In a major development today in Plattsburgh, a manufacturer of small and midsize buses will acquire the Nova Bus facility, which had been scheduled to close in 2025.
In June 2023 Nova Bus announced that it would end production in the U.S. and close its Plattsburgh facility in 2025. On Tuesday the company finalized contracts to sell its Plattsburgh manufacturing plant to Micro Bird, which manufactures school and commercial buses with passenger capacities between nine and 36 people.
Micro Bird says the acquisition of the plant is part of its strategy to double production capacity. The Quebec-based company plans to invest $38 million for capital expenses and training and create 350 full-time jobs over five years. That includes progressively hiring employees currently working at Nova Bus.
North Country Chamber of Commerce President Garry Douglas says Micro Bird had been looking at the U.S. market for some time.
“It was always part of their strategic plan to eventually have a U.S. operation,” Douglas notes. “We became aware of that in 2022. We reached out to them, met with them, established contact with them. In 2023, before the announcement of the closure of Nova Bus, they took part in our Quebec-New York Transportation Rendezvous in Plattsburgh. So the relationship was blooming and we were obviously positioning ourselves for a possible greenfield development and then of course with the Nova Bus announcement that conversation switched.”
Douglas credits intervention by Governor Kathy Hochul and her administration for the successful recruitment of Micro Bird.
“The Governor committed herself personally and her team at Empire State Development to this in a high priority way. We’ve been involved in a year-and-a-half effort of outreach globally to generate prospects. We had at least three other international bus manufacturers that were interested and engaging in discussions,” Douglas says. “This almost never happens. You almost never get a major manufacturer that closes an operation and you end up getting a similar operation of like kind in there in such quick order.”
Empire State Development will provide nearly $10 million in performance-based Excelsior Jobs Program tax credits and a $2.5 million grant from the North Country Regional Economic Development Council.
Democratic state Assemblyman D. Billy Jones of the 115th district says the siting of Micro Bird is an amazing accomplishment by a number of interests.
“I think it was a great collaborative effort and it ties into bringing these Canadian and Quebec companies here into our transportation manufacturing cluster that so many people have worked hard on creating here in the Plattsburgh region,” Jones says. “So, when you create a cluster companies become interested in coming here and that’s what we have in the Plattsburgh region right here.”
Town of Plattsburgh Supervisor Michael Cashman’s office is about a quarter mile from the plant. He is elated that a new manufacturer has been recruited.
“We heard over and over again that there was a talented workforce and that the facility was a really great facility. And we were confident that we could recruit a new business to go into that foot space,” Cashman says. “And that’s been done in approximately about a year to a year-and-a-half. And I’m pretty confident that the trajectory of this company will be very strong.”
Nova Bus, which opened the factory in 2009, will continue to operate in parts of the plant until the second quarter of 2025 so that it can complete and deliver all transit buses under contract. Micro Bird plans to begin production in the summer of 2025. The company did not respond to a request for a comment Tuesday.
