By David J. Hill
The Tonawanda News
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With its dilapidated old buildings leveled and the environmental contamination cleaned up, the sprawling 47-acre Spaulding Fibre site is now open for development, officials representing numerous local and state agencies said Wednesday.
“Historic moments are few and far between, but today is one such moment,” state Assemblyman Robin Schimminger, D-Kenmore, said. “Through the efforts of an extraordinary team exhibiting intergovernmental cooperation at its finest coupled with private sector involvement, the Spaulding Fibre site is ready for redevelopment.”
Officials said it is now up to developers to make good use of the site, which will significantly add to the city’s tax base. “With the remediation and demolition behind us, we can now lay down the infrastructure that will attract residents and businesses and increase the local tax base to help secure the community’s future prosperity,” said Ray Witzleben of Empire State Development’s Restore New York program, which provided more than $5 million to the site’s demolition and cleanup.
“The government has done its job,” he added. “Now it’s our turn to get out of the way. I challenge the private sector developers to come in here and give us something wonderful for the community and create some jobs.”
To prepare the site for future development, city leaders are set to rezone the property to accommodate light industrial and commercial uses as opposed to the heavy industrial operations it is currently zoned to support. The city’s Common Council will conduct a public hearing on the rezoning at its Sept. 7 meeting.
“Right now it’s zoned M-1 (heavy industry), and that’s not what we want,” Mayor Ron Pilozzi said, adding, “That’s the reason for the rezoning — to protect the neighborhood and the city as a whole.”
With the remediation efforts largely complete, the city has received some interest from developers. “We’ve had some nibbles,” Pilozzi said, adding that he couldn’t elaborate on specifics.
“Today marks the end of another chapter in the history of the Spaulding Fibre site. Now that demolition and remediation have been completed, we now have a 47-acre economic development site to help create jobs and build our tax base,” the mayor said. “Restoring this site to new development is vital to the economic health of the City of Tonawanda.”
Officials say the most likely use for the site involves a suburban style office or light manufacturing park, similar to Colvin Woods in the Town of Tonawanda or the Tonawanda Centre of Industry off of the Twin City Memorial Highway.
“That’s probably more of what you’re going to get. The million square feet user, you just don’t see that out there,” said Ken Swanekamp of the Erie County Office of Economic Development, an organization that has sat in on the city’s bi-weekly Spaulding Fibre Steering Committee meetings.
“They’re not going to build a Saturn plant out here. This is going to be most likely two- to five-acre users who want to put in light industrial,” Swanekamp said, adding that the likely spin-off will be added jobs for people in the surrounding neighborhoods.
The site’s plan will include requirements for greenspace and design criteria for the new buildings, which will be limited to a height of three stories, according to Swanekamp. “There won’t be anything so massive that it overwhelms the adjoining residential areas,” he said.
All told, it took $18.9 million in funding to demolish and remediate the Spaulding site, Schimminger said. The plant ceased operations in 1992 after the company went bankrupt, leaving the city with a massive parcel of land that contained numerous buildings in disrepair. Knowing they would never obtain the money needed to level the site in one shot, city officials decided instead to undergo the remediation work in stages, receiving aid in batches along the way.
Officials also were in agreement Wednesday that the success of the Spaulding Fibre revitalization effort is due largely to the collaboration between numerous agencies and elected officials at all levels, from city government to federal lawmakers.
“As a result of the strong partnership between DEC, local government and federal agencies, this former brownfield is shovel ready and can now be redeveloped into an economic asset to this community,” Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis said.
“This is nothing short of a miracle,” Erie County Legislator Kevin Hardwick said of the collaborative effort.
