NYPA Releases $82 Million in WNY Manufacturing Construction: Cold Storage, Plastics, and a 92,000-Square-Foot Egg Facility

On May 19, 2026, New York Power Authority trustees approved a batch of economic development awards that will drive more than $82 million in private construction activity across Western New York — three industrial projects representing the kind of manufacturing and food-supply infrastructure investment that rarely appears in a single announcement round.

All three projects leverage low-cost Niagara hydropower as a key economic driver. The Governor's May 19 press release confirmed that the NYPA board approved allocations totaling more than $104 million in WNY and North Country capital investment, supporting 287 jobs. The three industrial construction projects described below account for the majority of the WNY capital total.

Agile Cold Storage: 133,000 Square Feet of Frozen Food Infrastructure in West Seneca

Agile Cold Storage, which operates automated temperature-controlled warehouses for the frozen food industry, received a 660-kilowatt allocation of low-cost Niagara hydropower to support the construction of a 133,000-square-foot warehouse in West Seneca, Erie County. The nearly $28 million project will include storage and processing spaces along with new packaging lines and is expected to create 44 jobs.

Cold storage warehouse construction carries significantly higher per-square-foot costs than standard industrial construction — typically $130 to $350 per square foot — due to specialized refrigeration infrastructure, insulated building envelopes, under-slab heating systems, and compliance with EPA refrigerant regulations that took effect January 1, 2026 under the AIM Act's Technology Transitions Rule. Agile's West Seneca facility falls within that range for a refrigerated or frozen storage application.

The low-cost Niagara hydropower allocation is particularly important for cold storage operations: refrigeration systems consume up to 70 percent of a cold storage facility's total energy load, and access to below-market electricity can materially affect whether a facility is economically viable at a given location.

Bericap: 100,000-Square-Foot Plastics Manufacturing in Cheektowaga

Bericap, a manufacturer of plastic closures and caps serving the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, and automotive industries — with clients including Coca-Cola and Kraft-Heinz — received a 1,540-kilowatt Niagara hydropower allocation to support the establishment of a 100,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Cheektowaga, Erie County. The more than $22 million project includes building renovations, retrofits, and production machinery and equipment purchases, and will create 40 new positions in Western New York.

Bericap's Cheektowaga project represents a category of manufacturing investment that has become increasingly common as supply chain resilience concerns push global suppliers to establish U.S. Northeast capacity. Western New York's combination of low-cost hydropower, highway and rail access, and proximity to both Canadian and northeastern U.S. markets makes it a competitive location for exactly this type of facility.

Kreher Family Farms: A $32 Million Egg Processing Facility Built Around Biosecurity

The most distinctive project in the NYPA batch — and arguably the most consequential from a food supply chain perspective — is the Kreher Family Farms egg processing facility in Newstead, Erie County.

Newstead Ranch, a family-owned agricultural enterprise operating as Kreher Family Farms, received $6.4 million in NYPA funding to support a $32 million construction project creating a new standalone egg cleaning, packing, and shipping facility at 5005 North Millgrove Road, Newstead. The 92,000-square-foot facility, designed to process eggs from more than one million hens across multiple Kreher farms and contract growers, is explicitly structured to reduce biosecurity risk from avian influenza.

The biosecurity rationale is direct: by physically separating the egg processing function from the chicken houses — no chickens will be on the 5005 North Millgrove Road site — Kreher reduces the contamination pathway that has caused catastrophic losses at integrated poultry operations during recent avian flu outbreaks. As reported by the Akron Bugle, the Newstead Town Board approved the project's site plan in March 2026 after a nearly hour-long public hearing and issued a SEQRA Negative Declaration, finding the project would not have a significant environmental effect.

The 92,000-square-foot facility will sit on approximately 12 acres of a 122-acre RA-zoned parcel. Three on-site systems will handle waste and storm water. Parking is located more than 600 feet from neighboring properties. The facility will reduce reliance on out-of-state egg processing — a supply chain vulnerability that has become more visible as avian flu has periodically disrupted processing capacity across the Northeast.

Construction and Delivery Considerations

Each of the three NYPA-backed projects presents different construction challenges. Cold storage facilities like Agile's West Seneca warehouse require specialized general contractors and subcontractors with experience in refrigeration system integration, insulated metal panel envelope systems, and under-slab hydronic heating — trades that are represented in Western New York but for which scheduling lead times can be significant given the volume of industrial work in the Buffalo-Niagara market. The EPA's AIM Act refrigerant regulations, which took effect January 1, 2026, also require that new refrigeration systems use lower-global-warming-potential refrigerants, affecting equipment procurement timelines and mechanical subcontractor qualifications.

For Bericap's Cheektowaga project, the building renovation and production-line installation phases require careful sequencing: structural and envelope work typically must be substantially complete before precision manufacturing equipment is set, calibrated, and commissioned. Industrial projects that integrate building construction with process equipment installation — where the owner or equipment vendor controls parts of the critical path — require detailed coordination schedules that align general contractor milestones with equipment delivery lead times, which for specialized plastics manufacturing machinery can run six to twelve months.

The Kreher egg processing facility in Newstead involves an agricultural processing facility with biosecurity protocols that will influence construction access controls during the build. Separation of construction personnel from the broader farm operation, dedicated entry and exit protocols, and equipment decontamination requirements are standard on new food-processing builds adjacent to active agricultural operations — adding logistics complexity that contractors unfamiliar with agricultural facility delivery may underestimate.

The Broader WNY Industrial Picture

Taken together, these three projects demonstrate the role that low-cost hydropower plays in Western New York's industrial development strategy. The NYPA's Western New York Hydropower Program — available to companies within 30 miles of the Niagara Power Project and in Chautauqua County — functions as a material cost advantage that makes WNY locations competitive against other regions for energy-intensive manufacturing and cold chain applications.

The May 19 round adds to a manufacturing construction pipeline in Erie and Genesee counties that already includes the $250 million Upstate Niagara expansion in West Seneca and the $170 million Barilla expansion in Avon. Industrial construction remains one of the most active segments in the Buffalo-Niagara metro, and NYPA hydropower awards continue to be a reliable indicator of where the next projects will land.