The owner of the Hotel Lafayette is removing tenants and boarding up the building Thursday with an eye toward beginning a major rehabilitation this summer.

Developer Rocco R. Termini said he hopes to begin work on the downtown structure 60 to 90 days

after the State Legislature approves changes to New York's relatively new historic tax credit

program.

The changes, part of a bill making its way through the Assembly and Senate, are considered

essential to getting the project off the ground. The owners' plans for the Lafayette include a

high-end hotel, apartments and banquet center.

"I don't foresee any problems," Termini said Thursday. "The bill is moving along and we're

looking at getting it approved in the coming weeks."

The Hotel Lafayette and another Termini project, the former AMA's building downtown, have

been held up because of perceived failings in the tax credit law.

The bill now before the Legislature reopens a law that developers once hailed as a boon to

historic rehabilitation projects but now realize, a year later, is flawed.

Developers say the biggest problem with the law is its prohibition on selling tax credits

to banks and insurance companies, a problem corrected by the new legislation.

The reforms, many of them pushed by Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, D-Buffalo, are part of a bill

Gov. David A. Paterson sent to the Legislature last month.

Hoyt said the much-needed amendments will help move forward nine Western New York projects

with an estimated investment value of more than $175 million.

He said the reforms also should help with the rehabilitation of the vacant Statler Towers

downtown.