The owners of Buffalo Transportation, WNY Bus Co. and two other businesses plan to add 200 to 300 jobs when they consolidate their far-flung operations to a centralized site in East Buffalo, giving them an employment base in the city of more than 1,000 workers.
The four companies – whose businesses span from school buses and medical transportation to home medical care and computer technology – are coming together from four locations in Buffalo and its suburbs to a single vacant industrial site at 300 Scajaquada St., off Bailey Avenue, near the former American Axle & Manufacturing plant. That will give them a more central location to serve the entire county, while sharing resources.
The owners already possess the property, which is zoned as heavy industrial but has been vacant for years. They plan to spend nearly $4 million to renovate a 20,200-square-foot building, while expanding it with three additions totaling another 16,400 square feet. Together, that will accommodate a combination of offices, dispatch and vehicle maintenance facilities for the businesses, along with 800 current employees.
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“There’s a huge demand for school bus transportation services,” said Igor Finkelstein, one of the co-owners and executives of the four businesses. “This is the most centralized location for Erie County. It kind of makes sense because it’s right in the center of the county.”
WNY Bus Co., one of the region’s largest private school bus operators, has more than 500 buses serving school districts in five counties, including Cheektowaga, Lancaster, Buffalo and Cleveland Hill. The company is based at 79 Sheldon Ave. in Depew, with a second location at 3999 Lakeshore Road in Blasdell.
Both operations will relocate to Scajaquada Street, bringing several hundred buses, although the company and its subsidiary, Ontario Bus Co., will maintain hubs in Niagara and Monroe counties, and a third serving Genesee and Orleans counties.
Buffalo Transportation is a former taxicab provider that became the region’s largest nonemergency medical transportation provider more than a decade ago. Based at 289 Ramsdell Ave., the company provides wheelchair, stretcher and other ride services for people needing to get to hospitals, doctors or dialysis clinics.
The other two businesses are Buffalo Home Care and ISI Technology, which has 30 salespeople providing computer development services. Both are headquartered at 490 Delaware Ave. in downtown Buffalo.
The current building on Scajaquada includes 3,500 square feet of office space fronting the street, and another 16,700 square feet of warehouse space. Plans call for partially renovating the offices, while converting the warehouse into dispatch, training, vehicle repair bays and support space.
The additions will include a new 5,900-square-foot, single-story, pre-engineered metal-siding building for office functions, to be located along the west side. Another 9,400-square-foot, one-story metal building on the east side will house a vehicle maintenance and repair facility. And a third single-story metal building of 1,100 square feet will be a new covered dispatch entrance to the building for employees, also on the east side.
The project was approved Tuesday by the Buffalo Planning Board, which also backed the owners’ request to carve off 0.4 acres of the much larger 7.38-acre parcel at 320 Scajaquada, which they also own, and combine it with the 1.4-acre primary property. However, the larger property is considered an active hazardous waste site, so the owners are asking the state Department of Environmental Conservation to delist the small piece to be carved out.
Upon approval, construction is expected to last about 10 months, with completion by Sept. 1, 2024.