‘Emergency stabilization’ planned for historic Cobblestone properties after Tuesday night’s fire

Mayor Byron Brown announced Wednesday that “emergency stabilization,” not emergency demolition, would be undertaken on two connected 19th-century buildings in the Cobblestone Historic District that were heavily damaged by fire Tuesday evening.

The fire broke out shortly before 8 p.m. on the first floor of the buildings, firefighters said, and flames quickly burst through the roof of the four-story brick structure at 110 South Park Ave., causing damage to this building and adjacent properties at 118. Parc du Sud.

Both have been the subject of cases in municipal housing court for years.

“These properties were already in a state of disrepair and neglect before they caught fire yesterday,” Brown said at an early afternoon news conference next to the damaged building at 118 South Park. “There have been questions about an emergency demolition. The city is not considering emergency demolition. We are considering emergency stabilization.

The mayor said six historic properties were damaged and city inspectors were on site with fire investigators to assess their condition.

“We will treat how we manage these properties in the future with great sensitivity. We know there are a lot of preservation concerns in our city, and these are some of the oldest properties still standing in the city of Buffalo, and we are very aware of that,” Brown said.

He also expressed gratitude to the fire department and other city departments for their efforts and relief that no one was injured fighting the fire.

The mayor said he will convene a meeting this week with architect Steven Carmina, developer Sam Savarino, Preservation Buffalo Niagara and others to discuss next steps for the historic site.

“We will try to draw on some of the expertise that exists in the preservation community for our plan to stabilize these structures,” Brown said.

Conservationist Tim Tielman said he was relieved that the buildings, particularly 110 South Park, at the corner of South Park and Illinois Street, would not be demolished.

“It’s the iconic identifying building for the entire Cobblestone District,” said Tielman, who wrote the marking application 30 years ago for the Cobblestone Historic District. “It’s the only pre-Civil War building on the entire waterfront. Everything else was destroyed.

The two-alarm fire at South Park and Illinois Street was difficult for firefighters to control.

“We have to maintain our safe distance because a few walls are compromised,” Fire Commissioner William Renaldo said at a news conference Tuesday evening, expressing concerns about the structural integrity of the walls and roof. “Bricks are falling, things of that nature. »

Most of the 50 to 60 firefighters on scene were the same crews that responded to Monday’s fire that led to an emergency demolition of the bar known as Old Pink in Allentown.

Heavy machinery was brought in from Grand Island to facilitate access to the buildings.

The city of Buffalo appeared poised to take possession of the properties in March, after the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court, by a vote of 4-1, rejected Carr and Park Avenue Estates’ request to cancel the rarely taken decision of the Common Council of March 7. to enter the properties. The ruling says the city has the right to pursue eminent domain to prevent further deterioration of the properties and allow development.

That decision was under appeal and was due to be heard in about a week, said Fillmore Common Council member Mitch Nowakowski, who expressed anger over years of court indecision and Carr’s management as the empty structures continued to deteriorate.

City inspectors have regularly criticized Carr over the past 15 years for failing to maintain properties, and he was continually cited by city Housing Court Judges Henry Nowak and Patrick Carney.

Carr, an environmental scientist who also owns the Cobblestone Bar and Grill just east of the targeted buildings, has long maintained that the buildings were structurally unsafe when he acquired them, as well as contaminated with industrial chemicals. He sought to demolish both buildings to make way for a skyscraper-centered development project, while incorporating part of the original facade.

Carney ordered an emergency demolition of the dilapidated properties in February 2023 out of concern for public safety. This remains under appeal in Erie County Court.

“To this day, no one has presented me with a palpable solution for 110-118 South Park,” Carney said with frustration ten months earlier, in court. “The city doesn’t have one, preservation doesn’t have one, and Mr. Carr doesn’t have one except to tear it down.” I’m begging anyone to come up with a solution.

“I have gavels,” the judge said, grabbing one from his bench and lifting it into the air. “I don’t have a magic wand.”

Carr purchased the three-story 1869 building at 118 South Park Ave., home for half a century of the Buffalo Blacksmith Shop, in 2003. It includes building additions over the years.

The 1852 building at 110 South Park, purchased in 2008, opened as George Mugridge & Son Steam Bakery, maker of hardtack – a type of biscuit – for the Union Army during the Civil War . The last tenant was Phoenix Die Casting Co., which operated a machine shop in the front and a foundry in the rear from 1950 to 1988.

The wrecking ball nearly fell on the properties in 2009, when Nowak ordered an emergency demolition. This order was later overturned on appeal.

Carr and the city agreed to mothball the buildings, leaving them in limbo for several years, and not sue Carr over their condition. A succession of housing court violations, court-ordered repairs, fines and more court appearances followed.

In an interview with The Buffalo News on Wednesday, Carr thanked first responders and city officials who responded to the burning property for being “very professional, concerned and responsive,” calling it a “crazy situation.”

As in the past, he said he had become the owner of a “building ready to be demolished and used for industrial purposes.”

“I have the reports to prove it,” he added.

The fire could have been started by “heat or, with all the oils in it, spontaneous combustion,” he speculated. “No one really knows yet.”

The investigation into the cause continues.

The buildings are the most historic of 11 remaining in the Cobblestone neighborhood, bordered by South Park Avenue and Perry, Mississippi and Illinois streets. The district, designated a local landmark in 1994 by the Common Council, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.

Scaffolding along a portion of 110 South Park that surrounded Illinois Street was erected to protect the public from falling bricks. Parts of both buildings were in a precarious condition, made worse by the blizzard during Christmas week 2022, which further damaged roofs, masonry and walls.

And now a fire has occurred, which caused falling bricks that brought down the scaffolding.

Catherine Amdur, commissioner of the Department of Licensing and Inspection Services, urged people to refrain from approaching buildings to look at them.

“We have imminent danger here,” Amdur said. “The way we mitigate that right now while doing our best to preserve what’s there is to keep people away.”