Update: Project Rudnicki

I guess i'll never do business at the Cobblestone bar ever again.

Good job.

So now that you've saved the bricks, what does the owner do?

1. Nothing, and the thing rots, he gets fed up and bails on his investment
2. Tries to demo it still, to enact his actual plan for bringing business to the "district", only to loop back to 1
3. Tries to sell it but has hard time finding a buyer who wants to spend to 'rehab' this jewel

My vote is on 1. Which is actually 2 and 3.

Congratulations.

Do you have a buyer or investors lined up to take this building off the owner's hands if he decides to sell?

If the building is sold, then what? Are you just looking to stabilize the structure to prolong the decay and demise for a few years, or is there someone out there with a feasible plan for the building?

The Campaign for Greater Buffalo steps up to the plate! Great work so far...

I have a constructive idea:

Why doesn't Buffalo / Erie County propose a measure for vote that sets up a superfund to help these types of situations along. I'm thinking if bonds be sold to pay for stadiums or other structures in a city/municipality why couldn't you raise money to have on hand to help out in these situations. You ask the voters, hope they agree, and then you have 100, 200 or more million dollars available to help pay for preservation. I'm serious. I can't see any other way of getting buildings like the Statler, this building, saved and have investors actually have a shot at success. Think about it, its basically done without voter approval already for things like tax credits or Empire Zones, Rich Stadium, etc. Why not propose legislation that gets the money - because it's always a money issue. You want to save them, you got to pay for it somehow.

There are buyers in the wings, and I agree 100% with a boycott of the bar if Carr tries to go through with that.

This is the kind of buiding that defines Buffalo and the Cobblestone district. To even consider demolition is not only foolish but undermines the very momentum that is attracting people and investment to our city. The future will see a shortage of old interesting buildings as more and more are renovated. There is not an endless supply of historic structures in Buffalo and we need to start protecting our best assets for future developement. I have watched for many years the slow but steady progress in preservation and I am confident we are on the way to a better future. Lets not allow a profiteer to exploit this for short term gain.

I say get rid of the canal era buildings and the cobblestone streets. That way when there is a Walmart and Dollar General accessed by paved roads, it can be an ironic destination paying homage to our great leaders of past generations who have left us with so many great building to destroy.

For those of you defending the property owner.

Consider this scenario. You own a home that you have renovated, maintained and are proud of. It's on a nice street that is making a comeback.

Now, someone buys the house next door to you. The owner decides after a few years that he can't maintain his house. BTW, your street also happens to be very near a large local sports arena.

One day your neighbor comes to you and says he's giving up. He is going to demolish his house, and put in a parking lot, because he can't afford to fix the house. And he can make some much needed money using the lot for public parking.

What do you say? Great! Knock it down. It's your land, so you can choose to do whatever you want.

I dont' think so. Most people would be outraged if their neighbor did this.

And I think the situation here is analagous.

I dare say this situation would not be happening if the Cobblestone District was more of a "neighborhood". There is not a large constituency here to protect the COMMON interest.

What is in the common interest here? I'd say it's in the interest of the City and the region to save this building.

If the owner can't save the building he should sell it. That's what you'd do if this were a house. You would not send in the bulldozers.

Yes, though I like Carl Paladino, I wish the preservation community would step up to the plate on the Greystone Hotel (atleast save the facade), the richardsonian building on Main Street next to Red Jacket with the roof caved in (atleast save the facade), Our Lady of Notre Dame de Lourdes, St Vincents Orphanage behind the Squire and a few other notables that just dont seem to get the attention until end of the line demolition is planned.

Does someone want to tell me where "Preservation Buffalo Niagara" is?
Why aren't they taking a stand?

Does someone want to tell me where "Preservation Buffalo Niagara" is?
Why aren't they taking a stand?

Previous articles stated that other developers have tried to purchase the building from Mr. Carr. But he refused to sell.

The entire “shovel ready” block bounded by South Park, Mississippi, Perry, and Baltimore is owned by the city of Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency (BURA).

If Mr. Carr has this new project on the boards, why can’t BURA work a deal for him to build it on the “shovel ready” site?

He gets to build on a ready site – construction could start almost immediately.
A new developer could buy and rehabilitate 118 South Park.

We then have two great projects and everybody profits.

BTW did Mr. Carr get a tax abatement all these years as stated in his pro forma?

Neighbor? If your neighbors were also former foundry operations, I think you would be thinking differently.

There are reasons why these buildings were left untouched during the "Crossroads" project during the building of the arena. The same reason Phoenix Die Casting, right next door to rudnicki, got overlooked - because remediation is not worth the cost. You cannot just reuse these bricks. Ask the agencies, starting with the EPA. Why not start there instead of the preservation groups?

Don't blame this Carr guy for the condition of this building, blame the previous owners who failed to fix the roof, opting to only patch. Or the guys that rebricked the back wall. I am sure that is historically significant! No one ever mentions that side of the structure.

I am all for preservation, especially when it is needed. But there were more significant buildings that were replaced with the beautiful dryvit arena (Oldman Boiler Works) and I guess that was ok.

There is more to consider than just the date a building was built when considering potentially saving a structure.

Maybe we should all start pitching in a few bucks each so we can save the buildings that are worth saving, before the roofs start caving in.

Everyone is at fault in this mess.

The owner probably concluded as soon as (if not before) he bought the building that he wanted only the land under it, even though he knew full well when he bought it that it was in a Preservation District.

The City's Inspections Department is, through apathy, incompetence, or under-staffing chronically unable to make recalcitrant owners bring their buildings up to code.

Judge Nowak, perhaps because his hands are tied by his role as an impartial finder of fact and the City's failure in its duty to provide him with facts, routinely lets code violators off with a slap on the wrist, or gives them exactly what they want (as in this case).

The Preservation community is, with the exception of Tim Tielman, invisible, utter toothless, or more worried about tours and awards than advocacy.

We have come a little way from the days of Friday afternoon demolition permits issued by "mistake" (remember the Harbor Inn). Nonetheless the Inspections Department and Housing Court simply are unable to stop owners from allowing their buildings (even those in Preservation Districts, or listed individually) to deteriorate to the point where they can find some "professional" engineer willing to say they'll fall down the next time the wind blows.

Community members can make themselves blue in the face reporting code violations to 311 year after year after year on the same buildings with nothing to show for it. Notices of violation, follow-ups, re-inspections - utterly useless.

Which brings us back to this building. Ok, an engineer who isn't being paid by Carr goes through the building and says that it can stand another 100 years if the roof is fixed. Then what? What if Carr doesn't fix the roof? Another couple of years of adjourned court dates and patently false protestations that the work is "about to begin" or "estimates are being collected", etc. and maybe it really will be beyond saving.

In all the time I have been in Buffalo I can recall only one instance where a building owner faced any meaningful sanction for letting their building deteriorate. The owner was jailed, by Judge Nowak, until the repairs were completed. Guess what, the work was done, not just talked about. Maybe it's time for the good Judge to do that again instead of giving these demolishing by neglect owners what they wanted in the first place.

It certainly does have something to do with contaminants. You just can't move tenants into any space without investigating a building like this. Especially one that was a foundry.

This whole area had environmental issues and these buildings still do. Look over the environmental assessments done on these parcels for the Crossroads Arena Project. If you think Quinn didn't want as much real estate for parking back then, you are kidding yourself. Some parcels were passed on - including this one and Phoenix. Or just order a phase one site assessment and dig around in the documents. It's all right there.

Just takes money to find the information or to be a hero and buy the property and save it for all of us.

Actually not making stuff up Steel.

I was part of one of the teams that investigated these properties for the Crossroads Project.

And probably a lot more than most armchair preservationists.

So please don't think I am making crap up out if thin air.

if the building is that contaminated, then you'd have to remediate whether you restore or demolish. if the site is that toxic, then special (i.e. expensive) measures must be taken during demolition to prevent contaminants from spreading by air.

so demolition hardly cures the problem of a supposedly contaminated building. done the usual smash-and-haul way, it could make things worse.

but then i doubt that contamination is the real issue here. the problem is that the owner simply wanted the land and calculated that he could get it by neglecting the building into oblivion, and the city, by omission, did its best to help.

"And to make this building energy efficient and safe for tenants would leave little of the original building. "

I disagree, and the tone of this argument reminds me of the so-called "exploding rocks" that supposedly lined the Commercial Slip.

This is nonsense. Buildings like the South Park one are renovated all the time. Hazardous materials are abated, and tenants move in.

Let's also consider that all the rubble from a demolition has to be trucked to a landfill.
Not only is this increasingly expensive, it's not sustainable, and it wastes energy.

Agreed. Someone should buy the building from Carr and save it.