Anxiety and hope as city moves on major West Main land buy

Brian Sharp | Democrat and Chronicle

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Update: City Council gave the administration the go-ahead Tuesday night to proceed with acquiring the remaining properties for the Bulls Head urban renewal area.

Inside Mr. Doug's Deli, the conversation flows as steadily as the customers.

The shop at the end of West Main Street has been around for decades, drawing patrons from across the city and as far away as Syracuse and Buffalo for its specialty southern meats.

On this day, deli owner Sofyan Jaber is at the cash register, joking with shoppers, and bantering with his staff, as they slice and pack weighty made-to-order sub sandwiches. Talk this day also is about uncertainty — as the city wants to relocate Jaber, buy the near century-old building and tear it down.

"I'm not going to have a place like this, you know what I'm saying?" he says. "This place has been here. You move it an inch, it's not going to be what it is."

Mayor Lovely Warren is seeking City Council approval to acquire and clear 15, mostly vacant properties in the Bulls Head neighborhood. Doing so (by negotiation or condemnation) would cost an estimated $3.5 million. Council members could give the go-ahead on Tuesday.

These are the remaining parcels needed in a 34-acre urban renewal area near the convergence of West and Chili avenues, West Main, Genesee and Brown streets.

"We believe at this point that all the buildings would have to be removed but we are still looking at that," said Dana Miller, director of development for the city. "It really is going to depend on what kind of proposals we receive."

The goal to revitalize this western gateway has been years in the making. The city has gradually acquired 29 properties to date, through tax foreclosure or negotiated sale. City Council approved a broad-strokes revitalization plan in July, eyeing a three- to five-year timetable and identifying general uses, including for a possible police section office. But there is, as yet, no definitive plan for redevelopment.

'This is everything'

Mr. Doug's is one of the remaining holdouts on a block otherwise decimated by vacancy and demolition. His landlord doesn't want to sell. His neighbor, Universal Heating Co., a family business approaching 50 years at this location, doesn't want to move.

"This is my retirement," said Francis Winterkorn, who bought the West Main and York streets building that houses the deli and his autobody shop in 2012 and has two years left on his mortgage. "This is everything for me."

Buildings here date as far back as 1880, Winterkorn's and the Universal Heating property from 1920. The latter have drawn the interest of the Landmark Society of Western New York, and were runner-ups for the group's annual list of the top five historically significant properties in need of attention that was announced last week.

"If we would have had a list called Six to Revive, that would have been on there," Wayne Goodman, the group's executive director.

Property owners already are being contacted by a city-hired relocation consultant, should have received offer letters and were summoned to CIty Hall on Thursday to voice their sentiment on the property acquisitions.

The appraisals are, on average, 26 percent above assessed value. That pales in comparison to the $1.5 million appraisal versus $362,000 assessment for the Lake Avenue property eyed for a future police section office.

"To be honest, I do think that the city is under-assessed," Miller said, responding to questions about the Bulls Head variances. "We have shown flat property values for some time now. We need to take a hard look at what has happened with the city over a period of time."

'What's the plan?'

Miller has been at this for decades.

He started back in the 1980s, as president of the 19th Ward Community Association, working on a plan to revitalize Genesee Street starting from either end.

First came Brooks Landing. That took awhile. Now, Bulls Head. Working alongside him was John DeMott who, still with the 19th Ward, has been brought in by the city to help with community engagement. There have been 10 years of community meetings, DeMott said. And when there is a meeting, the room is typically full.

But some property owners say it has been a slow, at times stop-and-go process, with mixed messages and an overall lack of clarity.

“People ask constantly, ‘What’s the plan?’ And we tell people, ‘There is no plan — go to the public meeting,’” DeMott said. "There is a lot on the website as to what people's thoughts are and expectations are. ... But there is no firm plan right now, and that just adds to the anxiety."

The other sentiment here is hope, he said — that after decades of decline, a change is coming. And when the city offers the property for development, likely sometime next year, whatever is proposed will fit within the vision of what the community wants.

Miller says the Bulls Head project presents "an opportunity to do something on a scale that would be pretty dramatic."

But the city has run into challenges in the past, from La Marketa on North Clinton to Parcel 5 at Midtown to the port plan in Charlotte, for which the city on Friday sought a new round of development proposals. The Bulls Head development site is larger than all three of those sites combined.

The challenge for the city with these redevelopment projects hasn't been in attracting interest, but in developers figuring out and securing financing.

La Marketa has gone from a retail plaza to the current concept being basic infrastructure to support a pop-up market of tents and food trucks that has organically developed on the empty parcel in recent years.

One key aspect of the Bulls Head project, officials said, is that the target area is a brownfield, bringing federal dollars for cleanup.

"Even if you tear it down," Jabar said, "who's going to build it up?"

Don't misunderstand him, he wants to see the area revived. He just wants to be part of it and be there when it's done. Same for Winterkorn.

Jabar, 36, was born across the street in what was then St. Mary's Hospital. And Winterkorn, 55, helped his dad as a 10-year-old boy mop floors of the shop that was here at the time, and that sold him his first bike.

"This whole thing is really devastating right now," said Winterkorn, who opened his auto-body shop in rented space here in 1999 before buying the building in 2012.

"This is my family over here," he said, just beginning to face the likelihood he will be forced to move. "I struggled for the last 10 years, making mortgage payments. Now I see light at the end of the tunnel, and you want to take it away?

"I wanted to start living my life at 60, not start over again."

BDSHARP@Gannett.com