New pedestrian mall changes view, outlook in Falls
Struggling businesses hope for turnaround
NIAGARA FALLS — The cobblestone street is settling.
Maple trees and shrub roses have been planted.
And every minute mist sprays up from two fountains and covers a half dozen Dolostone boulders.
“Oh, cool,” said 12-year-old Mikey Pena, of San Antonio, as water spurted up Friday.
A new street that stretches between Niagara Falls State Park and the Wintergarden site has opened to the public now that contractors have completed work on the first phase of a $7.9 million USA Niagara Development Corp. project to rebuild the city’s west pedestrian mall and demolish the Wintergarden.
All that remains of the glass-enclosed Wintergarden after a month of demolition work are six concrete pylons.
Both projects are part of a state effort to breathe new life into downtown Niagara Falls.
“I love the way they’ve done it. It’s wider and more inviting to the tourists,” said Marty Oliveri, who operated a mini golf course on the walkway until last year. “When it links all the way through from the state park to Old Falls Street, hopefully it will bring back some of the way it used to be.”
Oliveri, of Lewiston, is now working on a plan to open a small restaurant and operate vending carts on land owned by Cordish Cos. of Baltimore next to the walkway. He also hopes to install a carousel on a spot where a hot air balloon operated for several years.
USA Niagara Development, the state’s development agency in the city, intends to rebuild the basics of the neighborhood in an attempt to encourage new private investment in the block. In the meantime, however, there are fewer shops and vending carts than last summer.
The city ended its lease last year with a businessman who held a concession lease for the west pedestrian mall. A strip of small shops that included a ’50s diner and souvenir shops connected to the Comfort Inn The Pointe also have become vacant since the Maid of the Mist Corp. purchased the hotel last year. The company is exploring its options for the retail strip.
Business owners whose operations have remained open on the block say the construction and the economy have hit them hard.
Douglas Brown, who runs a souvenir shop and wax museum in a family-owned property on Prospect Street, said business has been down 20 percent since construction on the west mall started in October. For the first time ever, Brown said, he had to take out a loan to cover his property taxes.
“We’ll never recoup what we lost, but I’m hoping that it will be worth the trade-off, eventually,” Brown said.
Brown said the poor economy has continued to impact his shop, but he hopes the neighborhood will see a turn-around once the state project is complete.
“It’s going to give people coming out of the park a shot to look at the city once they get the Wintergarden down,” Brown said. “Before, it was kind of the great Berlin Wall of Niagara Falls. You got stopped right there and you couldn’t get through.”
Work on the west pedestrian mall was done to match a similar project completed two years ago on what was then called the east pedestrian mall.
Contractors ripped out red hexagon bricks that lined the west mall and replaced them with prefabricated cobblestone. The street has been lined with bioswales that collect and filter runoff that waters native plants like path rush, blue flag iris and marsh marigold. Celebration red maples and shrub roses have been planted along the walkway.
Dolostone boulders in the mist fountains are from a rock quarry in the Town of Niagara, and street lamps from the west mall were refurbished and reinstalled.
In a few weeks, after the cobblestone has settled, the street will be reopened to vehicles.
“The idea on Old Falls Street is not only to create a great place for pedestrians or for special events, but for the majority of the year it should be a great urban street,” USA Niagara Development Corp. President Christopher J. Schoepflin said. “It’s not often you can have the best of both worlds.”
But invigorating Old Falls Street once it opens will also require new investment in the surrounding properties.
Land adjacent to the west mall and the former Wintergarden site is primarily controlled by four entities: Cordish Cos., the Maid of the Mist Corp., Brown’s family and businessman Joseph Anderson.
Restoring the public space, Schoepflin contends, was the first step “to leverage private investment on the edges.”
Christian Folger, a sheet metal worker from Toledo, Ohio, who was visiting Friday with his family, said he is impressed so far by the work.
“Obviously, it’s a destination point,” Folger said, “so anytime you make it better, it’s a good thing.”
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