Take a vacant mall a block away from one of America’s natural wonders, and turn over 1/3 of it to a culinary institute?
A culinary institute would be a great idea for a vacant mall. The Summit Park Mall. The Rainbow Mall, by contrast, really ought to be razed. It hasn’t been actually used as a proper mall for about a decade, and it’s little more than a concrete Berlin Wall separating the rest of the city from the Falls. It makes Buffalo’s Adams Mark look good.
It’s typical, isn’t it, that New York makes you pay to see the Falls. You can drive around Goat Island for free, but even during the denuded winter, you won’t catch a glimpse of water falling over a cliff. You have to pay to park your car and walk over to the Falls. On the better-tended Canadian side, you can drive along the brink of the escarpment and see both Falls for free. If you choose to get out and walk around, you can. But you don’t have to.
I guess it’s time to concede the fact that people won’t come to the New York side to check out the Falls partly because we have our hand out and don’t make it easy. Canadians do, however, come to the American side in their millions to go shopping. So, let’s embrace that and make it easy for them to cross, to park, to shop, and to see the Falls if they choose to.
The Wintergarden is gone, so should its adjacent “mall”. The areas in yellow are frankly a waste. For people to walk from the Falls to the Seneca’s casino, they get to walk between some déclassé hotels and the side of a “convention center”. There’s nothing to stop and do along the way. Just a pretty cobbled path to go spend some money at a Seneca exclave. Everything in the area in yellow, bounded for the most part by Niagara Street, Rainbow Boulevard, and 3rd Street, is either a waste of that space or second-class, and we have mid-20th-century urban renewal ideas to thank for that. 60 years ago, that area was a pretty thriving downtown. The cost? The Niagara Community Forum breaks it down:
Hooker (glass cube) Headquarters $13,200,000
Currently empty from the 3 to 9th floorConvention Center $43,000,000
Never lived up to expectations
Taken over by Seneca CasinoFalls Street Faire/Falls Street Station $23,000,000
Used briefly. Falls Street Faire was redone into
a Conference Center for an additional 18Million.
Falls Street Station is partially occupied by TeleTechSplash Park $12,000,000
Part of Niagara Venture (Falls St. Faire, Falls St. Station,
And Niagara Splash Park). Used as a parking lot by the
Seneca Casino.Wintergarden $7,800,000
Torn down. Once separated Falls Street East and West.Turtle $4,000,000
Native American Center. Currently unused.Rainbow Centre and Parking Ramp $12,000,000
Centre currently empty. Ramp never solvent.City Parking Ramp $3,400,000
Gone. Surface parking lot.
A failure, by any measure. First off, I would ban surface parking lots from the area in yellow. That means you, Comfort Inn. A few new and modern, intelligently placed parking garages should be constructed to serve that area. Then, as the Niagara Community Forum suggests, the area in yellow should be transformed into an area where people would want to frankly come and drop some money. The outlets on Military Avenue may have some great shopping, but remember that Canadians will drive all the way down to Cheektowaga to shop, as well. Restoration of the original city grid would be a good start, and Paladino’s condo tower can be sort of an anchor for the whole project.
Frankly, what’s needed is something that competes with Canal Side. A bit flashy, but more low-key than the cheese of, say, Clifton Hill.
(Photograph from National Harbor, MD)
(Also, why exactly isn’t Niagara Falls State Park a National Park?)