From police headquarters to assisted living in the Falls
Plans for police headquarters, former school envision assisted living site, senior residences
Published: April 24, 2009, 12:30 am
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NIAGARA FALLS — Two Buffalo development companies hope to turn the city’s police and courts building on Hyde Park Boulevard and a former school on 39th Street into homes for senior citizens.
Ontario Specialty Contracting and McGuire Development Co. have submitted a joint proposal to the city to renovate the buildings and operate them as an assisted living facility and market-rate patio apartments called Sherwood East and West.
The $10 million plan was the only submission in response to a request for proposals issued by the city earlier this month.
The proposal likely would hinge on the city receiving a $1.25 million state grant to help pay for the environmental cleanup of the buildings and the eventual transfer of ownership of both sites to the developer.
Peter F. Kay, the city’s economic development director, said the city’s other alternatives for the public safety building, once the Police Department and City Courts move into a new site next month, would be boarding up the structure or tearing it down.
“Being stuck with boarded-up buildings means no tax revenue, no jobs and a liability sitting there,” Kay said. “Tearing it down means out-of-pocket expenses.”
The proposal envisions the long-vacant 39th Street School as 35 market-rate patio apartments targeted to “empty nesters or seniors.”
The public safety building on Hyde Park Boulevard would be turned into an assisted living facility with 30 suites.
The proposal does not indicate whether it could move forward if the city does not receive a grant through the state’s Restore New York fund.
The public safety building will be replaced next month by a new, $47 million police headquarters and courthouse on north Main Street.
In late 2004 and early 2005, city officials concluded that the Hyde Park Boulevard building was too small and in too poor condition to renovate for the city’s police and courts.
The problems included asbestos, a leaking roof and a poor heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system.
The state’s Office of Court Administration threatened at the time to withhold state aid if the city did not resolve the problems.
“The specifications for a public court system are a lot different than any other private development that might happen,” said former Mayor Vince Anello, who was in office when the decision was made to construct a new building.
Retrofitting the building to meet current security standards for court facilities, Anello said, would “eat up most of $10 million.”
Through a joint venture called Cataract City Properties, Ontario Specialty Contracting and McGuire Development have proposed spending $10 million to renovate the public safety building and the school.
According to the proposal, Largo Real Estate Advisors has provided a letter of intent to finance the project.
Largo is one of two partners in a team that had developed the city’s new courthouse.
Ontario Specialty Contracting, founded by Jon M. Williams, specializes in demolition and environmental site work. The company has worked on the redevelopment of the former SGL Carbon Plant on Niagara Falls Boulevard.
McGuire Development Co. and a related company, the McGuire Group, own and operate senior citizen housing apartments and skilled nursing facilities. It specializes in developing and redeveloping medical office space and general office space, the proposal says.
The proposal has not yet gone to the City Council.
Kay said any agreement with the firms for the development of the two buildings would include a “claw back” provision in which the city would have a remedy if the developer failed to perform.
The city plans to apply for a Restore New York grant for the two buildings early next month.
Kay said officials hope to use the value of the buildings or other in-kind services to meet the program’s matching contribution requirement.
djgee@buffnews.com
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