A heavy-equipment dealer plans to purchase nearly 15 acres of the former Spaulding Fibre manufacturing site in the City of Tonawanda.
City officials have said little about the prospective buyer in recent months, citing confidentiality agreements.
But representatives of Milton CAT, the official dealer of Caterpillar machinery in the Northeast, appeared before the city Planning Board this month to broadly discuss their plans for the property.
"This was very preliminary," Planning Board Chair Mark Warren told The Buffalo News. He did say he expects the company will build a sales or distribution center at the site.
Milton CAT's only Western New York location is in Batavia, but it previously had a facility on Military Road in the Town of Tonawanda. The company consolidated its Buffalo-area and Rochester sites into the Batavia location in 2007.
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An employee at the Batavia office referred a reporter seeking additional information on the potential acquisition to an official at Milton CAT headquarters. That representative did not respond to a request for comment.
Tonawanda Mayor Rick Davis said a nondisclosure agreement he was required to sign barred him from commenting further on the sale.
"I am still under an NDA until they tell me otherwise," Davis said.
The Tonawanda Common Council last month granted Davis permission to sign an agreement to sell 14.6 acres of the now-vacant Spaulding Commerce Center. The city is poised to receive $438,000 at the $30,000-per-acre listed price for the 42-acre Spaulding site.
The would-be buyer also has a right-of-first-refusal to purchase another 5.4 acres, bringing the total to 20 acres.
This is the first sign of progress in decades at the prominent city property whose sluggish redevelopment has frustrated officials and residents alike.
The Spaulding Fibre manufacturing site opened in 1912 and was the city's largest taxpayer for years. The plant at 310 Wheeler St. once had 1,500 workers but it closed in 1992.
State, county and city governments paid most of the $20 million cost to clean up the shuttered site over eight years, finishing in 2012.
Pyramid Brokerage Co.'s Richard Schechter, the Buffalo Niagara Partnership and the Erie County Industrial Development Agency all have marketed the site. The only redevelopment came in 2015, when Simmers Crane Design & Services opened a 20,000-square-foot facility at 365 Wheeler St., on what was the parking lot for the Spaulding operation.
City officials have said their decision to lower the price of the property, from $40,000 to $30,000 per acre, has drawn more interest to the Spaulding site.
Further information on Milton CAT's plans should come in the next few months as the company is required to file a detailed site plan with the Planning Board and obtain final Common Council approval.
