IDA spent year helping businesses survive

CANTON — In a typical year, St. Lawrence County's Industrial Development Agency spends much of its time trying to attract new industries with the lure of tax breaks, cheap electricity and low-interest financing.

This year was different. Economic conditions forced the IDA to focus more on damage control than growth, said Raymond H. Fountain, the agency's chief executive officer.

"Traditionally, it takes a while for what's going on in the national economy to affect us, but we saw it sooner this time because of General Motors closing and Alcoa phasing down their operations," he said. "I'm being optimistic, but I believe that probably right now we're past the worst it's going to be. Early in the year, we were at double-digit unemployment. It's below that now, and I hope the worst is over."

Mr. Fountain said much of 2009 was spent helping 65 businesses with outstanding IDA loans meet their debt obligations.

"We'd negotiate some kind of payment schedule adjustment so that they wouldn't get so far behind," he said. "That takes more time, in a lot of cases, than the original negotiations did when the loans were made. Of the 65, we have about five delinquent right now, but the majority have kept up."

In past years, the IDA has focused on as many as 21 different projects. Mr. Fountain said that number this year dwindled to 14, and many of them involved businesses that the agency has worked with before.

"Right now, I think we'll continue to work on maintaining our businesses to see what we can do to help them along. We're not looking as much at expansions and new jobs as we are retention," Mr. Fountain said.

St. Lawrence County has trouble landing large-scale businesses even in good times because it is not near a major highway, Mr. Fountain said. He said a struggling economy exacerbates the problem.

"Look at the steel mill," he said of Steel Development Co., a Mississippi company that considered bringing 200 jobs to Massena in exchange for 35 megawatts of low-cost power. The company ultimately went to Western New York.

"We could have gotten them the same deal here that they got in another part of the state, but they're closer to their market in the western part of the state and a major highway system," he said. "We can't overcome that."

Gloom and doom abounded in 2009, but Mr. Fountain said there also were some success stories.

Curran Renewable Energy in Massena brought its wood pellet operations on line, and Newton Falls Fine Paper Co. remained strong, he said.

The IDA also has assisted North Lawrence Dairy, St. Lawrence Gas and Hoosier Magnetics, he said.

"We have to learn to capitalize on what we have," Mr. Fountain said. "We talk all the time to outside groups and internally about where our marketing thrust should be, and is it the home runs? They really don't happen very often."