re: downtown NF
www.hamiltonspectator.com...2101662835
Raising the Falls
Spectator File Photo
Aaron Lichtman, a New York corporate attorney, plans to give the Niagara Falls's crumbling core a $200-million facelift.
Manhattan lawyer has daring revival plan
By David Segal
The Washington Post
NIAGARA FALLS (Nov 28, 2006)
Walk 20 minutes due north of the wax museums and honeymoon motels at the tacky core of this perennial tourist stop and you will find the eight-block stretch that locals call downtown. It looks like any other main street in a death spiral: empty storefronts, cheap rental apartments and a few holdout businesses limping from month to month.
But these blocks will soon be the scene of a nervy experiment in urban revival. The plan is to close most of the downtown, throw a tarp over the buildings and spend more than $200 million on renovations.
A year or so later, the place would reopen, hopefully with marquee retailers and spiffy residences in a setting that might look like a live Norman Rockwell painting.
While the city would underwrite some of it, the plan is largely in the hands of 42-year-old Manhattan lawyer and aspiring development mogul Aaron Lichtman.
He and his investors are putting up most of the money and have already spent more than $20 million to buy about 60 properties, most of them on Queen Street, the heart of downtown. They hope to spend even more.
Lichtman is relatively new at development. He doesn't have any particular attachment to Niagara Falls. But he thinks "Niagara" is an internationally known brand, and if he can lure the locals and just a fraction of the city's roughly 12 million annual visitors, he and his partners will make a fortune.
The response in Niagara Falls has ranged from euphoria to suspicion.
"It's about time someone did this," said James Kerr, co-owner of the Dollar And, a five-and-dime on Queen Street.
Plenty of local politicians, too, think Lichtman has his heart and his wallet in the right place.
"We've heard so many different proposals in the past," said Alderman Wayne Campbell. "Everyone comes with their hands out, looking for money. Aaron is actually spending money."
Others worry that the roughly $36 million Lichtman wants the government to kick in, for infrastructure improvements, will mean a major tax increase.
Then there is this: Lichtman will not disclose the names of his partners. He says he'll share those names with the underwriting bank, and the bank, through due diligence, will provide its imprimatur.
He hopes to sign a memorandum of understanding in the next few months, with renovations to commence soon thereafter. But will they?
"Not one penny will be spent unless we're satisfied with the developer himself," says Doug Darbyson, the city's director of planning and development. "We need to do a full analysis, which we have already begun."
