By Natalie Szymanski
NORTH TONAWANDA, N.Y. — The five-story inpatient tower at the former DeGraff Memorial Hospital has sat empty for years. Brian Smith, the University at Buffalo-trained planner who runs real estate development for People Inc., wants it full of senior citizens.
“We’re looking at doing a true mixed use, adaptive reuse of the bed tower at DeGraff Memorial Hospital. We’re looking at about 70 units of senior housing,” Mr. Smith told WGRZ when the Williamsville-based nonprofit unveiled the plan last December.
He has also been careful not to oversell it. “We have a long way to go,” he told WBEN.
Mr. Smith holds a bachelor’s degree in communication and a master’s degree in urban planning from UB, according to his People Inc. leadership biography. UB’s School of Architecture and Planning lists him as a 2010 bachelor’s graduate and a 2014 master of urban planning graduate in a January profile of one of his design partners. He joined People Inc. in 2023 as vice president of real estate development, and his biography now lists him as a senior vice president responsible for the agency’s development activities, facilities and tax credit property portfolio.
The DeGraff conversion is the largest test yet of that job. It is also a window into how a nonprofit that owns or manages more than 30 affordable properties has been adding housing: piece by piece, with state tax credits, in buildings and neighborhoods that private developers have often passed over.
A 1962 tower and a long list of conditions
People Inc. announced on Dec. 2, 2025, that it was seeking to redevelop the inpatient bed tower at 445 Tremont St., which the agency said had been vacant for more than eight years. (The Gazette later reported that Kaleida ended inpatient services there in 2019.) The proposal called for 65 to 80 apartments for income-eligible seniors age 55 and older, including 18 units for seniors facing housing instability or living with chronic health conditions, plus an employee training center and a day habilitation program for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The release said People Inc.’s purchase of the building from Kaleida Health is contingent on securing funding from multiple state and federal sources. Kaleida’s emergency department, rehabilitation and skilled nursing facility and outpatient clinics on the DeGraff campus are to remain open.
“People Inc. is proud to meet the demand for affordable and supportive housing while making a meaningful investment in North Tonawanda and the region,” Anne McCaffrey, the agency’s president and chief executive, said in the release.
By January, the plan had firmed up. The Niagara Gazette reported that the Niagara County Planning Board had backed the project and that the tower, built in 1962, would hold 70 apartments, 62 one-bedroom units and eight two-bedrooms, with rents set by income. Kaleida still owned the 1.75-acre property, the paper reported, and People Inc. could not complete the purchase until it won approval from North Tonawanda’s planning and zoning boards.
The financing timeline is long. People Inc. planned to apply for state and federal housing tax credits later in 2026 and would not learn until next year whether they are awarded, according to the Gazette.
“In a best-case scenario, we would love to get started on this in 2027, but some other things have to fall into place in order for that to happen,” Mr. Smith told the paper. In that scenario, the building would open by 2029.
The Buffalo Chronicle could not find a public announcement of a tax credit award or final city approvals since then. People Inc. has also said it will hold a public meeting for residents if the project moves forward. In January, Mr. Smith told the Gazette the agency still intended to do so but had not scheduled it.
Why North Tonawanda, and why a hospital
Mr. Smith has said People Inc. went looking for a North Tonawanda senior housing site before landing on DeGraff.
“It’s a good site for senior housing,” he told WBEN. “It is a site that has so much potential.”
He told WGRZ that demand and unmet needs drove the choice, and noted the site’s proximity to the Erie Canal and the Empire State Trail. “We know there’s demand for senior housing there. We know that there are some gaps in services that we can help provide with our own programs,” he said.
City and county officials quoted at the time were enthusiastic. “You have to view as an absolutely viable project,” North Tonawanda Mayor Austin Tylec told WBEN. “This is a project that makes so much sense.”
Andrea Klyczek, executive director of the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency, told the station: “If anyone can turn around a building like that, it is People Inc.”
Corey Auerbach, a Barclay Damon lawyer representing People Inc., framed it in planning terms before the county board. “It’s a much-needed and desirable housing opportunity for the city that recently went through a new comprehensive plan process,” he said, according to the Gazette.
People Inc. has done this kind of conversion before. Its December release pointed to Folwell Senior Apartments, 44 units that opened in 2023 on the site of the former Children’s Hospital in Buffalo. In North Tonawanda, the agency already operates the Grant Street School Apartments.
A pipeline of finished projects
Since Mr. Smith arrived, People Inc. has finished two large rental projects that he worked on, according to the agency.
The first was Mt. Olive Senior Manor, a $27 million, 65-unit building for adults 55 and older that opened in June 2025 on the grounds of Mt. Olive Baptist Church on Sheridan Avenue in Buffalo. It was co-developed with the church’s development corporation and financed with state Homes and Community Renewal funds, low-income housing and brownfield tax credits, and city support.
The second was Blocher Apartments in the village of Williamsville, a $42.6 million, 93-unit development that the state housing agency announced as complete in April. It renovated the Blocher Homes, a former senior community dating to 1904, and added three new two-story buildings. Twenty-three units are reserved for tenants with developmental disabilities, and the all-electric complex runs on heat pumps. Federal low-income housing tax credits generated $21.2 million of the cost, according to HCR, with the rest coming from state credits and supportive housing money, the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, NYSERDA, the Town of Amherst and the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York.
Smaller projects show how far the job reaches. People Inc. and Niagara Area Habitat for Humanity are building an accessible three-bedroom home on Hinman Street in Youngstown to sell to a buyer earning less than 80 percent of the area median income. The agency calls it its first homeownership project. UB’s profile also lists Juniper, a two-building affordable complex with one building for seniors and one for families.
When Buffalo Business First named Mr. Smith to its 2025 40 Under 40 list, People Inc. credited him with an “instrumental role” in Mt. Olive and Blocher. “Brian Smith is not just a planner. He’s a builder of communities, a connector of people, and a catalyst for change,” said Concetta Ferguson, the agency’s chief innovation officer.
A UB network on both sides of the drawing board
Some of that work runs through UB connections. The School of Architecture and Planning profiled Matthew Long, a 2014 master of architecture graduate whose firm, Long Associates Architects, has designed several People Inc. projects. Mr. Smith and Mr. Long earned their graduate degrees from the school in the same year.
“In order to work our way out of this housing crisis, we need people and firms who are talented and passionate about these projects and seeing them through,” Mr. Smith told the school. “Matt and his team are a great example of some of the great groups we get to work with on our projects at People Inc.”
UB is betting on more of that pipeline. The same profile says the school will launch a graduate certificate in affordable housing in fall 2026.
What comes next
People Inc. counts about 1,300 affordable units, according to an April agency release. Earlier this month the nonprofit broke ground on a $900,000 renovation of the Oxford Square Community Lot next to its Linwood Lafayette Senior Apartments in Buffalo, paid for mostly with a state Dormitory Authority grant.
DeGraff remains the open question. Whether the old bed tower becomes apartments depends on decisions that had not been publicly announced as of this writing: the state’s tax credit awards, North Tonawanda’s planning and zoning boards, and a final purchase agreement with Kaleida. Mr. Smith has described that timeline cautiously from the start. “But, that is the best case scenario,” he told WBEN of a possible late-2027 start.
The Buffalo Chronicle is seeking comment from Mr. Smith and People Inc. on the project’s current status. This article will be updated with any response.
Webster Street, downtown North Tonawanda’s main street. Photo: Andre Carrotflower / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped).
Leave a Reply