Preservationists alarmed by demolition work at old Bell Aerospace site

Yahoo

14-03-2025

TOWN OF WHEATFIELD — The presence of a large piece of construction equipment on the former Bell Aerospace property raised concern among local preservationists on Wednesday.
A representative from the company that manages the Niagara Falls Boulevard site said planned demolition work involves one building town officials ordered demolished due to its dilapidated condition.
'It was the Town of Wheatfield that put us on notice that the building had been condemned and we needed to take immediate action to take the building down,' said Michele Kiernan, vice president and asset development manager for IRG Realty Advisors, a subsidiary of the property's owners. 'The main facility and the main manufacturing plant is all still there. This is a piece of the property. It is not the entire thing.'
On its Facebook page on Wednesday, the Western New York non-profit group Preservation Buffalo Niagara posted a 'demolition alert' with a picture of an excavator located near one of the buildings on the former Bell Aerospace property.
By Wednesday evening, the post garnered 244 comments, offering a mix between those who expressed support for protecting the historic integrity of the site and others who argued time had come for it to be demolished to make way for new development.
Emily Jarnot, preservation planner and Niagara Falls liaison for Preservation Buffalo Niagara, said she and other representatives from her group spent several hours on Wednesday contacting local and state officials in an effort to determine what exactly was being demolished and if there was any chance to delay the project to come up with an alternative to demolition.
With limited preservation codes in place and no historic preservation commission in the town, Jarnot said there were limited legal options available.
'We were never even able to propose a local landmark,' Jarnot said. 'Because it's there in the Town of Wheatfield, there's just no way.'
Jarnot believes the entire property warrants preservation status as it served for decades as the home of Bell Aerospace, a company that built U.S. fighter aircraft during World War II and developed the Bell 47 helicopter and the Bell X-1, which was the first airplane to break the sound barrier. She noted that the site also includes space that once served as the main office for industrialist and Bell Aircraft Corp. founder Lawrence 'Larry' Bell.
'It is a huge visual landmark in the area,' she said. 'What gets me is the amount of stories that have been pouring out about the building on Facebook all day. The outcry of stories included someone who posted a picture of President Harry Truman at that plant. This company built the first jet to break the sound barrier. It helped build U.S. aircraft in World War II. Everybody's grandpa and grandma worked there.'
'People are just coming in with how it tied into their family and generations and what it meant to the war effort and what it meant to aerospace and aviation and the advancements that happened there,' she added.
Kiernan said pending demolition involves a two-story building covering roughly 300,000 square feet that is attached to a main building. The demolition work is being supported by a grant through New York's Restore New York program. Administered by the Empire State Development Corp., the program offers grants to support municipalities' efforts to demolish, rehabilitate and restore blighted structures and transform them into vibrant residential, commercial and mixed-use developments. The application for $1.5 million in state grant funding, which is tied to a larger $3.2 million redevelopment project on the property, received support from both the town and the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency.
The Niagara Gazette previously reported in a story about a planned public hearing for the project described the building covered in the grant application as being roadside at 2221 Niagara Falls Blvd. in front of other buildings making up the property currently known as Wheatfield Business Park. The building included in the application was described as being vacant since 1996 and having previously housed engineer work when the site operated as part of Bell Aircraft.
Kiernan said the town and county approached the property's owners about assisting in the application for grant funding to pursue the demolition and redevelopment.
'This was something the town and the county were excited about because it would improve the visibility of the existing property,' Kiernan said.
'We have a lot of vacancy in the existing building,' she added. 'There are no immediate plans to build anything new. We do hope it improves the appearance of the main building and gives us an opportunity to create more access points at truck docks so that we can continue to lease up the main building.'
While preservationists had requested access to the building to take pictures before any demolition work started, Kiernan said that was not possible due to the condemnation order from the town. She described the structure as 'uninhabitable' and as a building that has 'never been pointed out as anything of particular interest.'
'It's been condemned and it's unsafe to enter,' she said.
Jarnot said it's unfortunate any of the buildings on a site with such a rich history fell into such disrepair. She argued that, with the proper foresight and planning, the property owners, the town, the county and the state could have taken a different path, one involving documentation of historic structures to allow for the application of restoration grants as part of a larger redevelopment project.
She said the present course stands as a 'sharp contrast' to the opinion of many area residents who believe the site warrants preservation, not demolition.
'A building can get condemned for simply having the water shut off or the utilities shut off,' she said. 'A lot of times bringing it back from condemned status involves getting the utilities turned back on and getting the right funding to make it work.'