Smokin’ Joe still bullish on the Falls
NIAGARA FALLS — A felony guilty plea is not stopping Joseph M. Anderson from dreaming big about his downtown properties.
The entrepreneur behind the Smokin’ Joe’s gasoline and cigarette outlets is rapidly moving forward with a plan to build a synthetic ice rink and snow tubing hill on a prime Falls property two blocks from the Rainbow Bridge.
Anderson expects to open the winter attraction by late December.
“No matter what happens to me or in the court or anything, I’m still pro-Niagara Falls,” Anderson said last week in an interview. “I still want to build a Native American city. I still want a major, major attraction year-round, and a successful city, bring it back to being a thriving city.”
Four days after pleading guilty to a felony charge stemming from a $40,000 loan he admitted giving former Mayor Vince V. Anello and never asking to be repaid, Anderson was
anxious last week to talk about his latest project for the Falls.
“I’m not running with my tail between my legs because something bad happened,” Anderson said. “No way. I’m not turning my back on the Falls. I’ve got anywhere between 400 and 500 workers at any given point.”
City records show that companies registered to Anderson’s Saunders Settlement Road business address on the Tuscarora Indian Nation own more than 20 properties in the downtown commercial area.
Many of the properties are vacant, but the real estate holdings also include two hotels, a nightclub and a Third Street office building.
Anderson also owns the former Wintergarden arboretum and is in the process of selling the glass-and-metal building and a lease for the adjacent East Pedestrian Mall to a state agency, USA Niagara Development Corp., for $1.6 million.
That deal is still proceeding, USA Niagara President Christopher J. Schoepflin said last week.
Without the Wintergarden, Anderson will remain a significant property owner in downtown Niagara Falls.
A vacant parcel at First and Main streets that Anderson purchased in February for $800,000 has his attention now.
He hopes to boost tourism business during the typically lackluster winter months by opening an attraction for tubing and skating to bring families to the Falls.
The downtown area has not had an ice rink since a municipal-run rink outside the former Niagara Falls Convention and Civic Center shut down to make way for a parking lot at the Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel about six years ago.
The idea to create a new winter attraction was hatched about a month ago by Andersn’s teenage son, Alex.
Anderson said he hired a New Jersey-based company, SnowMagic Entertainment, to serve as a consultant and vendor for the planned 50-foot-high tubing hill and snow-making machines.
A planned ice hockey rink, complete with boards and regulation hockey lines, will be made from synthetic material called Super-Glide, manufactured by Florida Skating Inc.
The city already has issued plumbing and electrical permits for the site, said Buildings Commissioner Guy Bax, and is currently reviewing plans for the temporary structure.
Anderson said he plans to open the tubing hill on his land on the Tuscarora Indian Reservation if he cannot build it in the Falls.
“We have to have some success in Niagara Falls, and if this is just a small part, I’m going to try my hardest,” Anderson said. “This isn’t a pipe dream. I really bought the snow-making machines. I really bought the ice. I really bought the 350 pairs of skates.”
A representative for SnowMagic did not return a call for comment last week, but the company has advertised the Niagara Falls venture on its Web site. The company also has built tubing slopes in Japan and Lancaster, Pa., and is working with Stone Mountain Park in Atlanta, Ga., to open a “snow mountain” tubing hill and play area there by the end of the year.
The proposal to build a similar tubing hill in downtown Niagara Falls impressed members of the city’s Tourism Advisory Board when Anderson pitched the plan to them last month.
The board’s chairman, Jerauld A. Genova, said Anderson’s guilty plea and the grand jury indictment against Anello should not become a hurdle for Anderson’s future plans in the city.
“Until something is proved otherwise, we want Joe to continue to develop and to continue to maintain a relationship in the city as someone who at this point appears to be one of the bigger players downtown,” Genova said. “At this point, we have to look at the fact that he’s someone that owns a lot of property.”
Anderson started buying prominent Falls properties, including the Quality Hotel and Suites and the former Wintergarden, in 2003 and 2004 and has continued since then to pitch development ideas to city and state officials.
Those ideas have had limited success, but he also has built a reputation as one of only a few downtown landowners willing to invest in projects in a landscape of empty buildings and vacant properties.
“Everything he said he would do, he’s done,” said Ralph Aversa, a former city development official. “He’s a very smart business person.”
Anderson opened a children’s playground and arcade called Smokin’ Joe’s Family Fun Center in the Wintergarden in 2005, but the business fell short. He said the single- paned glass made the building difficult to maintain and operate, even after he had a heated floor installed. Ongoing construction outside the building also impacted business.
He closed the glass building late last year and auctioned off the playground equipment and fixtures.
Anderson’s staff also managed vending carts on a city-owned East Pedestrian Mall that he leased from the city, but his attorney said last week the lease was a “financial disaster” for the businessman.
It was that lease and a $40,000 undisclosed loan he gave to Anello that landed Anderson in federal court.
Anderson’s sentence is still pending and he could face 30 months or more in prison, but also could get a sentence of probation as a cooperating witness against the former mayor.
Anderson declined to talk about the loan, but made it clear it is not impacting his vision for the Falls.
That means finding an immediate way to fill downtown hotels — including his own — during the five winter months when they lose money each year.
He hopes that can jump start more activity in the neighborhood.
“That’s the goal, for us to get the developers to bring thousands of jobs coming in,” Anderson said. “That’s my goal because I’ll make more money and the city, it’s a better community, and a better everything. And if it fails, well, I’ve failed before.”
