By Nora Kowalczyk
BUFFALO — A downtown developer is asking the Buffalo Common Council to overrule the city’s Preservation Board and let it tear down a roughly 150-year-old brick building at 328 North Oak St., promising to rebuild a look-alike in its place.
Main Gateway L.P., an affiliate of Frank A. Chinnici’s Legacy Development, filed the appeal with the City Clerk on Oct. 22. It is on the Council’s agenda for Tuesday’s 2 p.m. session as item 26-000885, where it is expected to be referred to the Committee on Legislation for a public hearing.
The three-story building sits in the Genesee Gateway Historic District, a cluster of 19th-century commercial buildings just north of Genesee Street. Legacy bought it as part of a six-property assemblage between Ellicott and Oak streets from Adler for $2.7 million in May 2020, Buffalo Rising reported.
A close vote that fell short
According to the appeal packet, the Preservation Board voted 4-3 on Oct. 15 in favor of a certificate of exception, the hardship route the city code provides when an owner shows a building cannot earn a reasonable return. Six votes were required, so the request failed. The board separately denied a certificate of appropriateness 7-0, finding demolition inconsistent with federal preservation standards, the packet says.
Main Gateway says the board’s chair, Gwen Howard, was among the four votes in favor, and that she “stated on the record that MGW had proven rehabilitation financially infeasible, and no Board member disagreed.” The Buffalo Chronicle has not reviewed a recording of the meeting to confirm that account.
Under City Code Section 337-26, the Council can reverse the board. The packet says the Council must act within 60 days of the filing and state its reasons.
The developer’s numbers
The appeal rests on an engineering report and a financial model.
Main Gateway’s structural engineer, John Schenne of Schenne & Associates, concluded that the brick walls are failing throughout the building. “The building’s deterioration is systemic, not isolated,” Mr. Schenne wrote, according to the packet.
The company’s original application to the Preservation Board, quoted by Buffalo Rising in July, went further. “Our consulting structural engineer has determined that the building is so extensively compromised that demolition is the only practicable remedy, renovation being theoretically possible only at cost no economically rational owner or public body could be expected to bear,” it said.
The financial analysis in the appeal pegs a renovation of the 4,140-square-foot building into three apartments at $1.91 million, or $462 a square foot. It says that figure is based on what the company spent in 2021 renovating 130 Genesee St. next door, plus $209,000 for stabilization and bank financing costs, with no adjustment for inflation.
Against that, the company projects the finished building would be worth $816,000 based on market rents, plus about $291,000 in net historic tax credits, for a total of $1.107 million. That leaves a gap of about $803,000.
“Not a question of profit,” the appeal says. “Even at a $0 return, the project destroys capital.”
The nonprofit offer
The packet also describes four months of back-and-forth with Preservation Buffalo Niagara, the region’s main preservation nonprofit, after the board tabled the application in June and asked the developer to explore a transfer.
Main Gateway says it offered the building to the group on Oct. 5 for $1, with access easements. It says the nonprofit concluded on Oct. 13 that the building “isn’t really sellable or financeable,” and that its only proposal “asked MGW for cash, an additional parcel, and rights over MGW’s entire development site, in exchange for taking the building.”
That is the developer’s characterization. The Buffalo Chronicle has asked Preservation Buffalo Niagara for its account and will update this story with any response.
What Legacy is promising
If the Council grants the appeal, Main Gateway says it will accept three conditions: LIDAR documentation of the building, reconstruction “in substantial conformance with that record” and reuse of “salvageable original material.”
“Our reconstruction delivers essentially the same building in appearance, without the $803,000 loss,” the appeal says.
The company says the building is part of a state Brownfield Cleanup Program site where it has invested more than $3.5 million, and that Empire State Development recently asked it for a proposal tied to the state’s ACHIEVE funding program. The packet does not describe a timeline for the larger redevelopment or for the reconstruction.
The block has already lost much of its historic fabric. In July 2021, the front facade of neighboring 324 North Oak collapsed, and portions of 334 North Oak were demolished in 2022 and 2023, according to Buffalo Rising. Legacy has pointed to its rehabilitations of 810 Main St., Theater Place at 622 Main St. and 130 Genesee St. as evidence that, in its words, it preserves buildings “when it can be done.”
The Committee on Legislation will schedule the public hearing. The Buffalo Chronicle has also asked Mr. Chinnici for comment.
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