Schenectady

Marilyn Sassi said she can't stand to drive by State Street and Erie Boulevard where the landmark Nicholaus building once stood.

"I go way out of my way to avoid that corner because I'm so sickened by what they did," said Sassi, who lives in the nearby Stockade historic district and belongs to the Schenectady Heritage Foundation.

Sassi, who once also served on the city's Historic District Commission, looks back with disdain on that moment late on April 7 when city officials deemed the 19-century building at risk of collapse. The city and its development arm, Schenectady Metroplex Development Authority, have insisted that they did everything they could to protect the building once demolition started next door at the former Oleander building in spring 2016. The Nicholaus building's owners have filed a lawsuit to the contrary.

Schenectady's downtown has remained a prime example of the continuing problem facing once vibrant Main Streets everywhere. Officials need to weigh the cost of preservation and make tough decisions while paving the way for new, innovative development.

In the last decade, the Electric City's State Street has seen its share of historic structures crumble because they were left idle too long or did not meet redevelopment specifications. Those structures include the former Robinson building, Oddfellows Hall next to Proctors and the Silver Diner. But there also have been many success stories, including Proctors taking over the former Carl and Co. department store space, and the recent rehabilitation of the former Foster Hotel.

Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy has insisted the city had no choice regarding the Nicholaus building after a structural engineering firm that had been monitoring the Nicholaus warned them in early April that the structure was in jeopardy of collapsing.

"It's not something I consider the best outcome but sometimes you have to make decisions that aren't going to be met with general approval," said McCarthy.

Michael Maloney, the Schenectady Historical Society librarian, said the Nicholaus building told a "great story of immigration" because the Nicholauses were German immigrants who ran the restaurant for a long time — no doubt often populated with General Electric workers from down the street.

His colleague, Mary Zawacki, curator at the Schenectady County Historical Society, said the loss of the Nicholaus building was preventable.

"I think it comes down to careful planning and community input," said Zawacki, adding people had a "nostalgic connection" to the Nicholaus. Historic structures like the Nicholaus, she said, "give the city character and make it a cool and fun place to live."

John Gearing, a Schenectady Historical Society Board member, lamented that there seemed to be a failure by the city and their professional and planning experts to consider the area's history before the Nicholaus building was deemed unsafe.

"We haven't done that great a job in saving the historic ones that could be saved," Gearing said.

The city owned the Robinson building on State Street and the Silver Diner on Erie Boulevard after seizing them for back taxes years ago. But investments were not made to protect the structures from the elements, and they were both razed in the mid-2000s.

The ornate Plaza Theater, another popular downtown entertainment venue, once located where the MVP building now sits, also didn't survive.

It featured a pond of koi fish, a full planetarium, and statues on the balcony that looked like people, remembered Sassi.

Councilman Vince Riggi recalls that the plush Plaza Theater had plenty of marble and huge columns.

"It's incumbent upon a municipality like Schenectady that's steeped in history to embrace and to try to preserve (historic structures)," said Riggi.

Metroplex Chairman Ray Gillen said the agency has a "very good" track record in historic preservation and has a prestigious state award from last year to prove it.

"Every effort is made to restore and renovate historic buildings," he said, stressing that Metroplex is currently involved in the construction of a dozen "major historical projects" totaling more than $100 million ranging from the Foster building on State Street to the long-vacant Horace Mann elementary school in Hamilton Hill.

"Where we have failed — like in this case, the Nicholaus building and other buildings like this — the building owners will not work with us," he said.

Gillen said Metroplex for months tried to help Nicholaus building owners Viroj and Malinee Chompupong by providing them with detailed plans to renovate the building. The city later issued code violations on the structure.

City Attorney Carl Falotico stressed that "regardless of what actually took place to cause it to become destabilized, (the owners) still have the burden to make sure it is not a public hazard."

The Chompupongs in legal filings accuse the city, Metroplex and local developer Highbridge Development of conspiring against them to demolish the Nicholaus building to pave the way for a $20 million apartment building project — on the former Robinson building lot. That project is now in limbo because of litigation.

The mayor said gross neglect by some property owners of older historic buildings makes it costly and in some cases nearly impossible to restore them. Gearing and other preservationists say they understand that some properties are beyond the point of saving.

"It's not practical or desirable to save every old building, but we should be able to come up with some criteria and a list of those that we would want to save," said Gearing.

"You could come up with an overall plan that doesn't put historic preservation first, and say this trumps everything, but have it in the mix."

pnelson@timesunion.com • 518-454-5347 • @apaulnelson. Staff writer Lauren Stanforth contributed to this report.