B. Thomas Mancuso B. Thomas Mancuso

President, Mancuso Business Development Group - Batavia, NY
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
Bachelor of Science - Accounting, 1978

In the late 1950s, when an 850,000 square foot building was left empty, and 2,000 people were unemployed by a closing business, B. Thomas Mancuso’s family came together and said, “This is bad for the community – and bad for us. What are we going to do about it?”

Their innovative plan was to purchase the former Massey-Ferguson plant that is now the Batavia Industrial Center. Unable to find investors or companies to take space, Mr. Mancuso’s father, Joe, divided the building into smaller spaces and offered tenants business consultation, shared services, and assistance in raising capital.

Due to one of the building’s new tenants, a chicken company, the building became known as ‘the incubator’. “We were the world’s first business incubator, a building where businesses are hatched and matured until they become strong and independent,” said Mr. Mancuso. Fifty years later, the nest is full, and the businesses that have graduated from the facility now occupy other community buildings that represent more than $25 million in assessed valuation and employ over 1,000 people.

Since 1959, Mancuso Development has also restored other once struggling buildings throughout New York State: Harrison Place in Lockport, Geneva Enterprise Development Center, and High Falls Business Center in Rochester, along with a portfolio of other properties totaling almost 3 million square feet of industrial and office space across Western and Central New York.

“That has been our theme through history; my grandfather didn’t ask who will come in to help us — but how we as a family could help to restore jobs and business to spur the local economy,” said Mr. Mancuso, now President of the family’s business, Mancuso Business Development Group. He also works in commercial real estate, brokering sales and leases.

The family’s unique process of recycling empty or under-utilized industrial buildings has filled millions of square feet of property in Upstate New York to the benefit of thousands of small and medium sized businesses.