County officials were involved for nearly a year trying to prevent the closure of eSolutions Furniture’s plant on Mason Drive in Ellicott.

Those efforts, according to County Executive PJ Wendel and Mark Geise, county IDA director, included working with Empire State Development, Upstate Capital Association of New York, Insyte Consulting, political leadership and finance-related experts in an effort to assist the company. Partly due to those efforts, Wendel and Geise said, several offers were made to the Canadian lending syndicate to purchase the company, but those offers were “inexplicably rejected,” Wendel and Geise said in a statement to The Post-Journal on Thursday.

“We are very disheartened regarding the recent announcement by eSolutions Furniture, formerly Bush Industries, that communicated they are dissolving the company resulting in the closing of their Jamestown furniture plant in the Town of Ellicott,” Wendel and Geise said.

“The County of Chautauqua Industrial Development Agency (CCIDA) has been aware of the major challenges facing the business, and has been working proactively with them for nearly a year trying to identify a path forward that would prevent a full closure from taking place.”

There are an estimated more than 230 people employed at the facility, and Wendel and Geise said they are now working to either resurrect the business or find a new tenant for the Mason Drive facility. The county IDA, Chautauqua Works and state Labor Department will try to help laid-off workers find new jobs with other local businesses or help workers find resources to help them land on their feet.

“The issues facing eSolutions are not the result of anything we are or aren’t doing locally, but rather due to internal business-wide decisions and broader economic factors, forces, and uncertainties. In fact, the CCIDA has a long history of working with and assisting Bush Industries dating back several decades, which helped to sustain their operations to the present,” Wendel and Geise said.

State Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, was also involved in efforts to try to help eSolutions prevent bankruptcy proceedings.

“The closure of Bush Industries is a big loss for our community,” Borrello told The Post-Journal on Thursday. “They have been a local manufacturer and employer for decades. We have worked with other officials and the company’s leadership to try to find a path to sustainability, but those efforts were not enough to overcome the company’s challenges. We will continue working together to help ensure affected employees can connect with new job opportunities and access the support services available to them during this transition. There are many challenges to doing business in New York state and we will continue to fight to reduce the costly burden of operating here.”

Among the help the company received earlier this year was extension of a Flex Rate Agreement with the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities. The BPU’s Flex Rate Program is an economic development tool used by the utility to assist local industrial companies by offering reduced electric costs in exchange for a manufacturer’s pledge to invest in its local facility and workforce.

Assemblyman Andrew Molitor, R-Westfield, also took note of New York’s business climate while looking toward the future for former Bush Industries employees.

“Our businesses across New York face many challenges from the burdensome regulations and taxes New York imposes on them,” Molitor said. “The effect is that not only are businesses at a disadvantage here, but also new business sectors do not wish to invest here. The closure of Bush Industries is a big loss, though it would be much easier on their former employees if New York attracted more high quality jobs to make the transfer to a new job easier. My heart aches for those that will now be unemployed and I would encourage anyone who needs assistance to please contact our office.”