M&T Bank Buys Data Center Near Buffalo

M&T Bank has signed a letter of intent to purchase a former HSBC data center in Amherst, New York, the company said today. M&T Bank said it plans to convert the 59,280 square foot building into its primary data center, then retrofit its current data center on Commerce Drive in Amherst into additional office space. M&T said it will invest more than $105 million to improve and equip the two buildings over the next 10 years if the purchase goes through. The purchase price was not disclosed.

HSBC announced plans to close the Amherst facility in 2009. Buffalo was the home base for Marine Midland, which maintained data centers in the region for decades before being was acquired by HSBC in the 1990s.

M&T would bring 75 new jobs to the site, and retain 45 existing jobs in Amherst, some at the new data center and others at the Commerce Drive location. M&T Bank already employs 1,314 people at two major operations centers and nine branch locations in the Town of Amherst. Across Western New York, M&T has approximately 5,000 employees, operates 84 branch office locations and owns and/or occupies nearly two million square feet of commercial real estate.

"At M&T Bank, we're pleased to be working with HSBC on this project to keep the data center generating new investment and jobs in the community," said Mark Czarnecki, President of M&T Bank. "As we've grown in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, M&T's Western New York employment has more than doubled from 2,400 in 1999 to 5,000 today. This new investment gives us the room we need to expand our technology infrastructure--and the room we need to add more new jobs."

The purchase is subject to additional due diligence and certain approvals from the Amherst Industrial Development Agency. M&T Bank operates retail and commercial bank branches in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, New Jersey, Delaware, Florida, the District of Columbia and Ontario, Canada.