Buffalo Rising Online

This truly is a radical departure from the blind eyes of city hall under Masiello and previous administrations.

In terms of Buffalo and WNY this is a shot heard across the city and the entire region.

Now every property owner that thinks they can sit on a property until the roof falls in and lets the taxpayer pay for the demolition must be thinking...will the community be more powerful than my political donations to city hall? Will my neglect rob me of my property and leave me with a lawsuit by the municipality?

Today Buffalonians knowing it or not have put a price on good citizenship, patriotism and a respected name in the community.

property owners and developers ignore this at your own peril. In a matter of days the Freudenheim name carried the hubris and ego of a "f-them" and today they have a lawsuit in the hundreds of thousands, lost title to their property and their name is parasitic scum throughout the WNY region that will raise the eyes of everyone from Niagara Falls to Batavia to Jamestown for any ownership or development plans they have in any other community!

I doubt this day is being ignored by other property owners. Its not business as usual for Buffalo and WNY. The livery stable changed everything!

It is just some kind of fabulous! When you think of all the roles played by people, agencies, and the courts who all had their own agendas, limitations, and interests, it all came together in a successful outcome for all concerned. Heroes big and small are they all. To me, the group that we must credit highly are the neighborhood residents who through tolerance, willingness, and sacrifice afforded everyone else the time to do what had to be done. Lots of lessons learned in this crisis! Let's hope that the community can construct a new model based on what has just happened to ensure positive outcomes in the future.

bisonherd, nice rant. Your probably right, that in some ways the risk in owning an older property in the city has increased. That will only mean fewer buyers, and higher rents for those older buildings that do get 'saved'.

Let's say you own a 6 unit in Allentown and one of the tenants decides to dry his clothes in the oven. 30% of the building burns. It's in a historic district. Can the owner use his insurance to have the place demolished, or is there now a higher standard that says the owner is on the hook to rebuild?

I guess property owners for the most part have the good sense to avoid this site. But painting all property owners as if they're this guy, would be similar to me saying every tenant is a crackhead. That doesn't make much sense, does it?

Pegger - now if we could just get all the people involved before the building begins to crumble, then it will be a beautiful day in Buffalo. Going to heroic measures at the last minutes is great, but it doesn't make up for years of neglect by the property owner, 'preservationists', and various City of Buffalo departments who turned a blind-eye to this (and scores of other) properties. It would be one thing if this was a turning point, but in the few weeks that this saga has played out, we have seen numerous other buildings continue on the path to a similar fate.

I hope that our 'preservationist' community builds on this momentum and starts a full court press on other neglected buildings and property owners in the City. They should have a list of those structures that should be placed on the Registry of Historic Buildings and start the process before the building goes to hell to remove the doubt of citizens and to reverse the perception that most are 'Johnny come lately obstructionists'.

When is the next rally? What is the next building to save? Who is the next absentee landlord to vilify?

We rescued the baby from the well, now where is the follow-up to cap the other wells before the next baby falls in?

Ben true but at the same time for those property owners that have a history of violation, neighborhood complaints, housing court etc this should be a small wake up call that if the community wishes to take action, they better watch out.

The problem I see with this whole process is how does it get translated into a change in the City... it is great that the neighborhood and community have stuck together (mostly because they had the means to do so, which is something not all neighborhoods in Buffalo can afford to do) but how does this translate into a change in City Hall policy.. Will there be a new policy that states if a building goes unrepaired for X number of years the city will take title of the building and shift ownership to a potentially more responsible owner? I don't know.

Somehow I think we will be going through the same 4 alarm fire drill for the next building and the building after that. And what about properties that are already under city ownership... Is there going to be a process to wrestle these out of the city's clutches if there is an interested developer / owner? That has and continues to be a huge block to the renovation of many structures.

If the burden (increased downside risk) of ownership is increased, the pool of investors able to purchase property's will decrease. If a bank had held a mortgage here, would their responsibility go beyond the dollars lent to the project?

While saving this building makes everyone feel warm and fuzzy in the short run, there are long run ramifications that won't go unnoticed by the investing community.

benfranklin - nobody is going to take out a mortgage on a crumbling building with the plan to just let it sit. investors invest...

Let this be a lesson to slum lords and city officials, the people pf Buffalo have spoken...you are being watched. Well done to all those involved!

hey lulu, a few weeks ago I posted about making this transaction more transparent, but we were told it was best that the decisions be made 'behind closed doors'. On first glance, great, the old barn was saved. As time goes by, more questions will be raised. If it goes south, watch out for the scramble as people try to get as far from this thing as possible.

Quinn, while I'm sure you're a fine attorney, you seem to have missed the class "LAW 601-Spinning and phrases to avoid using with the commoners". Rather than 'back room deal', how 'bout.."we were fortunate to have someone wth Mr. Savarino's experience step forward and take on this worthy project. The community should be heartened that a man with his experience is involved in guiding this project to an end worthy of the buildings history .....". That has a nicer ring to it than...'yea, other people got shafted, and Sam even came up with the estimates...'.

An attorney with no spin....isn't than an accountant? (By the way...the Spin class would have advised against saying 'calling the people he knew at City Hall...'.) If you like this guy so much...stop posting about his actions! You're killing the guy.

By 'scrambling' I wasn't talking about the neighbors, but those with slightly less spine that inhabit certain corridors at city hall. The majority who've reserved comment will be more than happy to poke holes at the 'back room deal' and 'contacts at city hall' that were exploited (your description).

No shafting? I'm sure when this is all said and done that a few thousand city residents, that don't live in such a nice neighborhood, will surely disagree. But then who really worries about them, right?

"No shafting? I'm sure when this is all said and done that a few thousand city residents, that don't live in such a nice neighborhood, will surely disagree. But then who really worries about them, right?"

Huh?

Colin, I'm fairly certain that at the end of the day, the taxpayers of the city will cover any short fall that Sam or the previous owner incur. If you're not into the preservation thing, I think you'd consider that a shafting.

I'm also fairly certain that more 'important, historic' (did Man O' War stay here?) buildings crumble on the east side, or the west side, or in Lackawanna. But this one happened to be near neighbors that more easily get city hall's ear. I'd consider that a shafting.

How 'bout if you really have trouble making ends meet, and your landlord really is a slumlord, and not keeping your property up? And you can't really get the deposit together for a new place (so your stuck). Rather than looking into your plight, a good amount of city time has been spent on the barn, not helping people that may truly need it. Isn't that really what housing court is for? Put all these people together, and I'd say they've been shafted.

I fail to understand all the negativity here. Are we suggesting that the city intentionally ignored the property for 20 years and then maybe initiated the collapse (9/11 style) in a grand plan to get Saravino the property for $1?

Just a week or two ago we were saying even if it was saved it would sit there and be an eyesore forever. The residents would never be able to find a buyer? And here we are, as of now, the building is still standing, ready to be stabilized and then turned into what it should have been long before. And we still bitch and try to opoke holes.

As for the "not such a nice neighborhood" you sound like this is over on soldiers circle. Go two-three blocks west/north amongst the vacant lots and proclaim that this is some entitled neighborhood. If any neighborhood, this is surely one that deserves this. The neighboring properties have been taking a chance, investing and turning this area around to make a fringe area of actual re-growth. They then fight to perserve the character of the neighborhood though this building, and as of now, have prevailed. Well deserved and congradulations. This whole area is a great example of a rebirth of a neighborhood. Is it growing off of an Elmwood epicenter? Yes. But in a society where we run from disinvestment, here we actually see some pushing back and ground being gained. It should be celebrated.

What do we get? Growth, a stonger tax base and the ability to tackle more things across the whole city. anything invested here has a great chance to multiply by further private investment in the surrounding neighborhood and further the push west along with other projects.

Hopefully the high profile creates changes in inspection. Here where the owner was known and accessible (local) it should have been much better handled. As for large parts of the east and west side where owners can not be found or even sorted out do to all the flipping, etc it's a whole other issue. I don't see how success here belittles the plight of other areas of the city.

Oh boy, lets all get paranoid now that nobody will invest in Buffalo ever again because a property owner was held accountable.

Damn those preservationists. They saved yet another historical building and neighborhood asset.

And shame on those preservationists for not focusing more on the east side, because there's nothing being saved there. (except for a whole shitload of things, but we'll pretend they're not so as to put some spin on my argument)

We should be giving people free money in this city instead of investing in things that make the city a better place to live, work, and visit. -Because then we would create jobs for those people we're trying to just give money to, and they won't need us to give them money anymore. Businesses might want to relocate from out of town, tourists might want more hotel rooms, people might need goods/services if they keep moving into those pesky lofts/apts/condos! People might figure out that Buffalo has a wealth of architecture that their city plowed down in the 70's. Nooooooooooooooooooo!

bf --

1. The taxpayers may get stuck with the bill, sure. There are two other options, though -- Savarino pays the lien on the property he just acquired, or the city wins its suit against the Freudenheims. That scenario -- with three options -- is a damn sight better than what existed a few weeks ago, when the city was going to absorb the cost of demolition, just as it had at the Falcon building. Those new and better options are the result of the neighbor's activism.

2. It's true that plenty of other great buildings crumble elsewhere. That's a shame. I don't understand how that's in any way the fault of those who worked to save the livery.

3. Your characterization of the neighborhood is way off. If the neighborhood had such sway with City Hall, their complaints about the building would have been acted on years ago.

4. The idea that the city's inspection and housing apparatus would have been out there vigilantly helping the poor had they not been busy with the livery is a laughable fantasy. These are the same inspectors who allowed the livery to rot on their watch.

It's a start in the right direction.

At least we are not being cursed by another empty lot.

I predict that the next building to get destroyed in some Buffalo calamity of apathetic status quo will be Saint Mary's-on-the-Hill church on Niagara and Vermont streets.

Yes. Tobe was on the outs with Brown and Casey for a while now.