NIAGARA FALLS, NY – The abandoned Mt. St Mary's Hospital at 515 6th street has been a vacant eyesore for nearly 20 years, which Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster hopes can someday be reclaimed for a useful purpose.
"I can't tell you there's an active redevelopment project on the way... but it's a building that is very prominent and I think it would be an important symbol for the neighborhood to see something positive happening there. I think that's next on the agenda in terms of what we're doing in that part of the city," Dyster told WGRZ-TV.
The sprawling complex, which covers nearly one-half of a city block, began as a hospital more than 100 years ago. It served as such until 1965, when the current Mount St. Mary's was built in Lewiston. The building then became St. Mary's Manor, a nursing home, and functioned as such until being shuttered in the 1990s.
The property owner, according to the city assessor's office, is Dulzura Inc., which lists as its address a post office box in Las Vegas, Nevada. An internet search for that company reveals an address for a retirement community. The company's principal is John S Ray. Efforts to reach Ray for comment were unsuccessful.
"I think the current owner was trying to pre-qualify the structure for historic preservation tax credits," said Dyster. "So whether he was the developer, or whether he sold it to someone else who was going to develop it, they would know that it would qualify for historic preservation tax credits in advance."
Such historic tax credits were key to some other notable re-use projects, such as the Hotel Lafayette, and the Richardson complex in Buffalo. Without those credits, developers have said both might remain abandoned eyesores today.
But this would be a heavy lift.
Photos of the building's interior taken last spring by some urban spelunkers, and posted on the web site ArchitecturalAfterlife.com give an all too clear picture of what 20 years of decay can do, and the monumental task at hand for anyone with a dream to restore it.
"We've had some just very brief discussions during a walk around with our Housing and Community Redevelopment commissioner about this," said Dyster, noting that in the past year several subsidized housing projects have taken shape on street surrounding the old hospital. "As we were looking at what was happening in that neighborhood, I think that his recommendation was that we look at that building as a potential next project. I think the building has a lot of history, I think it could be an aesthetically pleasing building, and we'd love to see it adaptively re-used rather than losing another piece of our Niagara Falls history. But you have to have the right developer and the right project to make it happen."
