PUBLIC HEARING SCRIPT
MSBP 251, LLCand/or Individual(s) or Affiliate(s), Subsidiary(ies), or Entity(ies) formed or to be formed on its behalf ProjectPublic Hearing to be held on March 27, 2015 at 11:00a.m.,
at the Erie County Industrial Development Agency’s office located
at 95 Perry Street, Suite 403, Buffalo, New York 14203
ATTENDANCE
Chris Martineck
Lisa Martineck
Andrew Shaevel
Paul Kolkmeyer
1. WELCOME: Call to Order and Identity of Hearing Officer.
Hearing Officer:Welcome. This public hearing is now open; it is 11:00 a.m. My name is Beth O’Keefe. I am the Business Development Officerof the Erie County Industrial Development Agency, and I have been designated by the Agency to be the hearing officer to conduct this public hearing.
2. PURPOSE: Purpose of the Hearing.
Hearing Officer:We are here to hold the public hearing on the MSBP 251, LLCand/or Individual(s) or Affiliate(s), Subsidiary(ies), or Entity(ies) formed or to be formed on its behalfproject. The transcript of this hearing will be reviewed and considered by the Agency in determination of this project. Notice of this hearing appeared in The Buffalo News on Monday, March 16, 2015.
3. PROJECT SUMMARY: Description of Project and Contemplated Agency Benefits.
Hearing Officer:The proposed project (the "Project") consists of: (i) the leasehold interest in a 0.26+/- acre parcel of land located at 251 Main Street, City of Buffalo, Erie County, New York (the "Land"), together with an existing 46,460+/- SF former office building, known as the Stanton Building, constructed thereon (the "Existing Improvements"), (ii) the construction, renovation, upgrading and equipping of the Existing Improvements thereon into a mixed-use project consisting of a 44,960+/- SF market-rate multi-tenant residential facility to include 36 one and two bedroom apartments and 1,500+/- SF of office space (the “Improvements”), and (iii)the acquisition and installation by the Company of certain items of machinery, equipment and other tangible personal property (the "Equipment," and collectively with the Land, the Existing Improvements and the Improvements, the "Facility").
The proposed financial assistance contemplated by the Agency includes New York State and local sales and use tax exemption benefits and mortgage recording tax exemption benefits (in compliance with Agency's uniform tax exemption policy).
4. FORMAT OF HEARING: Review rules and manner in which the hearing will proceed.
Hearing Officer: All those in attendance are required to register by signing the sign-in sheet at the front of the room; you will not be permitted to speak unless you have registered. If you have a written comment to submit for the record, you may do so. Written comments may also be delivered to the Agency at 95 Perry Street, Suite 403, Buffalo, New York 14203 until the comment period closes on April 21, 2015. There are no limitations on written comments.
5. PUBLIC COMMENT: Hearing Officer gives the Public an opportunity to speak.
Hearing Officer: If anyone is interested in making a comment, please raise your hand, state your name and address; if you are representing a company, please identify the company. I request that speakers keep comments to 5 minutes, and if possible, 3 minutes.
Paul Kolkmeyer - I am here today with my partner Andrew Shaevel. Andy, myself and Ron
Toski are the general partners of the project that has been put together in downtown Buffalo. We bought five buildings from David Sweet. Of the five buildings, one of them is what we are here talking about. Our main offices are located at 5477 Main Street, Williamsville.
The building that we are referring to is about a 46,000 sq. ft. building that has been an empty building for over twelve years. It was most recently used by Marine Midland Bank/HSBC as office space. Once they moved out in the early 2000’s it has remained vacant.
The project is going to be in excess of $8,000,000 for renovations. On top of that we have over $700,000 worth of abatement and demolition work that needs to be done on this project. We are somewhat constrained in that the project has and that the building is built on the property lines. We have a bit of difficulty trying to handle some of the staging for this entire project. We are going to need to rent space next door to our project, where our neighbor is running a parking facility. The neighbor is located in Toronto and there facility is managed by Alpro parking. We have talked to the owners of Alpro parking which one of the owners is Paul Ciminelli. I should point out that Paul is a partner of Andy and me on another project that we are involved in but, not this one.
We have to rent some sparking space from them and that is causing additional consternation on our part and that the parking spaces are costing us $300 a month to rent and we are going to need between 10-20 parking spaces for over a period of 9 months. A combination of these factors along with some of the price increases that we are seeing from the time that we originally cost them outis causing us to come to the ECIDA and ask for some assistance. We are estimating that the assistance that we will receive is somewhat in the neighborhood of about $400,000 when all is said and done.
We think that this is going to help make the project more viable. The other thing that we are a little concerned about is the fact that as we cost out the project and looked at the rents we could charge and the numbers we first used were what we considered to be somewhat more enticing rents to get people into the project. We have realized that the rents that we were going to be charging were not going to be enough for us to get the returns to our investors. We conducted a survey of a number of properties that were just recently completed around the Buffalo area and we are now going to start to really go after some of the higher end rents just in order to achieve the returns that our investors are looking for. A combination of these factors is what really led us to the ECIDA looking for the assistance we are asking for at this point in time.
My name is Andrew Shaevel and I am Paul’s partner as previously introduced. I think for the record I want to say our project’s name is Main Street Buffalo Properties, LP. and that we are the general partners.
This is a historical building and dates back to the late 1800’s and which aesthetically it is very pleasing from the outside. As Paul has indicated it has remained vacant for over a decade. It is clear to us that its current use is not the right use, so an adaptive reuse of the building converting it from commercial to residential, is paramount. The cost associated with doing that and the surprises that we have not yet uncovered, but will certainly uncover it in a historical building. This is part of the reason that we are here. I also think that the value proposition for this building is really core to the central business district downtown. We are talking about an area that the Mayor himself said requires additional housing units to be put in place to support both Canalside and the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus which is just to the north of this project. We are very fortunate that we are right in from of a NFTA stop and that this is a transit orientated development. It’s very conceivable that people will be able to live in this building, commute either further to the South or up North towards the Medical Campus or as far North up to the University without having to connect to the bus system.
The promise with beingleveraged near the transit infrastructure in the City is that we have all hoped and dreamed of for many years really requires a mix of residential use in the City and we think this is a big part of that. In addition, we are looking forward to a time when Main Street opens up. There will be pedestrian walkways that will exist and will be beautiful and as a former Marine Midland employee there is a lot of nostalgia. In fact I worked in this building in the 80’s which brings it closer to my heart to be able to revitalize it and see it come back to life. The reality is that the movement of traffic downtown is somewhat critical. It is going to be a number of years before we see traffic come all the way down to the 200 block of Main Street.
The modest request that we are making in terms of tax assistance is greatly appreciated and will help balance the budget of the project.
6. ADJOURNMENT.
As there were no further comments, the Hearing Officer closed the public hearing at 11:20 a.m.
[Name and Address]
February 23, 2010
Page 1
SIGN IN SHEET
PUBLIC HEARING
March 27, 2015, at 11:00 a.m.
at the Erie County Industrial Development Agency’s office located
at 95 Perry Street, Suite 403, Buffalo, New York 14203
regarding:
MSBP 251, LLC and/or Individual(s) or Affiliate(s), Subsidiary(ies),
or Entity(ies) formed or to be formed on its behalf
Project Location:251 Main Street, Buffalo, New York 14202
Name / Company and/or Address / X box to speak/ commentChris Martineck / 31 Trails End
Grand Island, NY 14072
Lisa Martineck / 31 Trails End
Grand Island, NY 14072
Andrew Shaevel / Buffalo Main Street Properties
5477 Main Street
Williamsville, NY 14221 / X
Paul Kolkmeyer / Buffalo Main Street Properties
5477 Main Street
Williamsville, NY 14221 / X