In depth with Mayor Restaino Part VII

For the 7th consecutive month, the Express sat for an in-depth interview with Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino. Nothing was off limits and there was no agreement to shape any of the conversation.

About that dog shelter

So when will there be an RFP for the dog shelter?

“Right after the dog run is completed, we're creating a different, outdoor space. It's gonna be quite nice and will allow the dogs, to be able to exercise in a closed end facility with artificial turf and drainage. We might even have some things in there for agility.

“The idea will be packing that all into an RFP so that an operator has that available.

“We want to give operators the option of doing other things within the facility.”

Main Street looks dead

When will there be demonstrable improvement on Main Street?

“Right now, there's demonstrable improvement because several buildings are being made weather tight.

“We've got roofers on two buildings, tightening them up. Yeah.

We've got another one where we're, um, rebricking

the back.

“Every one of the developers who has signed a contract for purchase has a development enforcement mortgage. So they know what the time frame is for their work to get done.”

How many different contracts are there?

“Probably eight, and some of those involve some of the homes

along Division and Lincoln, you know, where they turn them into vacation homes.”

Is there gonna be another press conference about progress? People want to see things happening?

“Right now, tentatively speaking, there's one scheduled for the end of October.”

So specifically, what's going on with the Jenss building? Is that closed? Is it in process?

“It's under contract, but they haven't taken title yet. They're just looking at a couple of details but they have now a design. They've changed their design for what they wanted to do on the first floor.”

The first floor will include “ghost kitchen” space for food truck operators as well as a sort of food court/bazaar where they can peddle ready-made food.

The first apartment will be built out as a model.

“I don't blame people for wanting to see a crane or hard hats” Restaino said. “I get that. I want to see it too. They're getting their financing pulled together. The goal is, that when they get started, they're able to get across the finish line. Understand that move fast enough for me, either.”

Is it different this time?

What do you say to people who look at it and say, you know, for 40 years between Hastings and Blue Cardinal, I've never seen anything happen and it's never gonna happen? What makes this time different?

“Here's what I would say to them: ‘The Urban Renewal Agency took title for those properties in March of 2025.

“ ‘We'd had those properties essentially for a year and a half,

and in that year and a half.

“ ‘We have committed contracts that will total private investment development of approximately $40 million dollars.

“ ‘And that is running in parallel to the design work

that should be getting started relative to the streetscape.

“ ‘So yes, yes. You know, we're, we're, committed and a half that couldn't happen in the last 40 years.’

“So that's what I would say, but I don't want to say that flippantly. You know what I mean?

“Like, I'm not dismissing the fact that people are frustrated.

Well, I get it.”

What about the trauma?

Andrea Klyczek of the Niagara County IDA said it to me one day. “The people who grew up here have a sense of trauma because they saw what it was.” I don't share that trauma because I wasn't here. Morgan Genovese doesn't share that trauma because she wasn't here, which is why we both probably are way more optimistic than most of the people who have lived the decline.

“That's the reason why I go to these economic development meetings with them, and I'm the cat on a hot tin roof.

‘I'm the one that's saying, Man, Because of what you just described, I hear the same stories you get told probably by a zillion people about Mr. Chef's and that little soda shop that was there, yeah, and the Christmas decorations, Jenss elevator, and all that. It was nice.”

The Rapids Theatre

So, what's up with the Rapids Theatre? I talked to Chris Ring recently. He seems like he’s facing a sobering reality about the speed of things but moving forward. Editor’s note: Genovese addressed the URA last night, including council members Cauley, Archie and Perry and spoke about the objective vetting of the application that won and that of Jesse Gooch who is still mewling on the internet. Objectively scored, Ring and Segal won 84-70 even with Jeremy Geartz on the committee. Andrea Klyczek recused herself. As the Express has said before, if there was a fix, it would have been for Gooch but he offered, among other things, no credible proof of financing among other things.

“We had a conversation shortly in the last couple of weeks.

And I think what's happened is Chris has himself extended in a couple of locations.

“And I think one of the things that he's now looking to do is see whether or not the Urban Renewal Agency can do some of the exterior work, namely the roofing. So we're working now on putting resources together.

“Now that's gonna impact, and we've had this conversation with, with Chris and Dale Segal about how that impacts the grant package, because some of the grant package included their construction remediation of the roofing.

“The fact that we may be now taking that on will impact both the grant stack and I think Chris is good with all that. At least that's the last that was reported to me.”

Where does it go from here? What is next?

“I've asked Morgan to give me the points of interest

so that I could get at least a letter of intent created for his company and our URA.

“That way we appreciate, you know, what the relationship is. So that's no longer just a series of phone calls and open-ended emails. It formalizes things.”

State of Emergency

The state of emergency's done. Did it make a difference or did it just preserve the status quo?

“I don't think that people really understand what the state of emergency was. It was to sign a contract. Because the council wouldn't authorize it. It wasn't to do a volume of work. It isn't as though, like you create a state of emergency during a hurricane.

And so you're there for a period of time to no, that's not what it was. The council wouldn't approve contracts for grass cutting and for road paving. We had to get those things done. So those who say that nothing has changed lose the fact that there are 500 private properties approximately that got mowed. That number could be plus or minus. There's 500 private properties that have been cleared, tagged properties, cleared by this third party contract that we enter into.

“Pursuant to the state of emergency, and they're continuing to cut.They haven't stopped.So the state of emergency terminating was simply the fact that we no longer needed to operate under it because there was a fixed funding mechanism for both the streets and the grass.”

What about street paving?

“As soon as the catch basins come in, they'll be doing 18th

street and Packard Road.

“We're avoiding the streets that would impact schools

so that we don't create unnecessary inconvenience.”

How about those alleys

Now, talk to me a bit about what's going on

with the alleys and State Tourism Route (STR) fund.

“You know, generally, it's probably been several generations since alleys have been really looked at seriously. So we put out a request for proposals. The only response was Azar group telling us what they will do.

“There are 170 alleys on the local road itinerary that are part of the STR. So it's not all the alleys, but it's a good chunk of them. “There's no way our own engineering people could go and survey all of them. That's gonna be a pretty hefty job.”

So the item that was on the agenda was to let Azar

do that.

“What they'll do is they'll assess the alley conditions from worst to okay, if I can use that. I don't think you're gonna find any of them that are gonna be spectacular. And also compute estimated cost.

“One of the things that we thought would be beneficial

is that this is an objective review by an outside concern. There's no politics in it.

“There's no, ‘I want to do these, but I don't want to do these.’ They'll give us an assessment.

“And then what we will, endeavor to do is commit a certain block annual from the STR money.”

How long has that STR money been around?

“I want to say a few years. I don't know exactly when the funding started. It's squarely in our attention. It's really become a good resource for road repair, freeing up CHIPS funding for equipment purchases. You can purchase equipment under CHIPS, so we're now able to use both of those buckets for important things.” CHIPs is the state’s Consolidated Highway Improvement Program.

The mayor said Azar will be grading 170 alleys and they will be systematically fixed over several years.

“We will slowly whittle away at it, and do something

quite honestly, as I say it has been generations since I think there's been an active kind of program.”

Tourism advisory board and the amphitheater

What would you think of the idea of reforming a tourism advisory board?

“It's always good to have people provide their opinions on things because it's crazy to think that you know, just a tourism agency or, or, you know, industry observations, all of which are important.”

What is going on with the amphitheater taking shape downtown?

The mayor said he, too, is discouraged by the speed of the project and he admits there is a need for a big sign to let people know what is coming.

The amphitheater will be city property but likely will have a third part as operator. It will seat 1200 to 1400 people.

Is there a concern that it could become a troublesome place for the ne’er-o-wells to hang out?

“Well, that's always a concern. I mean, yeah, no, if, if, you think in those terms, then we built nothing. But I'd like to think that we've got the state police barracks right there. That should help.”

City Market v. Third Street

How is the city market coming along?

The city is in the process of creating a Website so people can be updated. The design is still in process.

Flynn Battaglia is the architect and is still making revisions. Once they've settled on a design they want to start promoting, there will be stakeholder meetings rolling it out for people.

What's going on with Third Street? At this point, Main Street's gonna be done before Third Street.

“I know that Morgan (Genovese) spends time in calls with USA Niagara about what's happening, like why, why aren't we moving on from some of these preferred developers who are preferring to do nothing.

“I mean, again, you know, one just has to remember that Third Street is completely out of city government's wheelhouse. I thought we're gonna see that brewery open.”

What's up with the Hotel Niagara?

“Saturday when I was downtown there were a whole bunch of workers inside doing some things like wiring and some infrastructure stuff inside.

“I don't think they started plastering and drywalling anything yet, but I think they're while they've got the walls open they're doing some work in there.”

Trying to wrap up

What else is new, fun and different? Have you had inquiries from investors?

The mayor said he had a series of meeting with potential investors over these last couple weeks but no one has pulled the trigger yet. Discussions with SUNY Niagara and Niagara University over student housing are ongoing as well.

“The other thing, too, that's happened is I'm having serious conversations about how do you reinvent Buffalo Avenue? It can't just sit behind sheltered fences as piles of rubble. You've got to come up with a plan for it.”

What could you put there though with it being so toxic?

“It's never gonna be housing. It's only gonna be part of the data industry. That's all it can be. There's nothing ever going to be anything there other than that. And if you do that, there has to be a commitment from these companies to invest in the city.

“All I'm saying is: if these companies aren't gonna cut loose the land, then plant trees. Give me a forest if you're not gonna give me the ability to do anything else with this.

“Light manufacturing is all that's left for that place. And I'm talking about you build, you essentially build you know, one or two story brick warehouses on a pad.”

Tax sale update

How's the tax sale progressing?

“We're in the phase where we're doing the title searches where we're finding out that if my property is getting foreclosed, and Joe Genco has a lien on my property, we're learning that.

“So then when we send out the notices, you're made aware of the fact the property you have a lien on is now in foreclosure. That's the process we're in right now.”

How many properties are there?

“We're trying to keep it in a number around 800, which means some may end up falling off to the next foreclosure.”

The mayor said title searches cost about $2,000 to $2,500 each meaning some properties are not worth the cost of the search. There may be exceptions made when an owner has multiple low value parcels.

About that council

With that, he changed the subject.

“I hope you understand for the council that the local development corporation is really the vehicle that helps protect city taxpayers because it takes the whole land development out of the city's hands.

“Those who say the city council should be the one, yeah, great, that just keeps city taxpayers in the bullseye. The question is, how do we get them out of it? And you get them out of it through this local development corporation.”

Who is going to loan the amount of money it takes for a project of this size?

“The LDC has to go figure that out. You know, Uncle Ben and Aunt Sally aren't on the LDC. You put people who volunteer for these kinds of things.

“They're bankers, they're finance people, they're managers, they're developers. They sit on these kinds of LDCs like they did with the Bill Stadium, and they figure out: okay, ‘where do we get financing for this? What do we need? Where can we borrow? What equity partners can we get? How do we make this thing work?

“I'll be honest with you. I'm not saying that I have all those answers. All I'm saying is that you create the LDC, you equip it with a board that has that capacity and then let them go to work.”

The mayor said the most recent proposal for the LDC. after the council met with attorney Terry Gilbride of Hodgson Russ, attempted to address the council’s concerns.

Where Gilbride left it as a compromise he thought the council agreed on was for the Mayor's office and council to each appoint two seats with a 5th either agreed jointly or, without agreement going to a State Supreme Court judge.

“And that's what was on the agenda” Restaino said “Joe, my head hurts. They (the council) keep changing and moving the goalposts every two minutes. It's hard.

“And what I say to the council is this: why do you want to keep

keeping this as a conversation piece? It is death by a thousand cuts? Vote the LDC in place, get that entity going, and it's no longer on a council agenda. You're no longer dealing with it.

It's them now. They're dealing with the development. They're dealing with all of the issues. They're looking for financing.

They're doing it. Which to me, if I'm an elected official, I can't wait till the LDC so I'm no longer in the middle of this thing.”

Dog shelter followup
So if I go back to the beginning, the dog shelter, when is there gonna be an RFP?

“We just got the floors done. We want to make sure that the facility itself is ready for a developer. Now, we can't presuppose what the dog run cost is gonna be, although we have the funding

to take care of it based on the estimate we have. But we want to be able to say ‘this is what you're getting if you're the operator.’

Because if you get an operator in place and you're still building.

But there's a need. There's no question there's a need.

There's no question there's. It's just that it's not ready yet to get out there simply because of these add-ons that we've done.

You know, we've had some money, we've got the ability to add these things on.”