Jason Spain, Lynn Development CEO, told The Post-Journal that The Connection could be moved into the Lynn Building, located at 301 E. Second St., by the end of this month as preparations are almost completed to house the call center company based in Minnesota that provides services for small businesses to Fortune 100 companies.

“They haven’t moved in yet. The plan is for them to move in by the end of January,” Spain said. “The project is about 80 percent completed. We will have everything completed before they move in.”

Spain said the second floor of the three-floor building has been completely redesigned to house The Connection, a downtown employer of about 200 jobs that has been housed in the Furniture Mart Building at the corner of West Second and Washington streets. The local division of The Connection came to Jamestown in 2006 with a 20-seat pilot operation following an initiative by the Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency and other organizations to bring the call center to the area. Full operations began in 2007.

“We had to demolish the pre-existing walls and office structure inside the second floor of the Lynn Building,” Spain said. “It was an old structure. We’ve upgraded the building to be more efficient with LED lights and high-efficiency heating and air. We had to strip away to have a clean slate for their design.”

The new Lynn Development headquarters located at 1351-1353 N. Main St., Jamestown. P-J photo by Dennis Phillips

In April, the 10-year lease agreement between Lynn Development and The Connection was announced.

Negotiations surrounding the agreement involved support from government officials at varying levels — including Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi, Chautauqua County Executive George Borrello and state Sen. Cathy Young, R-Olean.

Spain said once The Connection moves into the Lynn Building it will be at 90 percent occupancy. The building also houses Infinity Visual and Performing Arts, Chautauqua Striders, Jamestown Renaissance Corp., Kelly Services and U.S. Post Office.

“We will still have a few offices available on the third floor and a couple really small, couple thousand feet rooms on the second floor,” Spain said.

As part of the redesign of the second floor, Spain said there will also be a new business starting up called the Due East Cafe. He said the new cafe will primarily serve The Connection and other tenets, but it will be open to the public as well.

Spain said Lynn Development, which used to be housed in the Lynn Building, is now located at its new headquarters at 1351-1353 N. Main St, which is still under construction.

“We’ve been operating out of our new location for some months. We put the JRC in our suite about a year ago,” Spain said. “We’ve been at the new location when it was two separate homes. Within the next couple weeks, we expect to use the new location (more publicly).”

In November 2017, David Rhinehart and Brady Morrison of Clark Patterson Lee discussed Lynn Developments new headquarters project with the city Planning Commission. The plan was to redevelop 1351-1353 N. Main St. into the new corporate headquarters by constructing a connecting link between the two existing houses. The connecting structure will be 400 square feet, which will contain a conference room and restrooms. The project to redevelop the houses into corporate offices will include the addition of 18 parking spaces. The city Planning Commission approved the site plan and the State Environmental Quality Review impact assessment study.