Years of neglect leave Williamsville mill near ruin
Village at a loss on how to save 1811 icon
Touring the 1811 Williamsville Water Mill is like touching the past.
An old iron bell and a large antique floor scale greet visitors just inside the front door. Grain shafts run up through the floors. Giant gear wheels and belts take over much of the ground level.
Perched high on the escarpment, the mill’s windows offer gorgeous vistas of Glen Park. Woodworking and grain-grinding tools sit near the sunlight. Rubber stamps for Scotch oats, whole wheat flour and rye still hang from the walls.
“It’s got incredible potential,” said Glenn A. Pawloski of Kideney Architects in Amherst.
But the reality is that the nearly 200- year-old heart of Williamsville — the building responsible for the village’s very existence — is on a steady path to ruin.
Charred wooden beams stand testament to a third-floor fire. Dark water stains saturate the fourth-floor ceiling planks. Dozens of big, black horseflies beat themselves helplessly against the upper-story windows. Portions of the wooden, tin-lined sluice that link the mill to its water-powered legacy have decayed and been dismantled.
The barn next door is deteriorating at an even faster rate.
“This parcel will not be able to withstand another construction season,” said Williamsville Trustee Jeffrey L. Kingsley, head of the village’s Mill Restoration Committee.
The renewed sense of urgency to give the old mill a new lease on life has recently helped two distinct plans gain support after years of inaction.
Lack of commitment
The Williamsville board of trustees voted Monday to spend $17,000 to have a consultant prepare a report within three months outlining the building’s condition and future prospects.
Meanwhile, the president of the Amherst Library Board is promoting a reuse plan for the mill that would involve moving the Williamsville Public Library into the old mill space.
Both plans require public money and public commitment that has been absent in the past.
The Village of Williamsville purchased the historic set of properties in early 2005 for $450,000 when it looked as if it might fall into foreclosure. But in the haste to buy, village leaders did not gain clean title to the building, Kingsley said, nor did the board commit to earmarking another dime of local taxpayer money to save it.
Yet everyone agrees that the mill needs saving.
The water wheel mill is engraved on the village seal. Jonas Williams built the grist mill, and its operation attracted settlers. The community grew into an active industrial center called Williamsville, with 16 or more milling operations.
After the Village Board purchased the building in 2005, residents packed Village Hall and brainstormed plenty of reuse ideas for the property. None gained ground.
Village Justice Jeffrey F. Voelkl wants to change that. As president of Amherst Library Board, he wants to move the Williamsville library on Main Street onto the mill property.
The main mill building could comprise meeting rooms, children’s story time spaces and administrative offices, he said. It also could accommodate a working museum, an income-generating cafe, and host some indoor farmers’ market vendors on the weekends.
A modern wing could then be extended at ground level between the mill and the adjacent barn for books and other circulating library material.
Ciminelli Development has already donated some design and construction support toward Voelkl’s concept, which company Vice President J. Timothy Vaeth described as “a viable plan.”
A cobblestone district?
The water sluice could be reconstructed and paired with a modern generator so the building could produce its own electricity and qualify for state energy development grants, Vaeth said. Working barn grants might also be available for the project, he said.
If the library moves to the mill, Voelkl said, it would also enable the Town of Amherst — which is tight on office space in the Municipal Building on Main Street — to expand into the adjacent library building.
Voelkl envisions the rebirth of the mill as a library as the cornerstone of a new cobblestone district for Amherst, complete with new curbs and ornamental streetlights, not unlike Faneuil Hall in Boston.
He noted that the mill area already hosts Williamsville’s popular weekend farmers’ market.
“Let’s see if this is an idea the community can gather around,” he said.
Both village and town officials say they’re intrigued by Voelkl’s idea but want more specifics regarding renovation and operating costs.
“I’m hopeful, but I’m hesitant to say this is the project that will be the future of the mill,” Kingsley said. “We can’t continually throw out proposals without having specifics in terms of time frame, in terms of costs.”
Many other local leaders echoed similar sentiments.
Mayor Mary E. Lowther said she believes that Voelkl’s plan “could possibly be a winner.” But she also said she has had dozens of mill-reuse ideas cross her path in her years as a village official.
The mill’s recent history involves a string of bad deals and broken promises by other businesses, agencies and potential developers. Just this past June, the Amherst Industrial Development Agency agreed to take over the mill-restoration project, only to back out a few months later.
The last occupant of the mill was Mayer Bros. In September 2005, the West Seneca-based company opened a cider and baked goods shop in the mill but shut down two months later for lack of business.
Given all that has transpired with the mill, Kingsley said, he is not about to raise community hopes, only to crush them later because yet another concept turns out to be financially unfeasible.
Report due in March
“You need to have contingency plans,” he said. “We can’t continue to go down one road, then go back up another. That’s not just a path to failure; you’ll see these parcels disintegrate before our eyes.”
While Voelkl’s reuse concept is more detailed than any other the board has seen, Kingsley said, village leaders and committee members do not have the expertise to determine its chances for success.
Monday, he offered a board resolution to hire Preservation Studios as a consultant. The company would conduct an initial three-month study to analyze the building’s condition, determine reuse options and outline potential financing.
The board voted, 4-1, to hire the company, which is expected to produce a report by the end of March.
Voelkl, meanwhile, is working to turn his big idea into a formal proposal for Village Board consideration.
He convened a meeting of 16 stakeholders last week, including town, village and library system representatives, builders and planners. The group now has three working committees — government/library, finance and grants, and construction and engineering. It will meet again next month.
“Everyone,” Voelkl said, “has their homework.”
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