Ellicott Development Company is demolishing two properties on Main Street. Asbestos abatement is complete on the Our Lady of Lourdes’ rectory and demolition work started today. The school at Main Street and St. Paul Mall at the edge of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus will be next.
Ellicott Development confirms the church itself will be preserved and incorporated into a future development.
“We are abating and then demoing the school and rectory,” says Ellicott CEO Bill Paladino. “We will then start work on the restoration of the church.”
Ellicott has not revealed its plans for the site but Paladino says the church reuse will be part of a “multi-phased mixed use development.”
In 2009, Ellicott Development purchased the adjacent convent and school from Prayer & Praise Fellowships Inc. for $370,000. One year later the company bought the church at 1115 Main Street in April for $40,000 from 1115 Main Street Inc. The circa-1898 church near Best Street was closed in 1993. In recent years Ellicott has also been buying residential properties on St. Paul Mall demolishing nearly all of the block.
The Buffalo Preservation Board recommended the City deny Ellicott’s request to demolish the rectory and school (below) in May. Since the buildings were not landmarked or in a preservation district, review by the Preservation Board was only a formality.