ALLENTOWN
Summit Building’s facade to be saved
The facade of a severely threatened Main Street building in the Allentown Historic Preservation District is to be preserved by the city, with state funds maintaining a 19th century red-brick street-scape.
The four-story Summit Building, at 918-920 Main, also known as the Bosche Building, will be braced with steel using funds awarded to the city in September to demolish blighted structures and redevelop several historic properties.
“The building is significant, but what’s even more significant is the historic street facade that is intact from Allen Street to about a half block of row house after row house” just south of Allen, said Christopher Brown, a former president of the Allentown Association, the neighborhood organization active in trying to save the facade.
The building, located next to the Red Jacket Apartments, south of Allen Street, has a barricade in front for pedestrian safety. It was designed by local architect Cyrus
K. Porter for carriage manufacturers Robert and Charles Bosche, who were brothers. It opened April 2, 1891, with showrooms, office space and a repair shop.
The city hasn’t always supported trying to save the building, and in 2004 an agency within the Masiello administration unsuccessfully sought demolition approval from the Buffalo Preservation Board.
But the policy now is to “preserve that facade because of its aesthetic and historic value,” said Brian Reilly, commissioner of economic development, permits and inspections.
Reilly said the abandoned building the city took ownership of nearly 10 years ago has presented a difficult challenge.
“918 [Main] is the last of eight abandoned structures [on the block] that the city acquired through foreclosure. It was the most problematic due to legal and physical challenges,” he said.
Reilly said the city hopes to find private-sector redevelopment for the building and possibly adjacent properties, located near the expanding Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.
The cost to stabilize the building is estimated between $300,000 and $500,000, Reilly said, which will come from $14.3 million the city is to receive in state money under the Restore New York program. Reilly said he hopes the city receives the funds soon so work can begin this year.
The Summit Building’s entire interior and roof collapsed earlier this decade, leaving only the exterior walls.
Two engineering studies in recent years warned that without immediate action the entire structure risked collapse.
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