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Potsdam planning board approves LC Drives project, but groundbreaking waits on state

Posted 4/12/21

BY ADAM ATKINSON North Country This Week POTSDAM — The town planning board has approved a building permit for a 30,000 square foot manufacturing facility planned by electric motor developer LC …

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Potsdam planning board approves LC Drives project, but groundbreaking waits on state

Posted

BY ADAM ATKINSON
North Country This Week

POTSDAM — The town planning board has approved a building permit for a 30,000 square foot manufacturing facility planned by electric motor developer LC Drives on Route 56.

However, the company will not be breaking ground on the new plant unless the state opts to invest in the project and a future expansion into a 150,000-foot facility at the site.

An LC Drives manufacturing facility there is expected to employ up to 500 people.

LC Drives has been courting the state for an investment of up to $50 million since 2019, but the 2020 pandemic seems to have stalled progress on that.

The planning board met Tuesday, April 6 and held a public hearing on the company’s proposed building project before approving it.

“The town has been incredibly supportive,” said Devon Sutton, LC Drives Director of Strategic Operations, told North Country This Week.

Sutton said, however, that the project is going to need participation from the state and investment before the company could begin construction at the site.

LC Drives, currently based in the Clarkson University incubator complex in Damon Hall and Old Main in downtown Potsdam, produces a new form of electric motor, which the company says is in high demand. The motors are especially applicable in the marine industry and renewable wind energy sector.

In an earlier conversation with the paper, Sutton had said LC Drives was looking at other options for locating their new manufacturing plant out of state, if New York opted out of getting involved.

“(But) we really have enjoyed doing business here, we have momentum here,” Sutton said.

Now that the state is opening back up economically following the pandemic, the company is hopeful of reopening negotiations with the state to secure investment in the expansion.

LC Drives has had $15 million in investment from Koch Engineered Solutions, several hundred thousand dollars in grants and access to loans from the county IDA and the town of Potsdam recently approved the formation of $10 million water and sewer districts which would service the Route 56 site and supply the company with services.

The approval by the planning board of the 30,000 square foot facility on Route 56, which would be an interim facility until a larger 150,000 square foot building can be constructed at the site, will allow LC Drives to consider designs, but a groundbreaking waits on the state.

“We are excited for them to come back to the table,” Sutton said.