By ALLISSA KLINE
akline@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1612

The Center for Professional Development at Canisius College will no longer lease conference space or services to outside companies at its Amherst location, the college confirmed this week.

Instead, the center will focus exclusively on creating and hosting its own programming at the 9,000-square-foot site at 300 Corporate Parkway near the Maple Road and Millersport Highway intersection, according to new Executive Director Stephanie Cattarin. That includes more business workshops, including a two-day women leaders retreat in January, and an enhanced executive leadership series available to professionals at four stages, depending on their career levels.

The boost in new programming stems from a recent reconsideration of the center's purpose, Cattarin said. Theoretically, it is supposed to build and provide development training for local professionals to enhance their careers in Western New York and retain them in the region, but sometimes it drifted away from that purpose, she said.

"Our mission and our goal is to fill our classroom space and conference space with our own programming," said Cattarin, previously the college's assistant director of graduate business programs who was appointed to her new position in June. "We really want to put all of our efforts and our energies into top programming here. That's really where we need our focus to be."

The center has rented the Amherst location from Uniland Development Co. for 10 years. The space includes five classrooms, a computer room and a board room, all of which have been leased over the years to other companies for their own classes and workshops.

Some of the center's long-standing contracts will be extended for a period of time beyond the Jan. 1 cut-off date, while existing rental agreements already in place will be honored, Cattarin said. But the center won't actively seek new conference-related business.

"It was really giving us a bit of an identity issue," she said. "We were being thought of as a conference center rather than a professional development center."

The center offers more than 30 courses and workshops at fees ranging from $549 per event to $3,400 for 40 hours of programming. It will continue to offer its 36-hour human resources certification program. It also specializes in building custom programming for individual companies or groups in need of certain professional training.