By Simon Achterberg
BUFFALO, N.Y. — A half-acre site on Paderewski Drive, part of which its backers describe as “an abandoned pavement-covered lot,” is being rebuilt as a $2.3 million park, and the paperwork behind the project answers most questions about who is paying for it. It says far less about who will pay to keep it up once the ribbon is cut.
Construction on Sears-Paderewski Park began in late September, in the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood on the East Side, and playground equipment installation is under way, according to an Empire State Development announcement from Oct. 21. The playground is due to be finished this fall. The rest of the work, including a stage pavilion, tree plantings and rain gardens to soak up stormwater, is scheduled for completion in spring 2027. Buffalo Rising places the park at 358 Paderewski Drive, in the shadow of the Central Terminal.
Six funders, one half-acre
The money comes from six sources. The state is putting in $1.23 million: $630,000 from the Department of State’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative and $600,000 from Empire State Development. The remainder is a patchwork: $416,400 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, $375,000 from Erie County, $230,000 from NewCity Parks and $50,000 from the Buffalo Sewer Authority. Added up, those figures come to about $2.30 million, so the headline number holds.
By The Buffalo Chronicle’s arithmetic, the state supplies a little over half of the total, and the project works out to roughly $4.6 million per acre. NewCity Parks, the nonprofit that worked with the city on the redesign, lists the site at 0.5 acres on its project page, along with a construction cost of $2.3 million and a service population of 3,621 people. It names MNLA as the design consultant.
The Fillmore District’s Council member, Mitch Nowakowski, said the project reflects a neighborhood request. “Sears-Paderewski Park is an opportunity to transform an underutilized lot into a welcoming green space where families and neighbors can connect,” Nowakowski said. “This project reflects what happens when we listen to the community and invest in what residents want and deserve.”
A long road to a small park
The timeline is longer than the construction schedule suggests. NewCity Parks says it began work in 2020 with the city’s Division of Parks and Recreation on a community-led redesign of Sears-Paderewski and nearby Roosevelt Park. The city adopted a new Parks Master Plan in 2021, which the nonprofit says it helped create. If the spring 2027 target holds, the site will have gone from the start of community work to a finished park in about six and a half years.
The group describes the starting point bluntly. On its project page it says the “park” was “an abandoned pavement-covered lot that has been in disrepair for 20+ years,” in a neighborhood designated a federal Opportunity Zone, and that the park is the city’s “number one priority for restoration and revitalization.” It also says it petitioned the city to add two adjacent vacant lots, which is how a paved lot became a three-parcel park.
Rose Harvey, the group’s executive director, framed the work around access. “Equitable access to high-quality and close-to-home parks is more important than ever,” Harvey said. “We are thrilled to partner with the City of Buffalo on transforming this paved lot into a new, green, welcoming park that offers residents opportunities to play, gather, and connect with nature.”
What the announcement says about upkeep
Maintenance is where the public record thins out. The state’s announcement says the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation is partnering with local block clubs and community groups through its Adopt-a-Park program “to ensure long-term care and community stewardship.” But the specific tasks it names are narrower: maintaining the community garden and ornamental flower beds.
That leaves open who handles the rest: mowing, litter, repairs to the playground and its rubber safety surface, and keeping a stage pavilion safe and open. NewCity Parks says the plantings in its rain gardens were chosen to be low-maintenance and to tolerate both flooding and drought, which should lower the burden. But no announcement the Chronicle reviewed says how much the city expects to spend each year, or whether the 2027 parks budget has a line for the new site.
Officials spoke about the park as a long-term commitment. Sean Ryan, the mayor, said the park will give residents a place to gather “for years to come.” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz described what the county was buying into: “This project creates a beautiful new park by completely transforming three disused parcels, making an oasis for families, neighbors and children where there had been nothing.”
Next door to a much bigger project
The park sits near one of the city’s largest preservation efforts. The Central Terminal’s own site says the Terminal’s restoration is tied to the future of Broadway-Fillmore, and that it is exploring two rain gardens on its lawn with money from the Buffalo Sewer Authority’s Rain Check 2.0 program, the same agency contributing $50,000 to the park. The Terminal’s community page says the landscaping comes at no cost to the Terminal.
Gov. Kathy Hochul tied the park to a broader complaint about the East Side. “For too long, parks in neighborhoods like Broadway-Fillmore have been overlooked,” Hochul said. “Today, we are turning the page by transforming Buffalo’s Sears-Paderewski Park into a vibrant hub of recreation, culture, and community life—building a healthier, stronger East Side for the future.”
The questions that remain
The capital side of this project is documented. The operating side is not. Three questions would help residents judge whether the new park lasts:
Who is responsible for routine maintenance of the playground and pavilion, and what will it cost the city each year? How will the pavilion be programmed, and who will manage it? And what happens if block clubs, which are volunteers, cannot keep up with the gardens?
The Buffalo Chronicle is seeking answers from the city’s Department of Public Works, Parks and Recreation, NewCity Parks and Nowakowski’s office, and will update this story with their responses.
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