Tonawanda, N.Y. (WBEN) - For the second time in the four months since the Sumitomo Rubber plant suddenly shut down in the Town of Tonawanda, officials at the local, county and state level gathered Thursday for the second meeting of the Sumitomo Rubber Closure Task Force.
After the first meeting in late January covered a lot of ground on a number of different and comprehensive topics, Thursday's meeting was simply to provid an update on where things stand with addressing those issues.
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"There's been a lot going on in the background, in terms of job fairs, we've had a lot of success with the job fairs. So just checking in on that, checking in on some workforce data. We have our representatives from the Department of Labor here, who are crunching the numbers. They'll be able to provide an update. I have some updates from Workforce Buffalo with preliminary numbers and going over what we've seen so far on the workforce and training front," said Zaque Evans, chief economic development officer with Erie County. "We also are looking forward to talking to our friends from Invest Buffalo Niagara and Empire State Development on the RFP process for that site study that was discussed at the first meeting. The evaluation by a third party of the site, the property, a full comprehensive analysis."
While the group is not too far into their efforts since the plant's closure, Tonawanda Town Supervisor Joe Emminger is very pleased with the progress made to this point.
"These things take time," said Emminger following the meeting. "The one thing I've learned, based on my [NRG] Huntley experience is you've gotta be patient in this business, but we're being as aggressive as we can, working with Sumitomo, the prior owner. We're trying to get new people interested in the property. I'm still getting calls on the on the property myself. So the public just has to realize, just gotta be patient as we work through the process."
Officials say that too this point, they have received several inquiries and questions regarding the RFP process for the Sumitomo site. This includes several dozen downloads of the RFP on Invest Buffalo Niagara's website.
According to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, the goal of the RFP is to ensure a partner is found that has experience dealing with these types of facilities once they close, and finding the right parties to come in so the site does not sit dormant long.
"First, we have to work with a real estate company, and once the RFP process is decided, we'll basically have that. And it'll be a company that's experienced in economic development, and the renovation of an existing site that is as large as this. If it's a small little 1-2 person firm, it's probably not going to work. It's got to be one that's got national experience in dealing with a giant site like Sumitomo," said Poloncarz following Thursday's meeting. "And then from there, we'll go out there and try to acquire the site. Right now, we don't own it, Sumitomo does. So we're gonna need to work with Sumitomo to acquire the site, which I think we'll be able to do. But it's gonna still take some time to do that."
A number of officials, including Poloncarz, are looking to push for a company that will utilize the resources of the Sumitomo site, but also employ a substantial amount of residents. One specific industry that officials are not looking to occupy that space is any type of data center.
Meanwhile, State Assemblyman Bill Conrad finally got some news he was looking for, as the Japanese Consulate has finally reached out to him, and officials are willing to meet soon in Albany. Conrad says the discussions with the consulate will center around what happened at the Sumitomo Rubber in Tonawanda, and why it closed so suddenly.
"What happened? How do we avoid it? And can we have better communication? Especially as we have so many companies right here off River Road that are multinational. They're not in one country, they're all over the world, and that's the economy that we're in right now," said Conrad on Thursday.
"One of the things that we asked of our federal delegation was to reach out to the consulate and so on. I happen to have a colleague in the Assembly who has a relationship with the Japanese Consulate. They contacted them, and then they got back to me. So we're scheduling a meeting. I just got off the phone with Sen. Schumer's Office, they'd like to be included as well. Just the idea of what's going on here, trying to implement trade and so on, and keeping our partners and allies realizing this has such a psychological impact, but also economical."
A third meeting has tentatively been scheduled for sometime in April.