Charter to locate regional HQ, add jobs in Henrietta
- Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to announce new regional headquarters for Charter in Henrietta.
- Charter Communications, which is changing its name to Spectrum, will employ a couple hundred.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to be in Henrietta on Tuesday afternoon to help Charter Communications announce the location of regional operations and several hundred jobs at an office space located off Calkins Road, according to at least three sources in a position to know.
The sources said Charter Communications will locate those operations in a 46,000-square-foot facility at 100 Town Center Center Drive off Calkins Road in Henrietta.
Cuomo is expected to make the announcement at roughly 1:30 p.m., when further details should be released.
Property landlord Richard LeFrois, CEO of LeFrois Builders and Developers, confirmed Cuomo's visit and Charter's announcement in a phone call Monday evening.
"I was just over there making sure the place was clean," he said. "Charter is great, not only great for me but great for the entire area. It's a big deal for Rochester. We are in a great location right there on (Interstate) 390 and the Thruway and we draw employees basically from the four directions."
The company manages several properties in the area that house roughly 3,000 people, LeFrois said.
Officials at Charter and the governor's office could not be immediately reached for comment.
Empire State Development did invite some local business leaders to the event, although no further information was provided, said Dan Smith, a spokesman with the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce.
The building Charter plans to move into was vacated by Pictometry earlier this year, LeFrois said.
The site sits next to a facility slated to be shut down in January by Verizon Communications. That move has forced nearly 650 people to consider relocating out of the state or be left without a job.
"In Rochester, we have to be aggressive and try to attract these companies and if they are here, we need to keep them here," LeFrois said. "We are not the cheapest place to do business. When we get someone like Charter, or other companies that are growing in Rochester, we have to do everything we can to attract them and keep and make them happy.
"We've got to have a place for our kids to work and our grandkids."
Charter to retire Time Warner Cable name with merger
LeFrois said the building eyed by Charter would hold roughly 240 workers. Work is beginning to gut the entire facility and make it "like a brand new building for them," he added.
He said work is expected to be completed in February with a possible move-in date sometime in early March.
Earlier this year, Charter received federal approval to acquire Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, making the Connecticut-based company the nation's second-largest cable TV and Internet provider. It is rebranding those services as Charter Spectrum.