After receiving a few inquiries regarding the state of affairs at Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Main Street (near Summer/Best), I reached out to Bill Paladino at Ellicott Development to ask about current and future plans for the historic property. I told him that some readers were inquiring about a number of openings that had not been battened down for winter. The people reaching out were worried that maybe it was a sign that the church was in for a long winter, which might not bode well for the structure.
Bill’s response was that the building was experiencing some structural issues, and his main concern was having his engineer work on a plan to stabilize the church. He also said the work would be completed by the middle of next month. I then asked him what the future of the church beheld (if his intentions to develop remained the same), and he alluded that he had big plans for the property, but that his immediate goal was stabilization and then securing the building for winter.
BRO posted on the future of Our Lady of Lourdes back in May of 2015. At the time, Ellicott Development was seeking funds under the Buffalo Building Reuse Project Loan Program (BBRP) administered by the Buffalo Urban Development Corporation (BUDC). According to minutes from a BUDC committee meeting in September of 2015, “the developer elected not to proceed with BBRP financing because better lending rates were available for the project from a conventional lender.”