A year after good news was announced for the Dunkirk Carriage House facility comes another disappointment.

The closing of the Dunkirk and Fredonia Carriage House facilities struck one of the worst blows to the community in terms of jobs since steel plant closures years earlier.

ConAgra’s decision cost the Dunkirk-Fredonia community over 520 jobs, closing Dunkirk in January and Fredonia at the end of April 2015.

But last March, County Executive Vince Horrigan announced a food manufacturer had been lined up to operate the Dunkirk facility and in October he confirmed former members of the Petri Baking management team were interested in the Talcott Street plant. Two hundred and fifty to 300 jobs were expected to come from the deal.

One year later that deal has officially fallen through.

“We did think (a food manufacturer) was set to come in. Unfortunately, due to various situations that developed, that did not come to fruition,” Horrigan said recently.

Chautauqua County Industrial Development Executive Director Kevin Sanvidge said his team is working hard to market the property. In the meantime, the IDA has a tenant in the space.

“We are leasing part of the property out to Cott, which is helping us. We are on a lease agreement so when we come to a conclusion with a deal to sell the facility to a manufacturer, Cott has 30 days to vacate. They have been renting the property on and off for the past year. They are good tenants. It’s part of their border, part of their footprint so it works well for them,” Sanvidge explained.

Horrigan said Cott’s lease helps the IDA, which owns the building, pay for the building’s expenses while it pursues an operator.

“As soon as we find a manufacturer – and that’s what we’re shooting for, a food manufacturing company or manufacturing – then we hope to give notice to Cott and then they will move out and we’ll be able to get what we hope to be a manufacturing operation in there with more jobs,” he said.

Horrigan explained the county and state worked hard to push the deal through, but circumstances out of their control got in the way.

“We had a very, very good incentive plan that Empire State Development helped with, but the actual ownership of this company made a decision for reasons, that I am not at liberty to discuss, that they could not follow through with their business plan and actually open up the operation,” Horrigan said. “This happens with companies, no matter how much we try to work hard to get them in here, at the end of the day it has to be an ownership that is able to deliver the financial means necessary, the marketing, the business plan and for various reasons that just did not come to fruition. I really can’t give any specific details on what happened. The only thing I would say is that we were very, very optimistic that we had this operation set to go, but in the end it just did not happen.”

Horrigan added between coordination with Buffalo Niagara Enterprise and weekly meetings with project managers, the county is very active in pursuing an operator that will bring jobs back to the facility.

The Fredonia facility was sold last November to Allen Steinberg for $2.4 million to house warehouse and light manufacturing space. The property was assessed at $7 million and the number of expected jobs – 10 – is far less than the facility had when it was making peanut butter and condiments.

“We’ve had several (leads for Dunkirk), we just have none at this point that we’re able to say are very close, so we continue to work. We’re absolutely optimistic and it’s a very good facility and we’re working hard to get it filled as soon as we can with manufacturing or substantial jobs, that’s what we’re really looking at,” Horrigan added.

According to initial state reports, manufacturing jobs in Chautauqua County are at their lowest since 1990. A total of 2,500 manufacturing jobs have been lost in the past eight years.