Lockport NY

The Buffalo News and The LUSJ reported on Ulrich's latest (first?) public solicitation of NCCC for its culinary institute to be placed on Canal St.:

Developer David L. Ulrich on Wednesday continued making his pitch for Niagara County Community College to locate its planned culinary arts institute on Canal Street.

The college's current plans -- described as a $13.2 million hospitality and tourism school -- call for the project to be located in part of the former Rainbow Centre mall in Niagara Falls.

Ulrich, touting the prospects of the Lockport site, called his plans a "combination of two good ideas" -- the college's school and Lockport's refurbished block overlooking the Erie Canal locks.

NCCC will not say no, but will also say nothing else:

...The school doesn’t want to burn any bridges with a developer, or the City of Lockport, by saying “no” — especially since it has had such difficulty acquiring a site in Niagara Falls — but the culinary institute has always been conceived as a school with retail components planned specifically to feed off the Falls tourist market, he said.

“That (Ulrich) is offering us an alternative is a real compliment to the idea of a culinary institute; when he says he can build us a first-class campus and save X amount of money, I don’t doubt him, he’s got a good reputation,” Klyczek said, “but going to Lockport would require a major reworking of the plan. ... (Canal Street) is a nice property; the parking ramp concept is interesting; but in our development team’s opinion, it’s not within the framework of what we’ve been pursuing.”...

An unfunded school knee-deep in discussions for another location and being lured with an unfunded ramp.

Current thoughts:
1) why does NCCC need all the buildings? The smaller two should be for other uses to create a mix on the block. Use the largest building and the Old City Hall as NCCC bait....for now.
2) Even better: get all three current buildings in the hands of those that currently want to buy them and build a new building on the large waste-of-space gazebo area. It looks to be a bigger area than the old Harison building. Everyone would get a piece, we would not need to wait to start things happening and the street would end up with a nice mix of year round uses.

Older ideas on the area here: LCC - Canal - Gooding St Area



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