December 4 – Rev. Gwendolyn Walker, of the Guardian-Highland Block Club, is hopeful.
I hope there is finally a plan, a strategy – something – to reimagine, restore and revitalize a dilapidated stretch of North Main Street and make part of the Falls North End prosperous again.
“I think this is great,” Walker said Tuesday afternoon after nearly an hour of speeches by local politicians, praising the vision of Falls Mayor Robert Restaino and the city’s Urban Renewal Agency to take control of development along northern Main Street— corridor and drench it. with student housing.
“It’s a step into the future,” Walker said. “I remember what Main Street used to look like.”
The basis for Walker’s hopes are recent agreements by the Niagara Falls Urban Renewal Agency (NFURA) to acquire the Rapids Theater and 38 other properties previously owned by Blue Cardinal Capital on and around North Main Street. The properties had been seized by two local financial institutions until Restaino and the NFURA intervened.
“Bank on Buffalo and Niagara’s Choice Federal Credit Union, I want to thank both financial institutions for joining us in this effort to reimagine and reinvest on Main Street,” Restaino said. “We all believe Main Street has a future.”
The mayor emphasized that the combined property purchases, which total approximately $1.7 million, will allow the city, state, Niagara County and the Niagara Orleans Land Bank to control future development in the blighted downtown area through a prevent any developer from acquiring all or part of it. majority of the properties.
“People come to Niagara Falls with a dream and want to do something big,” Restaino said. “And because of the economic challenges (in the Falls), acquiring land is easy. But then nothing happens. A lot of things happen around Main Street, but nothing happens on Main Street.”
With $10 million in funding from New York State for Governor Kathy Hochul’s Downtown Revitalization efforts, the mayor said an emerging partnership with Niagara University would aim to bring student housing and commercial space back to Main Street.
“We have college students who need housing,” Restaino said. “Niagara University is in discussions with a number of student housing developers to bring those properties to Main Street.”
State Sen. Rob Ortt (R-North Tonawanda) said the return of people living in and around Main Street will spur other development growth.
“Housing is the engine of everything else we want to do,” Ortt said. “Students will create demand (for new businesses).”
Buffalo-based developer Nick Sinatra, who has a significant development presence in areas of that city dominated by student housing, is reportedly eyeing the acquisition of the former Jenss’ department store for a conversation with student life. Sinatra is also reportedly trying to lure companies with an interest in student consumers to the falls.
“Western New York will not have its full economic potential unless Niagara Falls has its full economic potential,” Ortt said. “We want to repeat Buffalo’s experience. I hope this is a turning point day.”
Restaino has said that the seizure of the Blue Cardinal’s properties is still going through the courts and that the purchase is not expected to take place until sometime in January. The purchase of the Rapids Theater is expected to close in December.
“It will take time to build out what we want,” the mayor said. “Hopefully some of the first signs of this will come this spring or summer.”
That is also Rev. Walker’s hope.
“I hope nothing stops this, nothing gets in the way of this,” she said.
