer. We look forward to continuing to celebrate their growth and impact here in Syracuse.

Robert M. Simpson is president and CEO of CenterState CEO, the primary economic-development organization for Central New York. This article is drawn and edited from the “CEO Focus” email newsletter that the organization sent to members on Aug. 25.

NBT Bank provides financing for transformative Syracuse projects

Banks & Credit Unions, Construction, Design & Real Estate, Subscriber Only

SYRACUSE — NBT Bank officials say they are excited about the revitalization taking place in Syracuse and their role in helping to secure financing for some of the projects. The Syracuse redevelopment and revitalization projects that NBT has participated in include the following three. Housing Visions: Winston Gaskin Homes Housing Visions, a regional nonprofit developer,

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SYRACUSE — NBT Bank officials say they are excited about the revitalization taking place in Syracuse and their role in helping to secure financing for some of the projects.

The Syracuse redevelopment and revitalization projects that NBT has participated in include the following three.

Housing Visions: Winston Gaskin Homes

Housing Visions, a regional nonprofit developer, contractor, and property management firm based in Syracuse, has recently completed construction and leased two noteworthy neighborhood revitalization projects.

Located on Syracuse’s East Side, Housing Visions’ $20.8 million Winston Gaskin Homes scattered-site neighborhood preservation project rehabilitated 20 buildings. At the conclusion of the project, 66 units of affordable family rental housing were available with 20 units reserved for survivors of domestic violence who are at risk of homelessness with support services provided by the YWCA of Syracuse.

Helio Health: Learbury Centre and James Street

NBT has supported Helio Health with the financing on two transformative projects. Several years ago, the bank financed the purchase of the former administrative offices at Learbury Centre at 329 N. Salina St. in Syracuse. More recently, the bank has extended financing to Helio Health to cover the purchase of a new headquarters administrative building at 518 James St. in Syracuse and cover the cost of the Learbury building renovations. These projects will enable Helio Health to continue to expand its substance abuse and mental-health services to the community.

Catholic Charities: Housing Services Center

NBT Bank provided a $5 million line of credit to enable the development of the Catholic Charities of Onondaga County Housing Services Center at 1801 Erie Blvd. E in Syracuse.

The center will ultimately include an 80-bed emergency shelter, onsite health and mental-health services, a culinary training program, office space for 40 professional staff members, as well as eight apartments for highly vulnerable homeless men. The project is expected to be completed his fall, the bank said.

“These investments really demonstrate who NBT is as a community bank,” David Kavney, NBT Bank’s regional president for both the Central New York and Mohawk Valley regions, said in a statement. “We’re not only professionals, but we’re local residents who are proud to use our expertise to support the types of projects that make a real impact in our communities — from economic development to affordable housing.”

NBT Bank offers personal banking, business banking, and wealth-management services from offices in seven states — New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Connecticut. The bank and its parent company, NBT Bancorp (NASDAQ: NBTB), are headquartered in Norwich. NBT Bancorp had assets of $11.7 billion as of June 30.

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