Douglas Jemal has landed a technology tenant at Seneca One tower. Belgium-based business software firm Odoo will establish an East Coast headquarters in Buffalo on one floor in the tower. The company anticipates growing to 300 employees locally, occupying an additional two floors in the building. The company has an existing office in San Francisco. Buffalo Business First has the news:

Nicholas Kosinski, a Williamsville native and director of Odoo’s East Coast operations, said company leaders were looking to avoid the issues of cost and workforce retention it faces in San Francisco. They analyzed such cities as Minneapolis, Tampa, Charlotte and Atlanta.

But after a whirlwind tour of the community in January – designed to explain Buffalo’s economic trajectory, its social and cultural amenities and its cost-of-living advantages – they were convinced that Buffalo can support such an operation.

Seneca One will be anchored by M&T’s Tech Hub that will occupy an initial 330,000 square feet of space on eleven floors, with options to expand. By the middle of this year, M&T plans to have at least 1,000 of its employees in the building, and expects more than 1,500 employees to be located there within three years. M&T also helped lure Odoo to Buffalo. More from Business First:

Kosinski got his introduction to Buffalo’s business community in January after emailing M&T Bank’s chief information officer Michael Wisler. That kickstarted a recruitment effort managed through a network of investors, entrepreneurs and executives, specifically William Maggio, Eric Reich and Jordan Levy. It took Odoo executives into a personal meeting with M&T Bank CEO René Jones, the City Hall offices of Mayor Byron Brown and to Larkinville for a meeting with Howard Zemsky, Empire State Development Corp. board chairman and leader of Larkin Development Group.

The firm expects to have an initial 20 employees this summer. Founded in 2005, the firm has 900 employees.

Work at Seneca One is on pause due to the coronavirus, including build-out of M&T’s space. Two retail buildings have been constructed on the plaza’s eastern side and 115 apartments will be ready for occupancy on the annex buildings’ upper floors later this year.