VOORHEESVILLE — The $40 million expansion of Voorheesville’s Altas Copco facility is on hold, a consequence of the new Trump administration, according to the head of all of Albany County’s development agencies.

“We have felt some effects from the new administration down in Washington,” said Kevin O’Connor, chief executive of the Albany County Industrial Development Agency, Advance Albany County Alliance, Albany County Business Development Corporation, Albany County Pine Hills Land Authority, and Albany County Capital Resource Corporation. 

“I met with a group of other economic development organizations from around the region, and there appears to be a whole thing of projects by European and Canadian companies in the U.S. [on hold],” O’Connor said during a March 4 meeting of the county IDA. 

Continuing, he said, “I assume that’s part of the tariff war, if you will. At that time I had not seen anything to that effect, but we were informed recently that Atlas Copco, which as you know is owned by a German company, their board voted not to approve [the Voorheesville expansion]. They didn’t disapprove it, but they did not approve the project. So the project is on hold for right now.”

Asked for comment, Atlas Copco referred The Enterprise to earlier remarks made to the Business Review, which first reported on the pause. 

“You know, we’ll see what comes [of] this, but these impending trade wars probably don’t bode well for foreign direct investment in the U.S., and particularly in New York and Albany County,” O’Connor said on March 4. 

In April 2023, Atlas Copco Comptec, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the multinational conglomerate, sought permission from the village of Voorheesville to build a six-story, 63,000-square-f00t addition to its current 101,000-square-foot facility.

The Voorheesville facility manufactures centrifugal compressors used in major industrial plants. The expansion would have made it the only such manufacturing plant of its scale in the United States.

The compressors reduce climate-changing greenhouse gases by capturing the carbon dioxide emissions and permanently storing it underground. They have become an essential part of the carbon-sequestration sector of American manufacturing, which includes ethanol production, cement manufacturing, and power generation. 

Due to space constraints, Atlas Copco has been unable to make the larger compressors stateside, instead having to import them from its plants in Germany.  To overcome these logistical challenges, Atlas Copco received permission from the village this summer for the expansion. 

In July of last year, the Albany County IDA held a public hearing on Atlas Copco’s request for $4.6 million in tax breaks: a $2.94 million property tax break and $1.63 million in savings from sales and use taxes (on $20.3 million in purchases).

A month later, the Advance Albany County Alliance in a press release touted a $9 million incentive package the project received. 

The expansion would have created 55 new full-time jobs with an average annual salary of $70,000, according to the Alliance; the expansion would have also created 46 additional direct and indirect jobs in the construction trades with work completed by the end of 2026.