“Any Building Can Be Restored”
This happened around work on the Webb Building, downtown’s last great Richardsonian Romanesque building. The Webb has stood for over 130 years, but just one year ago it was in great danger of collapse. Left to rot by the previous owner, the roof had long since caved in, and the floors had pancaked. The walls were the only things holding each other up. Rocco purchased the building, and in the last 30 days, floor joists have been reinstalled, stabilizing the structure, and a new roof will be put on this week. It was the floor joists that led to the problem with the building inspector. He insisted that such work went beyond the building permit’s demolition and stabilization. Rocco refused to stop work. The building inspector called the police. Eventually it was worked out that in the case of this type of building’s construction, stabilization must include floor joists and roofing. The point of the story is that given such delays and problems, most folks would have run away screaming long ago. But not Rocco. His passion for downtown keeps him going.
Around 80 people attended a talk by Rocco Termini Saturday morning at the Market Arcade Film and Arts Center. He shared the anecdote above to make the point that we must never give up trying to save a building. He argued that the preservation community in Buffalo needs to be proactive in order to accomplish its goals. Too often preservationists are only reactive, responding when plans to demolish a building are announced. While fighting demolition plans have resulted in many significant victories over the years, including the ECC City Campus and the Guaranty Building, far more must be done to give our built environment the protection it needs.
Rocco outlined several other steps he believes the preservation community must take.
Buildings must be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This makes the building eligible for federal historic tax credits, which can provide up to 20% of a project’s financing. This is critical to a project’s financing. If a developer in Buffalo could convert a 100 year old warehouse into loft apartments and then charge New York City or Boston level rents, the project would pay for itself. However, rents in Buffalo aren’t nearly that high, even for luxury apartments, and rent income alone may cover about half the cost of the project. Historic tax credits help cover that financing gap.
Unfortunately, many developers are reluctant to use such tax credits. The New York State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) must approve all plans, to be sure the building’s historic character is not compromised. SHPO has a negative image in the development community, because guidelines are strict, and many believe that SHPO demands will make the project much more expensive and troublesome. Rocco argued, however, that dealing with SHPO is really not so burdensome, that one just needs to take a little more time to negotiate. The officials at SHPO are just as anxious to preserve that building, and they know that unreasonably expensive requirements can kill a project. A developer and SHPO can work together.
We need a New York State historic tax credit. While a limited tax credit was passed last year, it is focused on residential restoration, and commercial projects are eligible for a maximum $100,000 credit. In a multimillion-dollar project, this will be of negligible help. Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver has held up a more generous tax credit bill for years, worried that it would lead to runaway gentrification in New York City. An answer to this concern is to limit the tax credit to cities with populations under 500,000. As Rocco said, Buffalo needs gentrification.
The preservation community needs to meet as soon as possible with Daniel Gunderson, newly appointed Upstate Chair of the Empire State Development Corporation. Preservationists, developers, and preservation architects must make the argument that preservation is an economic development tool. Gunderson’s support may help get a state historic tax credit and other important legislation passed.
We need to educate our building inspectors in preservation and restoration. Building inspectors are the people who make recommendations to judges on whether a building needs to be demolished. Their orientation is toward problems in a building, not opportunities. They also may not be aware of possible solutions to many of these problems. As a result, the city’s inspectors are too often ready to declare a building in need of demolition. Rocco said, “Any building can be restored. It just depends on whether we want to get it done and at what cost.”
We also need to educate developers. The market downtown is in old buildings. The demand for downtown housing is tremendous; Rocco gets 5 or 6 calls a day. However, these people want to live in old buildings. They want a brick wall or huge windows. If people keep tearing down old buildings, especially for parking, there won’t be old buildings left to develop. Which has more value, a restored building yielding rents, or a parking lot?
We must also enforce code enforcement. Too many buildings are owned by out of town landlords who don’t care what happens to the city. Speculators hold onto others, waiting for a sale price they will never get. Finally, some are refused a demolition permit, and leave the building to rot, hoping it will collapse of its own accord. In all of these cases, the building owners are putting no money into maintenance. So many of our buildings, buildings that could be converted into housing, offices, shopping, are being allowed to slowly fall apart. Why is this important? Because this is our city, and those buildings are part of our future, or they will be if they survive long enough. Any property owner has a legal responsibility to keep up his property. This means a roof with a hole in it must be fixed. A broken window must be replaced, not just boarded up. It does not matter if the building is vacant. The city inspection department must vigorously pursue and enforce all building violations. Fines must be raised many fold. It is often far cheaper to just pay the fine than to make the necessary repairs. This cannot be allowed to continue.
Most of all, Rocco urged the preservation community to “Never give up.” He sure doesn’t.
This lecture was given as part of the Downtown Revealed lecture series. It was followed by a tour by Denise Prince of the Old Federal Post Office/ECC City Campus, one of Buffalo’s best examples of adaptive reuse. This lecture series is sponsored by Buffalo Tours, a joint production of Landmark Society and Preservation Coalition.
Next Saturday, March 3, will be Art Deco in Buffalo, the fifth installment in the series.
Irene Ayad, professor of architectural history, will talk about Art Deco. This will be followed by a tour by David Granville of perhaps Buffalo’s best example of Art Deco, City Hall. The whole program starts at 10:30 AM at the Market Arcade Film and Arts Center, 639 Main Street. Cost is $10.
What Others Have To Say
What Do You Think?
Related Articles
-
From b-movies to Mystic Motion
Through our b-movie madness night (Sundays*), we've been introducing people to the New Phoenix Theatre on Johnson Park. It's been really great to see the look on people's faces when they first walk into this historic building built in 1885. That's because the history of the building is really quite something. At one point it was a lecture hall for Buffalo Seminary. Then it became a séance house before becoming a soup kitchen. Eventually the building, like so many others in Buffal … - Today, 3:44pm
- Continue Reading
- Join the conversation
-
Ukrainian Club delivers promise of cabbage rolls
Once upon a time, the only place to get a good cabbage roll was at a peasant's home in an Eastern European village. Around since the 1930's, the Ukrainian-American Civic Center, one of the oldest operating ethnic clubs in the area, has served the social welfare needs of immigrant families.
My family was one of them.
Many dances, weddings and holiday events have been held in the hall. I have a glorious picture of my grandmother decked out in an eerie Santa-like formal gown.
… - Today, 11:39am
- Continue Reading
- Join the conversation
-
Action Meeting
On his 60th day in his new office, Commissioner of Economic Development, Permit and Inspection Services Brian Reilly called a meeting at Belmont Shelter's offices, 1195 Main Street, last night in order to ask the question: How Can We Maximize the Local Economic and Social Capital Impacts of Buffalo’s Vacant and Abandoned Residential Properties? The neighborhoods in question run from Main Street to Jefferson Avenue and Best Street to Kensington Avenue, and are best known as the … - Today, 8:52am
- Continue Reading
- 6 Comments
-
New Organization From The Buffalo Niagara Partnership
The Buffalo Niagara Partnership encompasses almost 2,500 employers who are dedicated to helping the region prosper. After much success in bringing its members together to connect, network, and learn from their peers, the partnership came up with a new idea to gear towards professionals: Buffalo Niagara 360. The new organization dedicated to helping showcase what the region has to offer to professionals – from jobs, to places to live, to places to play.
Buffalo Niagara 360 will … - Today, 7:13am
- Continue Reading
- 2 Comments
Comment Options
MikeInWNY
As much as I love to see Buffalo's architectural history preserved, I can not support projects financed by money that is forcefully taken by the State from taxpayers. It is morally wrong and completely conflicts with liberty and freedom.
Report this
tinker
It seems that we only hear from the building inspectors and housing court when someone is actively working to improve a structure. Are the building inspectors only interested in buildings that have an active permit open for renovation? This article highlights two of the most significant risks associated with improving property in Buffalo, 1) the building inspector will screw you for all past neglect, and 2) you need to mortgage your future and relinquish control in order to receive funding or support from the state.
My fear is that a tax cut for investment properties will result in 1) more absentee investors who are just interested in the tax credit to use against other properties in their portfolio, and 2) the state will make up the loss in revenue in other taxes. We have to get out of the spiral of using taxes as an incentive for development, in fact we need to get out of the spiral of using taxes for everything. Maybe North Carolina and Virginia are on to something with the user fees in lieu of taxes.
I would like to see the government step aside on issues of private commerce and investment, it is obvious that they are only concerned in code enforcement when they can make a few extra dollars for the coffers. This is my cynical guess as to why they don't go after the absentee owners.
Report this
Reinmoose
Situations like decrepit buildings don't just materialize overnight. It's a result of decades of strangling taxes and regulations that make businesses leave the area, and subsequently the cost of buying and remodeling structures more expensive than it's worth. Incentives to rehab buildings shouldn't even be necessary because if there wasn't massive flight from WNY, the buildings would be occupied, rents would be higher, and this wouldn't even be an issue. It's time to take the choker off of the economy and allow business to operate without such ridiculous costs. Sure, incentives and such are great short-term solutions that yield a result every now and again, but where is that money for the incentives coming from? As a society we spend our taxes on subsidizing the failures in our economy rather than investing in things that will actually gain returns and allow us to someday stop the subsidy. Yes to building-rehab incentives, but only because it's necessary to undo the damage of the past. They should be paired with massive tax-breaks for investment in New York's cities. The historical building rehab incentives should be phased out as economic viability of the projects improve. Or we could continue to tax the living daylights out of ourselves for poorly run programs that take years/decades to accomplish anything and wonder why things aren't improving. Yes to user-fees.
Report this
sbrof
One things to note here, is that Rocco doesn't have any plans in to city hall at all. He started to rebuild these floors without any safety inspector looking over his plans. Thats bad development from a safety side of things and then he goes and calls the deputy mayor and undermines the people who were doing their job. How come a deputy mayor has a final say to safety and code enforcement? Is he trained in such fields, does he know anything about stairwells and fire escapes which have to be built into the building now if he is building the floors back in. This wasn't about the inspectors trying to make things hard for him they love what he does but they want to know what he is doing so that he doesn't cut safety corners like he HAS DONE before. The Ellicott commons, building... has a lobby from an elevator where the only door from it is to a tenants apartment. Lets hope there isn't a fire while you are on the elevator and it dumps you on that floor... cause you are a dead man. He avoids the code, (as all developers do it isn't just him) and therefore causes some of his own problems and it isn't good that he can just make a call to some higher up get out of trouble. Thats politics at its worst. The city should first see if there was actually an issue and if not reprimand the inspector but if there was a legitimate issue the inspectors need to know they are not going to just be ignored. I do agree with him on every other point and love his commitment to downtown, preservation and Buffalo. Codes are there for the safety of the people. You shouldn't try to undermine that just because it will save you a buck or two.
and with the issue of old buildings and tax incentives for them I think is fine. It was federal and state policies that helped push our cities to the state their in. We constantly subsidize the mode of transportation that allowed people to move into Alden and commute to downtown. we subsidized the construction of the highways that cut through our city removing people from the local streets and therefore their effects on he businesses. We subsidized the construction of new suburban homes and NOT renovations of existing homes in cities. Everything that happens in this country doesn't only happen because of freedom and choice, there is a set of public policies that promote or demote everything that happens. Just as it took public subsidies to get people to move to the suburbs (at its beginning) it is going to take public subsidies to get them to reinvest in our decaying cities.
Report this
nick
For those of us in the preservation profession its inspiring to see Rocco's awareness of the need to rehab buildings, and the profit that can be made. As far as the tax expenditures, the federal government choses what activities it wants to promote by using incentives. No one ever complains about deducting mortgage interest or cheritable contributions but these are nearly the same. (yes I know these are credits and not a deduction, but the theory is the same)
As far as problems with the SHPO, this is usually due to the developer's lack of communication. If consultation is begun early, including field visits the developer and architect will be informed of what must be preserved, where there is room for negotiation and what is not historically or architecturally significant.
Report this
coolrobc
sbrof,
I'm just curious if you went to the lecture? I can understand the concern for circumventing safety, but one the issue that Rocco brought up was that given the way the building was constructed, installing the floor joists was the best way to stabilize the structure.
When the issue was brought up but the inspector, he said he brought his structural engineer in to meet with the inspector and the other parties involved to explain why the floor joists were being installed. Rocco stated his permit was for Demolition and Stabilization. I fail to see how floor joists and installing a roof go outside that realm. It's not like he was installing wall staircases, and elevators. It's not all that uncommon when dealing with a bureaucrat to have to go over their head to get things done.
I'm no engineer but it certainly seems reasonable, and much more cost effective, than erecting a steel skeleton inside the building, that would then have to be removed to install the floor joists anyway.
Report this
HelenWheels
tinker, excellent comments.
sbrof, if Rocco doesn;t have any plans at City Hall, how did he get the permit or cne? Don't spread rumors that aren't true. Each permit and cne at each point of the process require certain drawings, plans,etc.
As a point of clarification, this particular inspector is a dolt who wouldn't cite the bad property owners in his former district, only those who were workiing within the system and for the best they could offer Buffalo.
Report this
chris69
Dear MikeinWNY and others,
With regards to tax dollars being used to rehab old buildings I can only partially agree with you.
The part in agreement says that if Buffalo and other municipalities were proactive and strict enough with regards to inspections, citations, enforcement and end of line property seizures then there wouldnt be as much neglect requiring the taxpayers attention.
The part in disagreement references you to the various state and federal agencies responsible for urban renewal, low income and municipal housing, etc that are building little more than cotton picking plantation shacks for slaves....if you can find a way to abolish these agencies then more power to you....however...most other cities have managed to castrate these agencies from their vast demolition and ghetto construction into mixed income multi-use developments such as you are seeing in Buffalo. We can save our urban buildings and the surrounding urban residential community by using the funds wisely.
To let these agencies run amok with their financing can only be destructive for Buffalo and Buffalonians.
To let the financing and funds from these agencies remain unspent means a valuable tool to stimulate Buffalos economic engine....and livability isnt being tapped. In addition unspect state and federal funds never means that your taxes are going to go down because of a localities frugality or some such other reason....it just means that those unspent funds will be redirected to other communities that will spend the money.
So if you cant slay the dragon and you cannot ignore the dragon then you better learn to tame it and ride it where you would like it to go!
Report this
STEEL
So the way it works:
Building rots for years until it is on the verge of collapse = no inspector
Building is being stabilized by well know successful developer = inspector
Report this
Spoiled
Local developer...& saving old buildings (re-cycle, re-use)...asking for the preservationist to unite and speak with one voice...asking the community to get involved with passion...Sounds like a leader to me.
How often does this happen?
Report this
nick
It happens until preservationists step out of bounds and try to protect buildings that others want to come down. See Atwater Building.
Report this
sbrof
I did attend the lecture and I love what Rocco does for the city. His effort to preserve and re-use buildings are mostly right on. But he is a developer and developers tend to always paint the inspections department in a negative light. Some of it is warranted, some of it isn't. Were the floor joists the best way to stabilize the building, sure. I don't think he was getting any slack for that but was he upfront about that before he started doing it? Who knows. When I think stabilization I don't think interior reconstruction I think steel frame like we see on Genesee Street or the Mansion on Delaware but I do agree rebuilding the floors and roof are the best ways to stabilize the building. But when you rebuild the floors you need to plan ahead on where the stairwells or elevator shafts are going to go, that does involve safety inspectors because there are codes and regulations that go along with them. So proper plans should have been submitted for such things. And it is very often the case that inspectors get overruled by politicians without following the proper guidelines. The Hampton Inn on Delaware was almost fully constructed and finished before actual plans were submitted. How can a developer get permits? because of political clout, the commissioner will stamp things, because the boss the mayor or deputy mayor says to... Does it happen a lot? I don't think as much as it used to but it does happen.
And there is always the possibility that the inspector Rocco had was just a dolt. There are always the political hacks although from what I know many of them were kicked out during the end of the Massiello admin but probably not all. They cut their workforce for permits and inspections by a lot. Which is partly the reason you don't have people on problems of vacant building owners. I know they used to give the "eves and railing" jobs to the people who didn't know how to do anything else. Now they are so stretched keeping up with new projects that those sorts of random inspections have probably come to a stop. Which makes the inspections department like the preservationists, reactive. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. If someone is quiet and no one is calling them out on it they have other jobs to attend to.
Report this
coolrobc
Good point about the elevator shafts and stairwells, I thought of that after I submitted my post.
I think it relates to the point that Rocco brought up about inspectors being better trained.
Rocco had plans, and it seems the plans were not required for the demolition and stabilization permit. Maybe a basic structural plan should be required for that type of permit. It would eliminate this type of problem in the future. Or if not plans, at least a detailed description of the type of stabilization being done, to determine of plans are needed.
Report this
Olcott_Beach
It is nice to know that Rocco Termini has begun restoration of the former Webb Building and I am perplexed as to why the City of Buffalo’s building inspector would have gone so far as to call the police.
Restoration efforts should be applauded and not hampered; perhaps the inspector felt that he was doing his duty but his actions indicate someone with limited building construction knowledge.
I have often heard the stories of patronage in the form of individuals being given city jobs who have little to no education or experience in the field in which they are employed. I often wonder if this is one of the reasons why I have never been able to land a position with the city or state, but I digress…
Steel made a good point; a building degrades to the point of near collapse and there is no reaction from the buildings inspector’s office but, once a well-intended individual steps up to the plate, some buffoon decides that he needs to justify his existence.
Please continue with your good work Rocco Termini.
Report this
eastendbuffalo
Rocco has been amazing. Thank you. I almost rented from Rocco, but because of the city's instability, I declined. I am so pleased to see someone finally respectful of keeping a clear eye on the quaintness and value of certain areas. Those areas stand out and attract so many of those who will spend and support. Thanks Rocco.
Report this
westsidemike
eastendbuffalo...."city's instability?" How about the county and state, and country for that matter? Thanks for the support.
Report this
MRodgers
Rocco's talk on Saturday provided a great deal of information that many have been wondering about. I agree with him that many of our city inspectors need to be brought up to speed regarding adaptive reuse and the measures necessary to totally assure any buildiing taken under wing by a developer has needs that assure stability of the structure as well as his comments regarding boarded windows.
Boarded windows make the city looked "boarded up" as a whole. There are other measures that can be performed to assure the security of a vacant structure - like - oh, maybe - do something with the building instead of letting it sit and rot. But, I'm getting off topic here.
Due to the redistricting of inspectors my neighborhood has new life being breathed into it. Thanks to all at City Hall that allowed this redistricting to occur. Our new inspector met with the WVRG Board and a reporting system has been established. Now we have the opportunity to never allow what happened to the Greystone ever occur again.
Hmm, did I say Greystone? Yup, and I guess that's the next project on Rocco's list. Thanks, Rocco, for having the vision to restore unwanted structures into something usable and desired for our city's future.
Report this
VictrolaMan
As to inspectors in Buffalo: They are ignorant political appointees.
As to rebuilding anything: If Dresden could be rebuilt after our heroic government fire-bombed it, anything can be rebuilt.
Report this
DanielSack
Now that a worker has died at the site and the Buffalo News reported today that inspectors have been thwarted by City Hall officials in their attempt to properly monitor the construction I wonder if contributors here might have different opinions.
Report this