Not only are shoppers from southern Ontario a familiar sight in western New York, recently there has been a growing list of Canadian companies moving to the region, as well. Thanks to the effort of the Buffalo Niagara Enterprise, three more companies from north of the border are setting up shop in and around the City of Buffalo.
"So far, we have had 60 companies with more than a $500 million of investment and close to 1,400 new jobs," says Tom Kucharski, BNE president and CEO.
Kucharksi says like most other companies that have settled here, the latest additions are starting out small. The newcomers will bring a total of 18 jobs, but Kucharski says he expects like the some of their predecessors, they will grow too.
The BNE started aggressively marketing the Buffalo region in Canada in 2005 and stepped up the effort last October with a full-time representative in the Toronto area who competes with several other states and regions with offices there.
"The advantage that we have, though, is that they're our neighbors, our friends and our colleagues. We understand our Canadian friends and we go out of our way to address business concerns as opposed to just a standard fare offering from Florida or North Carolina without any type of understanding of business mores," Kucharski says.
Kucharski says with the emergence of the downtown Medical Campus and the resurgence of advanced manufacturing, the potential for attracting more companies to Buffalo is only limited by the BNE's resources to continue selling the region in southern Ontario.