BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A game changer for Chautauqua County is what Gov. Andrew Cuomo called pharmaceutical giant Athenex when he came to Dunkirk in February.
"I would like this project to stay on track, move as quickly as possible. This is a huge opportunity, huge amount of jobs for Chautauqua County," said County Executive Vince Horrigan, R-Chautauqua County.
Leaders said construction workers would start in April on a 300,000 square foot factory. Months later, they still haven't broken ground.
"Quite frankly, I've been waiting for that to happen and was perplexed as to the reasons why it wasn't happening, so now I think it may be positive that all this is out in the open and being aired publicly," said state Sen. Cathy Young, R-Olean.
At the new Athenex headquarters on the Buffalo-Niagara Medical Campus, meanwhile, a source said contractors would not start work on a drug testing laboratory because the state owed them $1.3 million.
Young said, in both cases, it's not an issue of having the money. As chair of the Senate Finance Committee, she helped deliver $225 million dollars in this year's budget for the projects.
"If there's an issue with how it's being managed or something is holding it up, we need to find out what those factors are," Young said.
As with another major Western New York economic initiative in SolarCity, Young believes the state has struggled to get approval from authorities in a timely fashion.
"We need to make sure that things are happening at a quicker pace and I think that's really the bottom line, is that things are not going as quickly as the company was promised and I could understand their concerns about that fact," she said.
The SUNY Polytechnic institute said the funding for the Buffalo-portion of the Athenex expansion was recently released, noting adjustments to the project's scope changed its timeline. SUNY Poly said work on the lab should begin soon and insisted the Dunkirk factory is on a standard state funding timeline.
Still, Empire State Development took control Wednesday of oversight for both projects.
"Empire State Development works on job creation every single day," Young said. "They work with companies every single day. They work on projects every single day and it would only make sense to have an organization such as that in charge."
Young said the state may want to take a look at how it handles oversight of economic development moving forward, to try and avoid these kinds of issues in the future.