Genesee County Planning Board members are in for a busy night on Thursday as 14 project referrals are on their monthly meeting agenda.
The meeting will take place via Zoom videoconferencing at 7 o’clock.
Four of the referrals -- including a site plan review for a new state-of-the-art LandPro sales, storage and maintenance facility in the Town of Batavia -- are coming to the board following initial action taken by the Town of Batavia Planning Board last week.
LandPro, dealer of John Deere tractors and equipment, is lined up to build what Paul Williams, operations manager/north, says will be the company’s “main hub for technology” at 4554 W. Saile Drive – on a 14-acre parcel just east of Vantage Equipment at the corner of Call Parkway.
“This will be a full-servicing John Deere dealership and that will include agriculture as we know it, turf, all turf products and a limited, what we call a compact construction equipment (facility),” said Williams, who is in charge of half of LandPro’s 20 stores in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. “Additionally, it will be our main hub for technology – our integrated solutions as we call it – GPS (Global Positioning System) and all of the fancy technology that is in our equipment.”
Williams said technology has made its way to the forefront over the past 15 to 20 years.
“It continues to grow and continues to be an extremely critical piece of our business,” he said. “The machines are now talking to us, they’re talking to John Deere at the factory and we’re getting early warning signs of failures so we can be on site before things fail.”
He said the tractors, by utilizing GPS, have the capability to be within an inch of accuracy as they drive down the rows of corn, for example.
“The technology is very, very high at this point, and it continues to grow. That’s why this facility will not only be state-of-the art and our largest shop, but it will also house our high-technology product division,” he said, adding that LandPro is partnering with Stihl and Honda products for handheld supplies and generators.
When asked if the new location would replace the John Deere stores in Oakfield and Alexander, Williams said that “eventually, they probably will (close) but we want to make sure that we can still serve the capacity of the customers in that geography … before we close those locations.”
“So, we’ve got a little bit of work to do – but that is the long-term plan,” he said.
Williams said that 60 to 65 employees will work out of the new building, which is expected to be completed in the spring or summer of 2022, with current workers in Oakfield and Alexander relocating to West Saile Drive.
He didn’t disclose the amount of investment into the facility, which shows 13,000 square feet for retail sales, 5,000 square feet for parts storage and 28,000 square feet for maintenance, but without question, it is a multimillion dollar venture.
LandPro will seek tax credits through the Genesee County Economic Development Center and grants through National Grid, Williams said.
Other highlights of Thursday’s Genesee County Planning Board meeting:
- A site plan review and area variance for a four-story, 140,000-square-foot medical office building proposed by Rochester Regional Health at 8103 Oak Orchard Road (Route 98), near Call Parkway, in the Town of Batavia. The facility will have 90,000 square feet for office space and 63 of its 360 parking spaces in a lower-level parking garage.
- Special use permits and an area variance for a pair of solar projects named Trousdale Solar I and Trousdale Solar II at 5117 Ellicott Street Road, Batavia. The first phase is a 5-megawatt array covering 18 acres of a 65-acre parcel while the second phase is a 4-megawatt system covering 19.6 acres on a 71-acre parcel. Pending recommendation of approval (with modifications) from county planners, it will go to a public hearing conducted by the Town of Batavia Planning Board.
- A special use permit for two ground mounted commercial solar systems, one generating 5.3 megawatts and the other generating 6.6 megawatts, at 7984 Tesnow Road in the Town of Pembroke. The applicant, Solar Liberty Energy Systems, Inc., of Buffalo, wishes to place the solar array on property owned by Kreher Brothers LLC of Clarence.
- A site plan review to change the use from professional office space and art studio to a medical office for acupuncture and physical therapy at 10 Lake St. (Route 19) in the Village of Bergen. Documents submitted by applicants David and Anna Marie Barclay reveal a plan to use about half of the building’s lower level for their clinic, which will have four employees.
- A site plan review to relocate Precious Paws to an existing commercial building at 10571 Main St., Alexander. Plans submitted by the applicant, Alicia Brenkus, call for slight modifications to convert a former pizza shop to the owner/operated dog grooming business.
Previously: Rochester Regional Health plans to build four-story medical office building in the Town of Batavia
