After a few delays, German-owned company is about to start building facility in southern Oswego County
By Stefan Yablonski
After a brief lag, Daldrop SBB’s work on the future home of its manufacturing facilities is “full steam ahead.”
Daldrop SBB, LLC, is a German-owned clean room manufacturing, sales, service and engineering company.
It continues work on the 32,000+ square foot cutting-edge project in the L. Michael Treadwell Oswego County Industrial Park in Schroeppel. It marks the largest expansion outside of Germany in the company’s 71-year history.
And it reinforces the success of its SHELMEQ cleanroom systems within the pharmaceutical industry — all while continuing to foster the international cleanroom manufacturer’s leadership presence in the United States, according to Benjamin Morrow, Syracuse Operations Manager for Daldrop.
“We are a bit behind with construction as we just released the pre-engineered metal building framing steel order,” Morrow said.
They are also wrapping up the final engineering for the site and expect to break ground in October, he added.
“From our original timeline the project grew a little bit and the scope of what’s going to be happening in this facility changed a bit as well. So we had to do some re-engineering,” he explained. “Along with that — sustainability has always been a big part of this project. We are going with a geothermal heat pump system; it is a very large ground source heat pump which is high energy efficiency and a little bit cutting-edge for this area. We feel it is the right way to go.”
That was part of reason for the delay.
“But we are back on track and we’re full steam ahead. We’re going to try to get as much as we can done this season. We don’t have an exact timeline,” he said. “Depending on the weather, we still hope to have an enclosed building by the end of the year.”
Things will pick right back up in the spring.
Daldrop SBB was awarded two grants, one through the IDA and one for a PILOT program.
“That’s all been signed off and it’s official. We’re dealing with an international entity and this is pretty much their first entry into the North American market. Daldrop is a global company. It’s only been about eight years ago when they started in the American market,” he explained.
“Germany, the parent company, needed to understand the IDA, PILOT programs and all the nuances that go along with all that. It’s not like they just write you a big fat check. They wanted to make sure we understand all the contingencies. That all got worked out.
“The train has left the station and we are full steam ahead right now. We can’t stop our growth. We’ve been hiring, but we are not manufacturing yet.”
The building on the 17-plus acres is going to be Daldrop’s main manufacturing headquarters for all of the United States.
“When we get that manufacturing facility set up, that is when we are really going to do the big hiring. Right now we are doing limited manufacturing both here in Syracuse and in Newberry Port, Massachusetts. That will all be consolidated and it will be amplified. We’ve got a lot of new equipment that is part of the capital investment, too.”
Support for the $7 million project has been provided by Empire State Development, Operation Oswego County Inc. and CenterState CEO.
Daldrop Group intends to provide additional opportunities for innovation within the Central New York region, employing local laborers, technicians and engineers to continue honing cutting-edge cleanroom technologies, Morrow said.
At completion, the company will relocate 10 jobs from Onondaga County and create 20 new production and engineering jobs, according to Austin Wheelock, executive director of Operation Oswego County.
“I expect to start with 25-30 employees,” Morrow added. “That’s our minimum that we agreed to for the PILOT. The long-term plan is to develop the property to include strategic international partners that support our industry.”
They are going to take care of what they need to now “to keep our nose above water.”
“We’re hoping that growth continues that we’ve seen so far in the North America market,” Morrow said. “We will be able to expand; we’ve got a fair amount of room for growth.”
They got it zoned and got it cleared for an expansion off the end of the building.
“Should we need to grow quickly and we need a little bit more capacity, we are all set to essentially to be able to blow out a back wall and expand the size,” he explained. “We haven’t started doing it yet because we don’t want to put the cart in front of the horse.”
Daldrop has committed to partnering with local organizations, such as the TDO (Train, Develop, Optimize) and the Board of Cooperative Educational Services to lead training sessions in coordination with area workforce partners and communities to with to continue fostering employment opportunities in Oswego County.
“I’ve been working with Austin and he’s got me in touch with many folks in the Oswego area,” Morrow said. “This isn’t just all manufacturing jobs. Currently we are all engineering. We fully expect to expand our engineering as well as our manufacturing-related jobs.”
Daldrop intends to provide additional opportunities for innovation within the Central New York region, employing local laborers, technicians and engineers to continue honing cutting-edge cleanroom technologies, according to Morrow.
