Lockport NY

The Buffalo News reported that Mayor Tucker is looking to create a land bank system in the city.

Mayor Michael W. Tucker said Friday he has directed the city’s attorney to investigate the feasibility of starting a land bank program in Lockport as a means of combating housing decay.

A law passed last week in the State Legislature allows cities and counties to create land banks to acquire run-down properties and either demolish them or fix them up .

After that, Tucker said, the city wouldn’t have to sell the land to the highest bidder but to the “best bidder.”...

Demolition does not fight housing decay. It moves the problem to adjoining areas of the city creating a perpetual wave of disinvestment. This program could be successful but it must focus on saving structures and getting money into the area. After over 30 years of the empty south block and other parcels we should have learned that empty fields do nothing to turn things around.

Money and investment coming in shows hope. Structures coming down shows defeat.

The LUSJ reported that an out of state developer who won the bidding for the old county Davidson Road Facilities.

A Washington state-based real estate developer is eyeing 17 acres along Davison Road for a multi-phase condominium and medical office building project.

Don MacLeod of Tacoma, Wash., spoke to the county Legislature’s administration committee about his aspirations Tuesday night.

MacLeod’s brother, Douglas MacLeod, submitted the high bid for the Davison Road Complex, former site of a county infirmary and Social Services offices, in an online auction several months ago....

...Their thought for the Davison Road complex is to develop condominiums for senior citizens, 55 and older, and “ancillary” medical space, perhaps an urgent care facility in the old infirmary building if it’s preservable, MacLeod said.

“We looked at this property and just fell in love with it,” he said. “We want to make this a community.”...

...MacLeod arrived in the area within the past few days and said he plans to stay here about two weeks to look over the property more thoroughly and meet with county

We discussed the original real estate listing here last September.

LUSJ reported last week that there is a group pushing for a Wegman's in Lockport.

...A group of Lockport residents are banding together to entice the well known supermarket chain to Eastern Niagara County. Charlene Bower, chairperson of the We Want Wegmans group, announced Wednesday the campaign had taken its cause online.

Those who support the idea of bringing Wegmans to Lockport can check out the website, www.wewantwegmans.com or find the group’s page on Facebook. While online, people can print out petitions and send them by mail to We Want Wegmans, P.O. Box 256, Lockport, NY, 14095...

I was surprised to see the claimed statistics for the Lockport area:

In a statement, Bower said Wegmans usually considers locations with a population of about 100,000 within a 5 mile radius and an average household income of roughly $75,000. In comparison, Bower said Lockport’s market area has about 127,500 residents in a 10 mile radius with an average household income of $78,700

While that would save me the drive to Amherst every week, Wegman's have said in the past that they are done expanding in WNY. The return on investment is much greater down in Virginia that it would be around here. But while we are dreaming, place them in my mixed use development mentioned here.

The Buffalo News reported that a proposed Tim Horton's at Robinson and Beattie attracted some town boards members to question how friendly it is to pedestrians:

The town is likely to get another Tim Hortons, but the location might produce more pedestrian danger along an already tricky road, a Planning Board member said last week.

The board received an application for a new location of the coffee-and-doughnut chain on a two-acre vacant lot on Robinson Road just west of Beattie Avenue.

That’s near where two pedestrians were struck by a car and seriously injured Aug. 17, and a legally blind woman was killed by a snowplow Feb. 1 as she crossed the road. In the wake of those accidents, questions have been raised about the adequacy of the street lighting on the road, which is part of Route 93. The town and the state Department of Transportation have each pointed the finger at the other.

The road has several apartment houses and entrances to two large mobile home parks, but there are no sidewalks. However, the shoulders are seven to 10 feet, which is wider than normal, Councilman Mark C. Crocker pointed out after the August accident...

If the town is so concerned for pedestrians how about working with the state to get some sidewalks around there? It is in general a lower income area and people should have the opportunity to safely use their own two legs for transportation. Extra wide shoulders around 55 mph traffic only goes so far. Seeing that the area is planned so vehicle-centric, why even bring up the question for a single parcel?


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LUSJ reported that local surgeons are looking to turn the long vacant building at 160 East Ave into an ambulatory center though it faces several hurdles.

A public hearing will be held Friday on a local medical outfit’s request for tax breaks to develop offices and an ambulatory surgery center on East Avenue.

The hearing, at 3:45 p.m. Friday at Lockport City Hall, is for Great Lakes Surgical Associates, whose shareholders include Lockport general surgeons Dr. Jeffrey Schratz and Dr. Robert Hodge.

The outfit is seeking an agreement with Niagara County Industrial Development Agency for sales and mortgage tax exemption, and 10 years of property tax exemption, on redeveloped property at 160 East Ave. A vote on the PILOT request could be held next week.

The surgeons have proposed renovating the existing building to house their practice, currently at Elizabeth Drive, and provide extra space for a four-unit ambulatory surgery center for eye, ears-nose-throat, gastroenterology and orthopedic specialists....

One of the hurdles is findnig a way to play nice with Eastern Niagara Hospital, who's approval would be needed:

Lougen acknowledged Great Lakes Surgical Associates’ bid to build an ambulatory surgery center may face resistance from Eastern Niagara Hospital Systems, since realistically ambulatory centers compete with hospitals for surgical business. NCIDA board Chairman Henry Sloma, a health care management expert, noted the state will be looking for the hospital’s support of Great Lakes’ application for a certificate of need.

“I expect that may be difficult,” Lougen said. “We would not look to take business from the hospital, we would hope to enhance services (for) the hospital,” by helping attract medical specialists to the area.

Hopefully they can find a working agreement to bring some more professionals downtown and bring new life into a vacant building.

9/22/10
I noticed the sign in the window for Sweet Sixteen Cafe at 16 W. Main St between Chet's and Grimble's. Ellen noticed me peering through the window and was nice enough to let me inside and fill me in on what was going on. Opening in one week will be an updated cafe with "home made" baked goods and hot beverages. The type of place that Lockport is sorely missing. I look forward to the short walk there and the possibility of sitting out back along the canal next summer.

UPDATE 10-10-22 - Grand Opening Tonight.

Buffalo News Article
LUSJ Article

Is it still open?

All signage is gone from the Main St and Parking lot windows though product is still inside. My guess is that she had to close up shop with possibly Ulrich taking over the stock and fixtures inside. Has anyone heard anything?  We did miss Wilhelm and Ashe Home after the original owners moved south and although we hoped for the best, "Season's" did not feel quite the same. Just What the Doctor Ordered has closed, Wilhelm and Ashe Floristry has not returned after the fire and now Season's appears to be gone. Luckily Gould's Flowers still remains. Hopefully someone takes over this location. An actual retail location (an upscale one at that) in this development was nice to have.

Also, some interior build out is happening in the two "buildings" next to Hunt Real Estate along Walnut St. I wonder if tenant(s) are lined up.

LUSJ reported on the ongoing state confrontations at the Mill St demo site.

...Off to the side, Krzyzanowski’s wife, Diana, sat on a concrete barrier, watching a government agent parked across the street watch her and Scott. The Newfane native sighed she’s ready to go home — to Texas.

“(Scott’s) got three investors ready to put in a small plaza here, but not until that building’s gone. We don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to do that,” she said. “To hell with it, let’s go home.”

Diana had just finished telling Tucker it was suggested to her that a union contractor dropped a dime to the Labor Department on the Krzyzanowskis, perhaps after spreading asbestos around the property. Tucker nodded, indicating the same suspicion was conveyed to him...

I don't blame them. Just go back home to Texas and leave the frustration of NYS behind.

Why can't the state work with these type of people who take on a brownfield challenge in a depressed area? Why do they have to be the "tough guy"? Why not come, explain and then offer up a grant or something to help the process along. The owners already demonstrated starting to take it down and the way its going, the state will end up paying for the abatement and removal anyways somewhere down the road.

Last post on subject: Mill St.

LUSJ reported about the purchase of the industrial ruins at 89 Mill St. by Scott Krzyzanowski.

An out-of-town investor is moving to demolish an abandoned factory that’s been a blight on the Mill-Clinton streets neighborhood for decades.

Scott Krzyzanowski of Dayton, Texas, quietly acquired 89 Mill St. last month, with the thought it looked like a good “long-term investment” in a community he sees as being on the upswing.

Krzyzanowski and his wife, Diana, natives of Dunkirk, N.Y., and Newfane respectively, have made a few investments in Western New York in recent years....

This is one of the last properties I would have bet on to be turned around at this time. The short term demolition is a big score on its own. The desire to build on the property holds further potential. The limits on the potential depend on what is eventually built.

...Of 89 Mill, a 1.6 acre parcel accessible from four streets — Mill, Clinton, Olcott and Chapel — Krzyzanowski says it could be an ideal location for a strip plaza. He’s been out introducing himself in the neighborhood and asking residents what they’d like to see on the corner. They’re telling him a convenience store/gas station, a car wash and/or a laundry center would be great ...

The term "strip plaza" scares me a bit because of the type of development the term is synonymous with. The neighborhood would be much better off with some structures built up near the street mimicking the existing street frontages. Hopefully something of a little higher quality is possible to promote further investment in the area.

Give the neighborhood this (up to the sidewalk, transparent storefronts, built for the neighborhood):

Buffalo News reported that Toyota bought the old Gambino site and will be putting up a new showroom. It will connect to the relatively new service building that Gambino had put up about 10 years ago. It will be nice to see the old Gambino eye-sore replaced.

The Buffalo News and The LUSJ have both reported on the attempts of small-business to land on Canal St.

Does a “small” business person have a prayer of landing a piece of Canal Street?


A few who’ve tried believe they do not, especially once a bigger entity like inLighten or, now, Ulrich Development Corp., enters the picture.
But the city’s development arm says they are not playing favorites and will consider all offers currently on the table....

This is the highest profile section of street along the Canal in Lockport. The biggest issue here is the city's lack of a plan for the street. If there was a plan in place it wouldn't matter if there were separate entities or one trying to develop the block. Though with the money needed to finish each building and create in-fill to make it successful, I'd say a large developer and their money is needed.

I've mentioned the current draw backs:
-No thru traffic in a pedestrian light area.
-Only two or three street level store fronts separated by almost a city block.
-No continuous street frontage to draw pedestrians down it.
-No plan to ensure it has the best chance of drawing people year round to make it viable.


This should be a signature project. Anything less will sell the street and the city short. It should one-up Ulrich City Center and pick up on what was missed over there. Offer tax-breaks etc to offset the investment needed in exchange for a mixed-use development that should set the precedent for future development downtown while showing visitors a progressive city. Invite successful developers from Buffalo and Rochester to sell them on the opportunity and then bid on it. No one bids well enough, increase the incentives and repeat...

 

Came across one of those quotes the other day that solidify a thought in one's mind that always there but never quite able to be stated eloquently:

think the knee-jerk reaction towards "green space" is because people have no faith anymore in architects or developers to create buildings worth caring about.

James Howard Kunstler frequently gives an example of this in Saratoga Springs. The city was redeveloping a vacant property that was originally a beautiful hotel that had been demolished for a supermarket or strip mall. The best idea the locals could come up with was "a park", even though there is already an historic Olmsted-designed park right across the street! People just weren't able to even consider that an urban-scaled building could be constructed that would complement the street. Their gut reaction was that any development would necessarily be a detriment to the city, based on decades of experience of that being true.
 

JSmith -buffalo rising

Seemingly all we can wrap our heads around today are parks and attractions. While important they will never float a sinking city ship the way a critical mass of employed citizenry will.


An editorial appeared in the Buffalo News today about the success of the Larkin Building and surrounding area in Buffalo. No parks or bells and whistles to attempt to sow seeds of development. No carriages put before the horse. Just an unique offering of history and the hope for the return of an urban neighborhood that has already been mostly demolished.


We have a similar building. But we also have a semi-functioning Main St a block away, intact housing/neighborhoods to the south and a historic canal and lock system 4 blocks away. Where is the drive to secure a grand vision built from a strong foundation of non-retail jobs? Get people nearby with well paying jobs and homes and the retail will happily follow, mo arm twisting necessary.

...Howard Zemsky is an investor and preservation-minded developer—no, that is not a contradiction in terms—whose family owned Russer Foods. He and partners Joe Petrella, Bill Jones and Doug Swift started it all eight years ago by buying the vacant Graphic Controls building. Despite “no way” warnings from timid skeptics, they pulled off a$30 million transformation, filled its 10 floors with tenants and—with a nod to history— reclaimed the Larkin Building name. It stands as architectural eye candy for thousands of daily commuters on I-190...

...There are different ways to rebuild a neighborhood. This may be the quickest. Zemsky and partners have, he said, spent “several million dollars” buying and rehabbing buildings. Investment attracts investment. First Niagara kicked in $1.5 million for a streetscape face-lift. Architects bought the four-story Kamman Building. Neighborhood homeowners are getting fix-up dollars. There is talk of a new owner—and new life—for the drab, eight-story monolith next to the Larkin.

Seems Lockport’s (only?) developer David Ulrich is proposing something for Canal St. today. The Buffalo News and the LUSJ reported:

...David L. Ulrich is to meet behind closed doors today with the board of the city’s development agency to discuss the empty buildings along the north bank of the Erie Canal, which were renovated at a cost of more than $3 million, mostly in state and federal grants.

Proposals ranging from a wine store to the headquarters of a digital screen manufacturer have fallen through.
Now Ulrich, landlord of Ulrich City Centre on Main Street, will go before the Greater Lockport Development Corp. to make a pitch for a new project...

What would you hope to see?

I’d love to see the Niagara Wine Loop Shop come back in its original form. I’d be knocked silly if an actual residential mix was proposed. I may need shock paddles if mixed use infill development is mentioned.

UPDATE 06-04-10
Most meeting updates from The Buffalo News and The LUSJ with not much by the way of new information.

Small tidbit buried in the Buffalo News:

...Also in Niagara County, an electronics company from Hong Kong paid $495,000 to buy a vacant manufacturing and warehouse facility at 85 Grand St. in Lockport from Jamestown Container Corp. The electronics firm, acting through 85 Grand Street LLC, bought the parcel from Jamestown Container Lockport Inc.


The 145,000 square-foot, three-story industrial building had been used by Jamestown and predecessor Great Lakes Container Corp. and Great Lakes Packaging Corp., and had been built up over time. It includes active rail siding, nine truck docks at the two ends of the building, and updated office space.

However, it has been vacant for about six months, after Jamestown Container moved the operations to other plants, said cqCammille L. Kantowski, the commercial real estate broker at Hunt Commercial Real Estate who handled the deal. A representative of the electronics firm could not be reached to comment...

Wonder what they would want with it and if there should be any hope of jobs attached anytime soon?

LUSJ reported on NYPA president Richard Kessel's visit with Mayor Tucker.

I commend Tucker for initiating this meeting and would applaud him if he were able to obtain the money. I disagree on the what we could expect from the finished project. I do not doubt that we would attract even more heritage tourists. I just doubt that they would be enough to sustain new businesses all by themselves.

Buffalo is in a similar situation with the area around the unearthed Erie Canal Terminus. They are grand plans being sold to us as game changers. History has shown us that these rarely change the game for us. The most successful urban areas around here are not those with the fancy projects. They are the ones that provide an honest urban nvironment with a mixture of housing, retail, and business. For some reason we never plan for that and if we do, we never enact that plan into law.

I've mentioned before what I believe will prohibit the redevelopment of Canal St:

• Blocked off to traffic - people like to see activity and drive past a place before they stop to check it out. Pedestrians like to feel activity around them.
• Missing teeth - pedestrians do not like to walk past large stretches of empty space. There might as well be a dead end wall.
• Three retail store fronts - Two are at one end and the other is all the way at the opposite end. Not enough for pedestrian density
• The gazebo plot - Parks are nice but they need density around them to be useful. Otherwise they are just another part (albeit prettier) of a desolate looking area.
• Old Harrison building - has no store frontage. It might as well be a blank wall to people passing by, even if it had shops in it.
• No residential - Even when we do draw more visitors, who else will be available in the off season to make is possible for the businesses to exist for more than half a year?

My thoughts:

• Use the money to create jobs first. See last post on topic. But if not:
• Get the state to vote to allow the Gazebo to be moved and plan for mixed use infill similar to the new IS loft development in Buffalo. It would help create the continuous retail street scape and supply consumers/street life through its year-round residents.
• Plan the Old Harrison Building as residential. For the same reason as the last.
• Open up the street to one-way traffic as a minimum.
• Update the Master Plan from 1998 and make it law. It's presence gave us Ulrich City Center (only missing a mixed use). It's lack of being law gave us Family Video. It also probits others from securely investing in a shared (and binding) vision.

The LUSJ reported on Mayor Tucker requesting a meeting with the NYPA.

I agree the city should see some of the power money. And although I support the Flight of Five and maybe in some form an "upper marina", I do not see them as the most worth while cause for this type of funding. The tourist dollars are nice but as we can tell from looking at Niagara Falls: having a world class tourist draw does little for the city in and of itself. This is even more true for colder climates where the part time tourist dollars cannot sustain the offshoot development that we are selling the projects on. A functioning city with 24/7/365 non-retail business and residential dollars are needed to provide the type of environment we are hoping for to keep the tourist (and residents?) around and coming back. How do we get this?

The Buffalo News on Monday reported on more projects in the Larkin District in Buffalo. The same place that took the former Lockport Savings Bank even farther away from its birth place. A place that most thought would remain empty after Tyco/Graphic Controls left it empty in an already empty part of the city. How did it find success? Class-A space in a unique setting from an urban minded ownership group which subsequently bought up other properties all around it and created a master plan.

This building was not much different from Harrison Place. What it has is a visionary owner with money willing to take a step most others aren't willing to. Granted those are in short supply but most municipalities fail to make into law Master City plans that could give smaller capital owners the security to invest in a guaranteed larger vision.

Most people will complain about the glut of office/light industrial space but most of it is outdated Class-B and C owned by groups more ready to complain than reinvest in their properties. They are left losing tenants and leasing to lower paying ones. Class-A vacancies are much lower and usually fill quickly in Buffalo when they hit the market. I wonder if Lockport actually has any Class-A space DT.

If our goal is jobs and people downtown I submit that a transformation of Harrison Place similar to that of the Larkin building would give us more bang for the NYPA buck. It would show we are serious about moving forward and beyond the slow slide of disinvestment and job/resident loss. Put residential lofts in the west building and Class A space in the eastern buildings. Find a parter (perhaps one of the firms in Buffalo finding success at these rehabilitations). Get funding to continue running the high speed Verizon lines going to Yahoo through DT over to Harrison Place. When the next inLighten comes, First Niagara looks to expand in the area, Yahoo offshoot businesses start, etc: what will we have to offer?

Use the job/economic development dollars to start to build a genuine downtown and city. There is not a more powerful draw. Save the historical/private grants for the Flight of Five, which would be icing on the cake.

Talking with Captain Mike the other day he made an intersting comment. He mentioned the humor in reading the "Welcome to Historic Lockport" only to arrive DT and see nothing there; especially when compared to places like Medina.

After losing so much of DT to "Urban Renewal", the big old houses close to downtown are pobably the next best asset to build off of. It is another reason I find any demolition of the house in that area a notable loss. Granted, a lot have been bastardized over the years (I know my house was) but a lot of features remain that will never be duplicated again on this scale.

Where is the plan to encourage rehabilitation and to help foster a reasonable ROI for those willing to put the sweat equity in? In what ways could we help it along when the government itself won't?

...and places like it: why do they always have a fabulous view of a parking lot or, like the one in the town of Lockport, a bonus view of a retaining wall?

The safety found in the status quo of an auto dominated society is the easiest anwer. When looked at with an open mind, why wouldn't a "Panera's" work at a location like Canal St? Why can't I have my treats on a patio over looking the Canal or while people watching on Main St?

LUSJ and The Buffalo News reported.

It was pry to be expected. Possibly 100 well paying jobs wandered into our area (DT!), sniffed around and then kept on looking.

The real shame here is the rarity of the opportunity. These types of potential jobs do not wander into the city on a regular basis looking to make a home. If this is indeed the end, the most important thing to find out is the details of why. Was there a bigger welcome wagon elsewhere? Were they really leaning to a suburban type site even though they mentioned otherwise?

Moving forward do we sit and wait for some other place to wander in? What do the "Waterbourne Real Estate Advisors of Getzville" actually do? Are they supplied a package by the city listing every single available benefit offered by the city, county and state? Some older articles from the Buffalo News (article 1, article 2) point out some reasons companies leave and others stay in the area.

“It was like night and day,” Nathaniel said.

The offers of help rolled in. County legislators came forth. Economic developers pointed them to local architects and engineers and help with the permitting process. Officials persuaded a local paper company to sell Science First some unused land for 25 percent of the market rate. They were offered up to $8,300 for every job created under a State of Florida program. A low-interest loan of $300,000 was put on the table. And the absence of a state income tax saves the family about $100,000 a year, the Bells estimated.

How welcoming and easy to work with are we? Not from our perspective but from the perspective of the potential (and existing) businesses that we interact with. How do we market ourselves? Are we marketing single pieces of property or the city (and area) as a whole?

Canal street has facing the locks going for it. That's about it. It is isolated from all the activity on the other side of the canal. At one end is an empty lot (possible new ticket booth for Lockport Cave Tours) and at the other end is pedestrian activity killing city hall. The only visible store fronts are at opposite ends of the block and the largest building has no storefronts. An Excalibur-like gazebo (never to be pulled from it's site!) will make sure the street never has a continuous streetscape to pull pedestrians down it. I feel inLighten was the brightest hope at this time.

For now we will have vendors and musicians there this summer. They will be a welcome addition to DT. But why try to pull people over to empty buildings instead of over to actual businesses on Main St where they can actually spend money and density can be created? One can see effort all around. Is it pointing in the right direction and working together to some type of goal?

We live in a world where electricity, the internet and the automobile pretty much let any person or business settle anywhere. The rules have changed. Are we ready to be successful in this competitive environment?