ADM Milling Co., a division of the commodities giant Archer-Daniels-Midland, is seeking to demolish Buffalo's historic Great Northern grain elevator.
"ADM has authorization to demolish it and has no plans to construct a new facility in its place," said Karla Miller, ADM spokeswoman at corporate headquarters in Decatur, Ill.
The long-dormant Great Northern was built in 1897 during Buffalo's heyday as a milling center and was briefly the world's largest. It is thought to be the only elevator left in the country with a flat brick shell -- as opposed to being cylindrical-shaped and concrete -- that surrounds steel silos.
ADM, which employs 82 workers at its Standard grain elevator -- one of only two elevators still storing grain in Buffalo -- bought the vacant landmark at 250 Ganson St. in 1993. In 1996, the Buffalo Preservation Board, the city's preservation watchdog agency, authorized ADM's first demolition request if several stipulations were met, which ADM reneged on before dropping its pursuit.
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John Laping, president of the Preservation Board, confirmed it has once again given ADM its conditional approval, pending most of the same stipulations.
But one of those, he said, was the requirement of a bond equal to 20 percent of the proposed construction cost of a new elevator, which presumes a new elevator will be built.
Laping said informal negotiations, which have included representatives of ADM, the Preservation Board and South Council Member Mary Martino, have been inconclusive so far.
The Great Northern's previous owner, Pillsbury Co., was stymied in its attempts to tear down the building after the elevator was designated a local landmark in April 1990 by the Common Council.
Some grass-roots preservationist groups are already vowing to block any attempt at demolition.
"The Great Northern is one of the most historic, if not the most historic, grain elevators in Buffalo," said Richard Lippes, president of the Preservation Coalition of Erie County.
"For a long period of time, the preservation community has tried to assure the Great Northern would be preserved, and fought attempts to tear it down. It looks like we're going to man the trenches and go to battle again."
That's what happened in 1996, when preservationists allied with waterfront labor unions and Common Council members to resist demolition.
A key factor affecting the current situation is Niagara Mohawk's plan to stop providing outdated 25 hertz electricity to the Standard elevator and three dozen other customers still using it by Jan. 1, 2008.
That will require companies to do costly motor retrofitting or replacement, according to Stephen Brady, Niagara Mohawk spokesman.
Miller said ADM has not issued a threat to leave the area if the Great Northern isn't demolished. But Dennis Masters, the board's vice chairman, said he has been led to believe otherwise.
"We're between a rock and a hard place when the 'supermarket to the world' says we might have to leave if we can't do this," Masters said.
Martino, whose Council district includes the Great Northern, also worries that unless ADM gets its way with the Great Northern, which has now stood for parts of three centuries, but dormant since 1981, it could leave town.
She expressed frustration with the negotiating process, which has been handled by local ADM representatives. "I feel it's important we have open dialogue with corporate. Any time jobs are threatened you don't take it lightly. They have to know we're willing to work with them, but we need some guarantees here."
She also wondered about the Great Northern's value to Buffalo. "I don't know that (the Great Northern's) salvageable. I haven't looked at it nor has the (Preservation) board. But what are you going to do with it? How is it going to be useful to the life of the city? It's a wonderful relic, but it's got to be useful I would think," Martino said.
Historians consider the elevator, which stands 820 feet long, 420 feet wide and 120 feet high, to be a transitional grain elevator. It was modern because it was the first electrically operated elevator in Buffalo, but resembled its predecessors in shape.
ADM's Miller said the cost of preserving the Great Northern was $65 million, but could not explain what the estimate was based on or who made it.
She also said the Preservation Board stipulations ADM would accept were the production of two models of the Great Northern, a professionally made video about the elevator and a site marker.
Lynda Schneekloth of the Grain Elevator Project said models of the Great Northern were insufficient to justify replacing the actual structure. She is hoping that Buffalo, which was home to the first grain elevator, will eventually capitalize on their presence.
"I do understand the difficulty of individual industries managing old structures. But a representation of an elevator just doesn't count.
"ADM, because it's an out-of-town company, has no commitment to this locality and doesn't see the advantage of heritage tourism, which sees structures like the Great Northern as important artifacts."
Schneekloth hopes ADM will pursue a strategy of putting both the Great Northern and the Standard on the national historic register, which would make them eligible for tax credits and preservation grants.
Demolishing the Great Northern would be a big loss, said Thomas Yots of the Niagara Falls Preservation Committee. He and other preservationists envision a grain elevator district being established along the Buffalo River, where the largest collection now resides in one place.
"It's the last of the steel-bin elevators in Buffalo," Yots said.
But Lorraine Pierro, president of the Industrial Heritage Committee, which has led boat tours of the grain elevators on the Buffalo River for the past 17 years, said elevators should be seen as machines, not buildings.
"What's important with the Great Northern is preserving the bins -- at least one bin.
"I really think we need to let ADM run their business as they see best. We should sit down at the table and see how we can reuse at least a portion of the Great Northern."
e-mail: msommer@buffnews.com
