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“I can see you in the morning when you go to school; Don’t forget your books, you know you’ve got to learn the golden rule.” ~ “School”, Supertramp For the uninitiated, “adaptive reuse” most often entails repurposing a building for a new use that differs from the use for which it was designed. One of…
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“They’re tearing the Buick City Complex down/I think we’re the only people left in town. ~ “Buick City Complex”, Old 97’s I attended Harry F. Abate Elementary School in the North End of Niagara Falls, New York. In September 1976, my mom walked me into the brand new school with its trendy brick interiors and…
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For over four generations, residents of Buffalo, New York’s East Side smelled fresh baked bread as they went about their morning activities, courtesy of the massive ovens on the first floor at 356 Fougeron Street. Locally known as the Wonder Bread building, the 180,000 square foot factory produced the famous sliced bread and, later, Hostess…
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I have been actively developing real estate for ten years, and, through my law and consulting practices, have advised real estate developers for almost three decades. So, when I say that we’re living through the most challenging commercial real estate development environment of my career, I offer that with some perspective and context. And the…
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Two decades, and four programmatic generations, into New York’s Brownfield Clean Up Program (BCP), most participants should consider it successful. New York State surely should appreciate help cleaning up its brownfields, as well as the multi-fold return its program offers New York taxpayers on their investment. Real estate owners and developers (and their lenders and…
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Around 3:30 AM on December 6, 1970, an eastbound freight train derailed in the town of Le Roy, New York. Several of the train’s cars ruptured, spilling a ton of cyanide crystals and over 30,000 gallons of trichloroethylene (a common industrial degreaser at the time). Officials were able to clean up the cyanide, but the…
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The COVID-19 global pandemic changed American cities forever. New proposed federal legislation attempts to address two of the biggest pandemic impacts on American cities: the rising cost of housing and the emptying of downtown cores. Myriad factors, including pandemic-related migration and generationally high interest rates, have driven up the cost of both rental housing and…
