In a prelude to a proposed $15 million expansion, Florida-based Sucra Can Sourcing LLC hopes to add a 126,000-square-foot warehouse/distribution center as part of its Hamburg Turnpike complex.
As part of the expansion, Sucra has purchased 10 acres of vacant from the Buffalo & Erie County Industrial Land Development Corp., paying $548,900.
The deal has a huge impact, said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, the ILDC chairman.
“The Renaissance Commerce Park was just a dream ten years ago, and now we have multiple partners that we’re working with, all private sector entities that are continuing to expand, and Sucra is a perfect example of that,” Poloncarz said. “If you had told me when we started this project a decade or so ago, that we would have a sugar refinery on the site of the old Bethlehem Steel Plant, I would have said you’re crazy, but that’s exactly what we have.”
In addition to the new building, Sucra hopes to add 50 more employees, and the plant could produce annually as much as 350,000 metric tons of sugar. Last year, it produced 61,000 metric tons of sugar and this year is on pace to produce 130,000 metric tons of sugar.
And remember Sucra first set up shop in Lackawanna slightly more than three years ago.
“So, if we had not done the work to ensure the site was shovel-ready, I don’t think we would have seen any of the return, but by investing dollars, making it a shovel-ready site, putting in the road, were now getting a big return from the companies that are investing and growing,” Poloncarz said.
Construction will start this spring and take less than one year to complete.
