BUFFALO, N.Y. — After numerous delays due to a lack of funding and lawsuits, the long awaited demolition of the vacant Shoreline Apartments on Niagara Street downtown has begun.
Crews were out early Thursday morning to begin the process of demolishing the building.
Built in 1971 to provide affordable housing, the complex became run down in recent years, and after the last of the tenants were vacated in 2017 became an attraction for vandals and vagrants.
Earlier this month, firefighters responded to a blaze set inside one of the empty units, where firefighters had to strip out of their uniforms and get sprayed down in the cold due to the presence of asbestos.
“This has been an incredibly difficult project,” said Linda Goodman, vice president of Norstar Development, who said she has been involved in plans to replace the Shoreline Apartments with new units for a decade.
New apartments planned
Norstar’s $34 million plan is to demolish the 16 buildings and replace them with 166 units for middle and low-income residents, which will be half the number of units as contained in the original Shoreline complex.
The plan could not come to fruition, however, until the State of New York provided significant grants.
“We were working with the state for several years to gather enough financing to do it all in one phase,” Goodman said. “It’s going to be far faster and easier to do it in one phase.”
Long road to here
In addition, the project faced court challenges, including from tenant John Schmidt, who went to city court to fight his eviction and remained as the lone occupant of the complex until early 2018.
Subsequently, Schmidt joined preservationist Terry Robinson in a suit seeking to annul the city Planning Board's approval of the demolition of the buildings designed by noted modernist architect Paul Rudolph. Their suit was eventually dismissed, paving the way for the demolition.
“The demolition will take three to four months, and we expect it to be completed around Memorial Day, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said.
Rousting squatters
According to Brown, a team including police officers accompanied by members of the Matt Urban Center homeless outreach program did walk-throughs of the structures on Wednesday night to make sure there was no one still in them before the demolition work begins. No one was found.
“Those teams will continue to make their rounds throughout the demolition process to make sure that the demolition can be performed in a way that is safe,” Brown said.
“We’re not coming in here just to take anyone out and make arrests,” Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said in describing the city’s efforts to roust any remaining squatters.
“The intended purpose is to get them help, get them housing, and to get them services,” Gramaglia said.
Environmental concerns
“There is a minimal amount of asbestos in there, and it’s all going to be wet down along with all the dust on a daily basis,” said Buffalo’s commissioner of permit and inspection services, James Comerford, Jr., in his attempt to assure neighbors there will be no deleterious impact on the surrounding averment as contractors demolish the buildings.
“We’ll have someone out here every day to ensure they do it properly,” Comerford added.