Category Archives: Business News

Northshire Bookstore celebrated 10 years in its Saratoga location of 424 Broadway in August.

The store is an award-winning independent bookstore, founded by Ed and Barbara Morrow on Main Street in Manchester Center, Vt., in 1976. The Saratoga Springs location opened in August of 2013. 

Both Northshire Bookstore locations are now owned and operated by sisters Cathleen Ihasz, Nicole Ihasz and Ashley Ihasz-Austin.

“Saratoga Springs understood the value of a downtown bookstore and effectively lobbied, invested and supported us,” said  Nancy Scheemaker, general manager of the Saratoga store. “We are of course deeply grateful for this passion and vision. We are grateful also for a decade of support that we could only have dreamed of prior to experiencing the real thing.”

Over the last decade, Northshire has presented more than a thousand author events in Saratoga Springs, hosted children’s programming and brought authors into area schools, partnered with local not-for-profits, and has worked with our customers to provide free children’s books to area children via our Book Angels program. 

By Susan Elise Campbell

There is a new 11,000-square-foot building going up behind Mahogany Ridge Dog Training and Daycare’s original leased location at 2983 Route 9 in Malta. 

When the last details are finalized, the entire staff and their furry guests will move into a clean, modern space under the new banner, Charlie’s Stay & Play. 

The project started to take shape three years ago when founder and former owner Jennifer Weis began talks with her friend and client Lisa Mitzen, a fellow animal lover who is known in the area for her business acumen and philanthropy. 

“We have a farm with lots of animals,” said Mitzen. “Twelve years ago we got a yellow lab puppy named Charlie and brought him to Mahogany Ridge for daycare.”

Mitzen “fell in love with the place” and grew fonder of Weis as she trained her dog, she said. Later the Mitzens added another lab and a mixed breed to the family and again Weis helped train them.

In 2021, the Mitzens bought Mahogany Ridge for their personal portfolio and Weis agreed to stay on to manage day-to-day operations and training. The next step was to buy five acres of land from Stewarts Corp. behind the doggie daycare just south of Northway Exit 13. 

By Christine Graf

Beth and Doug Davis, owners of Manhattan Exchange in Schenectady, have opened a second restaurant in Jonesville, east of Ballston Spa.

The Exchange opened its doors at the end of June at 857 Main St. in a space previously occupied by the Main Street Grill. 

Beth Davis is a baking and pastry graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, and her husband, Doug, is a Schenectady native with extensive restaurant experience.

“He worked for the Malozzis, he worked at the Pentagon (restaurant in Schenectady), he was the opening chef of Duke’s at the casino,” said Beth Davis. 

Davis worked at Villa Italia for a decade before the couple opened Manhattan Exchange in January 2020.  That restaurant serves upscale pub food and seats 100. 

“We were working so hard for other people, and we wanted to give ourselves the opportunity to work that hard for ourselves,” she said.

The Davises own both buildings that house their restaurants. They purchased the 1.64-acre  Jonesville property in 2022 for $545,000. The property includes the building that houses the restaurant as well as a second smaller building and a barn. 

By Paul Post

Some people are fascinated by notorious underworld figures such as Lucky Luciano who hung out at the casino nightclub where world-famous entertainer Bing Crosby performed.

Others simply like to hang out with friends, take a swim or experience the thrill of being towed behind a powerful boat on an oversized fun tube.

 These are some of the options Daleys Adventure Boat Tours offers with a new service on Saratoga Lake.

 “I grew up on this lake,” said Mechanicville native and company owner Don Daley. “When I was 14 or 15, my uncle had a camp right down the road … We spent our summers here on Saratoga Lake.”

 In 2016, three years into retirement, Daley founded Lake George Island Boat Tours, telling guests about the lake’s history. 

“Eventually people wanted to go swimming, cliff jumping or tubing so we turned it into an adventure,” he said. “Out of 45 tours on Lake George, we’ve been the number-one tour on TripAdvisor for four of the past eight years. The difference between us and other operators is that we customize tours. We let people do whatever they want.”

By Paul Post

State and local officials say the region’s strong economy should be able to absorb the 300 people forced out of work by Essity paper company’s sudden exodus from New York state.

The Sweden-based company unexpectedly shuttered its large South Glens Falls mill on July 20 and plans call for closing a Greenwich converting facility and Saratoga Springs warehouse-distribution center this fall.

Meanwhile, the union representing the workforce is urging the company to change its mind and not close operations.

Essity is the area’s second large heavy industrial employer to shut down this year as Lehigh Cement, less than a mile away, is in the process of leaving, too. The fate of two large old mills is a major concern as potential public safety hazards if they can’t be repurposed or new buyers found.

Parts of Essity date back to 1864.

“I don’t think having an empty shell of an industrial plant is a good idea,” said state Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner. “The good news is that our employment situation is very strong. We have many unfilled jobs in a variety of different industries. But that said, you want to make sure you aren’t leaving an eyesore in a community that perhaps becomes an environmental nuisance. There’s still a lot of questions about what condition they’re (Essity) going to leave the buildings in and what can be done with them going forward.”

By Christine Graf 

The Fingerpaint office building at 395 Broadway in Saratoga Springs has been sold for $11 million to Robert Moser of Prime Group Holdings. 

A private equity and real estate company, Prime Group Holdings has an office at 85 Railroad Place.

Fingerpaint Group, a pharmaceutical marketing company, now leases space at 18 Division St. The company was headquartered at 395 Broadway for 10 years, and company founder Ed Mitzen purchased the building five years ago for $9 million. 

“When we moved into the building it had been vacant for a year-and-a-half because Borders (book store) went out of business,” said Mitzen. “It was a great home for us for 10 years. We loved being there. I think it’s the best location in all of Saratoga.”

At the height of the COVID pandemic, the building sat empty while Fingerpaint’s 150 employees worked remotely. 

“I was the biggest anti-work-from-home guy on the planet,” said Mitzen. “I was incredibly surprised to see how productive everybody was.”

When non-essential employees were permitted to return to work, Mitzen surveyed his staff, asking them if they preferred to remain working from home.

The Ballston Spa Business & Professional Association has begun preparations for its 21st annual The Way We Were car show taking place Sunday, Oct. 8, on Front Street in Ballston Spa.

The event typically draws over 400 show cars and organizers are anticipating a large turnout after the massive success of last year’s show. 

The event is free to spectators. A rain date is scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 15. 

In addition to all the cars and trucks, there will be food and merchandise vendors, a kid’s zone with a bounce house and other activities, live music, and a trophy presentation at the end of the day.

“We are really excited for this year’s show,” said Christine Kernochan, car show committee chairperson. “It’s always a great event that brings people downtown to support our businesses. It’s an important fundraiser to support the excellent work that the Ballston Spa Business & Professional Association does. We’re doing our very best to make this one as special as our previous 20 car shows.”

Pre-registration for show cars is now open by visiting www.ballston.org. 

By Susan Elise Campbell

Linda Gerace-Skinner, formerly of LGS Interior Design Group, is evolving her business designing luxury homes and commercial spaces into an open workshop concept that she believes is unique to the region and will benefit both her design team and clients. 

Her Saratoga-based company is Interior Designs Atelier and in this new iteration she is replicating the larger and highly collaborative design studio she worked at for eight years in Minnesota.

“Atelier is French for workshop or studio, and it is my experience in an open workshop system that I have brought back home to Saratoga,” said Gerace-Skinner. “My goal is to spark creativity, because when designers work together in one room we feed off each other’s ideas.” 

She said that as reps came into the studio with their samples and the design team had “lunch and learns,” there was “a fabulous collaboration that made each one of us better designers. The benefit for clients is that you are always bringing the best to the table, and as a designer you get even better that way.” 

“A collaboration of other ideas and solutions builds a better project, although I don’t talk through every project as I might with my cabinetmaker or custom contractor,” she said.

by ann donnelly

This summer, husband and wife Doug Dockendorf and Shelly Walker expanded their shop and cafe in Malta by offering gourmet chocolates and fudge and further enhancing the adjacent outside area, Collamer Park.

In 2020, the couple purchased the Wiggins-Collamer House, which was built in 1835 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. After renovations, the building became the new location of Finishing Touches, where Walker, an interior designer, runs her business and sells furnishings, home decor, gifts, and accessories.

Within the first year, they added two new businesses at the location. They started with a small selection of ice cream, which proved popular, so they expanded as Cookies & Cream and Finishing Touches, with a full range of soft serve and hard ice cream in cones, dishes, sundaes, shakes and more.

Then they opened The Coffee Bar with coffee, lattes, espressos, cappuccino, and locally made baked goods from The Sugar Fairy Bakes.