Ellicott Development's Demo Plans on St. Paul Mall Delayed

"According to Paladino, the structures are not in good condition" . So they offered "premium" prices to buy? BS! Paladino should be forced to PUT them "in good condition", seeing as he KNEW they weren't. Don't play into his evil plot to force the hold-outs to sell, by demolishing the rest of the block.

This is utter nonsense. How much of this city must be turned into parking lots before we scream: ENOUGH! Stop appeasing the rapists who pose as Buffalo's saviors. The list of Vampires is about 12; if you choose the names, they'll probably match my 12.

"These houses are not the highest and best use of that site," says Paladino.

Surprising talk from someone with no alternative plans for the site -- we're told. And not even plans to make plans.

Path of progress, folks. Medical corridor is right there. I'd have no objection to holding up demo until another acceptable plan is in place, but it isn't for nothing that he wants to demolish and not for nothing that he paid premium dollars. He bought the underlying dirt so that he could develop it. I'm interested to see what his eventual development becomes. If it's a ten story apartment or medical building built to the sidewalk, most of us wouldn't object, probably.

But I wouldn't object in the least to retaining the houses until such time as an acceptable alternative plan is in place. I think demo now is a tactic not only to free him up in the future, but to put terrific pressure on those who have not yet sold. If there is no demo now, those other owners have great leverage to demand huge dollars later, potentially squashing any development deal. But if he demos now, those other homeowners no longer live in a neighborhood, they just live in a parking lot. Not very fair to them.

wow...have any of you been in these homes before??? they're hideous. good riddance. just like the housing across from this street, on michigan next to city honors (the red ones). these homes were not built to last, they do not hold any historical significance whatsoever.
this entire neighborhood is evolving rapidly and just because there is not an immediate plan for reuse, i think it bodes well for the area long term. remember the church paladino wanted to demolish next door?? maybe there will be value now to restore it for some kind of use. across the street from there on main st there is a pair of apartment buildings either with plans for a rehab or currently undergoing one. there are plans to build a medical facility on the corner of main and high, just a block away.
i dont think for a minute paladino is sitting atop some perch saying "haha...i'll show them"...there has been tremendous amounts of development on ellicott street from beginning to end..ECC, hotel lafayette, m.wile expansion, medical campus walk, the building behind buffalo general and the science charter rehab. i believe EDC sees value (they rehabbed the school btw) in prepping the land for future use. they're not tearing down whitney st or robie st or something like that. if they buils a family dollar on this site, i'll eat crow and keep my mouth shut from now on but i really doubt that will happen.
the irony here is that so many people may bash carl for proposing to knock down housing that rented to low income people and had absentee owners, yet you all have a problem with him renting space to government agencies downtown which probably benefitted these very people.

if this chaps your a** so much go to him and propose a reuse for this street, and bring cash too, you'll need that, the way the science charter did for that eb green building they just restored. it too was sitting vacant and rotting, yet historically significant.

Again, 'Let's knock down two blocks of working buildings with no plans for replacement'....WHO IS IN CHARGE OF THIS CITY'S DEVEOPMENT???????????? No vision, just knock it down has been proven a problem in this town for decades, just look at our current downtown today and thank our leaders for the past 60 years as to a why we have many blocks with NOTHING on them.

This is an interesting block. By the look of it, it appears to be a mid-century modernist spin on adaptive reuse. They took some 1950-70s concepts, such as visual uniformity, decorative slabs of concrete, and pedestrian malls, and applied them to the existing fabric.

That would have made this place a cutting edge development for its time as large scale slum clearance and new construction was all the rage (see Pilgrim Village on the other side of Ellicott Street).

My take on this - Paldino's company treats land as a commodity. Commodities have no value beyond the unimporved material cost. This is fine for lumps of gold and bushels of wheat or train loads of coal. Gold that has been made into a ring and passed down through generations gains value far beyond the basic material cost. Paladino sees no value in the herritage of a building or place. That is why his company will buy and hold a property and often invest nothing into its maintenance. Why would you polish a ring you intend to melt down? Pawn brokers and metal merchants don't care about the herritage value. Places for parking cars or selling cheap household products don't need the personal value of grandma's wedding ring.

A one block street surrounded by parking lots is not viable and its unlikely that a new neighborhood will get built with single family or duplex's.

This does not upset me. Id rather the medical/research campus grow and residential neighborhoods that are viable and do have something worth preserving actually do get preserved.

The Masten District (City Fields, Masten Armory, City Honors, etc) is but a few blocks away and still viable.

Humboldt District (Humboldt Park, Science Magnet, Science Museum, etc) is but a few blocks away and that is still viable.

Across Main Street in Allentown and Linnwood...that is gentrifying.

Just dont demolish our Lady of Lourdes de Notre Dame

There is nothing real notable about these homes, its in an area that is likely going to be expanded upon, and we'd all have better luck forcing a nice new development then trying to fix whats there. Also there is allot of housing stock in Buffalo, when we knock some of it down we increase the value of the rest. Getting these homes out of circulation increases our ability to save other, more important homes.

How would the new Buffalo Green Code treat this site?

There is no excuse to tear these down with no plans for the site. Buffalo has too much vacant land already. We can have a discussion about the relative merits of the replacement proposal once there is one. Glad the Preservation Board is holding its ground.

What does Buffalo's "Cheif of Economic Development" have to say about all this?????.....oh yeah, he just got ARRESTED last week!!!! .....need we say more about our so called 'leadership'???????

Hmmmm, interesting. Wonder if Carl knows I'm overseeing the redevelopment of the two apartment buildings across the street...

Look at it this way - the longer the houses sit vacant, the more crime and decay for the existing owners. It's a squeeze play to make them sell cheap.

I don't particularly like this since we have made tremendous strides in turning the two buildings on Main around (directly across the street). Now, instead of a busy-body, nosy neighbor, I am viewing this as a threat to a business development.

Suggestion for new BRO poll: how long will it take before these Crisa-like spam postings are prevented?

Several years ago I walked down this street, more out of curiosity than anything else, and I recall what appeared to be early 20th century homes that had been renovated in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s.

Almost an early form of a gated community for low income.

I am surprised that so many of the homes have been purchased by Mr. Paladino. However, the statement “Purchase prices ranged from $47,500 to $110,000” leads me to believe the owners were more than eager to sell and Mr. Paladino bought these homes at market rate so these are legitimate sales.

Mr. Paladino, whether we like it or not, is a businessman who is in business to make money.

My father lived on that street in the 60's during his childhood before it was redeveloped. Enjoyed it and hear stories about it. If there was a concrete plan, then that would be good but the fact that there's "no specific plans for the property and Paladino is involved, I can't help but to be skeptical.

Paladino really is a schmuck. Lets buy out and evict everybody, tear down their homes and then do nothing with the land while I wait for someone to offer me a good price for it. What? The area looks like crap with another open vacant lot? Who cares...

No demo work should be done in this city without a concrete redevlopment plan in place, financed and ready to go. This site should by all rights be fairly appeasing to all sorts of different development should the green light for demo be issued, so I really dont see why or how Ellicott couldnt or shouldnt have a plan in place.

Who is 1238 group llc?

Well what does "captain parking lot" Carl Paladino have planned for the redevelopment of the St Paul Mall housing site?

Be ye leery!

Paladino without a plan . . . very unlikely.