First of all, Welcome to the forum GitchiGummi.
If you are buying a new machine to deal with Lake Effect snow, I would highly recomend High-flow and a blower to go with it, especially if doing it commercially. With regular heavy snow, you want all the advantages in your favor. It is also one of those things you can not go back and add later. Will be a plus when you go to sell or trade it later.
A number of folks are running aggressive 225 (or 235)-75/15LT studded (or recaps with walnut shells or lathe shavings in the compound) mud & snow tires on the standard rims with chains for extreme conditions. Others are running the standard bar-tread or turf with chains as needed. Unless you need or want turf for other applications, I would get the standard bar-tread and a set of chains and see how it goes.
In any case, figure on about 800+ lbs of ballast in the bed.
You may also want to look at Erskine and QuickAttach blowers. Same type, but a bit less $$ (altough you will need their hand-held controler for chute or the 14 pin wireing harness on blower and TC).
Good Luck