A 19th century brick building in Buffalo's Cobblestone District -- considered by a Preservation Board member as perhaps the district's most important structure -- can be demolished, City Housing Court Judge Henry J. Nowak has ruled.
The three-story structure at 118 South Park Ave., once occupied by a blacksmith shop and even earlier by a brass foundry, sits across the street from the former Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad terminal and a block from HSBC Arena.
"It's impossible to rehabilitate that building," said James P. Milbrand, the lawyer representing Darryl Carr, the property's owner, who noted bricks are crumbling and contaminated.
"If you have to replace the bricks, it's no longer a historically significant building," he said.
A demolition permit has not been issued because Carr is waiting for an asbestos survey of the building, Milbrand said.
People are also reading…
"I believe Mr. Carr will have that Monday and ask for the permit," Milbrand said.
But the case could go back before Nowak on Monday because the city filed a notice of appeal Friday, Milbrand said.
Though city officials opposed the demolition bid Thursday in Housing Court, they didn't mount much of a fight on the building's behalf.
"There's no imminent danger of collapse," Assistant Corporation Counsel Cindy T. Cooper told the judge at Thursday's hearing. Cooper, however, did not call any witnesses or experts to argue against demolishing the building.
Timothy A. Tielman, a member of the city's Preservation Board, said more should be done to preserve the structure, built in the 1870s.
"The news is disturbing and disappointing," Tielman said of the ruling. "That building is the most important structure in terms of the integrity of the Cobblestone District."
Carr has "let his building decline with impunity," said Tielman, executive director of the Campaign for Greater Buffalo History, Architecture and Culture. "He has made no sincere attempt to rehabilitate the building or even to stabilize it. It has simply declined under his ownership."
"When he bought that building eight years ago, he was asking me [for permission] to tear it down," said Council President David A. Franczyk. "I'm absolutely against that."
Demolishing the building "is the result he wanted," Franczyk said.
"This guy thinks he can do an end-run around the Preservation Board by getting a demolition order through the court," he said.
Richard G. Berger, a lawyer for Tielman's organization, appeared in court Friday asking the judge for a stay to the demolition order.
Donors have come forward offering to pay for a structural review of the building, Berger told Nowak.
Neither the organization nor the Preservation Board was aware of Thursday's demolition hearing, he said.
"If we had knowledge of the hearing, we would have been here," Berger said.
On Friday, Nowak noted that the Housing Court case involving the building has been before him in open court a dozen times since March 2009. He also said he had granted many adjournments, allowing the city more time for the case.
Nowak said he was "loath to order a building demolished on insufficient evidence," but he questioned how city officials could not have known about the case.
Nowak did not stay his ruling, but he told Berger to prepare affidavits and give them to the court by next week.
Milbrand, the building owner's lawyer, said a Preservation Board member has been in court during previous proceedings about the building.
If the Preservation Board didn't know about the hearing, "you're asking me to correct a procedural black hole in City Hall, which is not really my jurisdiction," the judge said.
Tielman, who a year or so ago discussed the building's fate with top city officials, said he wasn't aware the case was before the judge Thursday until informed by a reporter after the decision was handed down.
"I would have been very glad to be over there had I known where this was in the process," Tielman said.
John Banaszak, a structural engineer hired by Carr, testified Thursday that he saw severely deteriorated bricks.
Is the building in danger of collapsing?
"Parts of it, certainly," he testified.
"I was nervous walking around in there," he said under questioning from Milbrand during the hearing.
Banaszak said he poked the walls with a wooden stick and bricks crumbled.
The bricks are "quite likely" contaminated from the foundry operation onced housed in the building, which means they could not be used if the owner wanted to convert the structure to a residence, he said.
The hearing showed the need for the city and preservation groups to bring their own experts to such hearings, said Harvey Garrett, a trustee of Preservation Buffalo Niagara, a local preservation organization.
"It's an important historic building in the Cobblestone District," Garrett said. "Maybe it needs to come down. But it'd be nice to hear an objective opinion from someone who isn't being paid by the owner."
Under Cooper's questioning, Banaszak said he did not prepare a written report of his findings, nor could he answer many of her questions about the building.
Banaszak said the bricks were contaminated by the building's earlier use as a foundry, but he could not specify what contaminated the bricks or present any hard evidence of any contamination.
His lack of a written report "calls into question his credibility as an expert," Cooper said in arguing against demolition.
Carr, who operates the nearby Cobblestone bar with a partner and owns three South Park Avenue properties, including 118 South Park, said he has a mixed-use development plan in the works. Carr said his plan includes a residential component, which he said is needed to help revive the Cobblestone District.
"Good things are coming," Carr said.
The new development would be built "in a fashion that fits with the historic significance of the neighborhood," Carr said after the court hearing.
The building's owner ended up in Housing Court because a city inspector said the masonry structure was "in a hazardous state of deterioration," one of 10 violations lodged against Carr.
Carr has pleaded guilty to seven of the violations
The inspector cited windows and doors in disrepair, badly deteriorated chimneys, holes in the exterior walls and rotting materials, among other violations.
Carr sought demolition to clear up the violations.
"One way to fix the violations is to eliminate the problem," said Milbrand, Carr's lawyer.
"It would be a shame for this building to come down," Tielman said.
"I think what the city should do is get an engineer in there to see if a remediation plan can be done," he said. "We should not be rewarding a negligent owner with demolition, which is what he wants."
e-mail: plakamp@buffnews.com
