City plans $42 million public safety building

[Dr Funky]

http://www.niagara-gazette.com/siteS...360201940.html

City plans $42 million public safety building

Three-story building on north Main Street would house police headquarters, city courts

By Denise Jewell
Niagara Gazette

n THE STORY: A plan to build a new city courthouse and police station has been marked by bitter negotiations, debate over design and a price tag expected to be about $42 million.

The private design team led by the Amherst firms Ciminelli Development and Largo Real Estate Advisors expects the three-story building to open in 2009.

That’s two years later than a deadline given by the state’s Office of Court Administration in 2005 to address facility problems in the existing public safety building on Hyde Park Boulevard that include asbestos, heating problems and lack of space. The state office has threatened to withhold the city’s state aid if it does not improve the city court facilities.

The building, which will be located on north Main Street between South and Cleveland avenues, will house four courtrooms, police headquarters and the city jail.

The project’s progress was delayed in late fall as city leaders and residents debated what the building should look like. A design for the building unveiled by the architectural firm Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum in October showed a glass and stone façade that was marked by four 62-foot columns that evoked the penstocks on the Niagara Power Project dam.

The year began with intense negotiations between city attorneys and representatives for the Ciminelli-Largo team. Four councilmen approved a design services agreement with Ciminelli-Largo in April that outlined the design and development phases of the project. The contract required the city to pay a monthly fee of $26,667, as well as architectural, legal and professional fees related to the project.

Mayor Vince Anello and Councilman Charles Walker opposed the deal.

The final cost of the building to the city will be determined when the design team and city leaders chose a financing model for the building. Representatives for the Ciminelli-Largo team said last week that a non-profit local development corporation controlled by the city would likely own the building and lease it back to the city.

A 10-year financial plan drawn up by Anello’s administration calls for using the city’s share of slots revenue from the Seneca Niagara Casino to pay for the building over time.

n WHAT’S NEXT: David Chiazza, Ciminelli’s vice president for development, told a volunteer advisory board last week that the team has met with Anello and is expecting a decision on the building’s exterior design by the end of the year.

The Niagara Falls Planning Board will hold a public hearing on the project early next year.

n WHY IT MADE THE LIST: The project is the largest public works construction in Niagara Falls since the city built the Michael C. O’Laughlin Municipal Water Plant on Buffalo Avenue more than a decade ago.

Community leaders on Main Street hope the construction will spur new development in a neighborhood marked by empty storefronts.

[Linda_D]

Your mayor sounds like a busy bee, Dr Funky ... is he related to Tony Masiello or Joel Giambra? It seems he's got all the gaming money already spent on projects that will undoubtedly benefit developers and the mayor, but probably not do too much for the rest of the people of Niagara Falls.

I especially dislike the plan to demolish 13 blocks of houses and replace it with new, undoubtedly much more expensive, housing. Now, I can see some new housing for Niagara Medical Center staff nearby, but 13 blocks of it? Give me a break! Just who's going to live there? It smacks of the grand "urban renewal" projects of the 1960s and 1970s that turned viable but tired neighborhoods into wastelands.

[Dr Funky]

Your mayor sounds like a busy bee, Dr Funky ... is he related to Tony Masiello or Joel Giambra? It seems he's got all the gaming money already spent on projects that will undoubtedly benefit developers and the mayor, but probably not do too much for the rest of the people of Niagara Falls.

I especially dislike the plan to demolish 13 blocks of houses and replace it with new, undoubtedly much more expensive, housing. Now, I can see some new housing for Niagara Medical Center staff nearby, but 13 blocks of it? Give me a break! Just who's going to live there? It smacks of the grand "urban renewal" projects of the 1960s and 1970s that turned viable but tired neighborhoods into wastelands.

Thats what I thought, the problem is Im caught in between the two, on one side I dont want them to completely level 13 blocks and leave a wasteland, on the other hand my sisters dad has a lot of property down there and they are gonna pay him for his houses and then he makes a huge profit......