[FALLSVIEW]

CITY LOOKING TO REVITALIZE THE DOWNTOWN.

City budget needs $36M more: Report
Cash for downtown projects

By Corey Larocque
Local News - Saturday, May 27, 2006 @ 02:00

NIAGARA FALLS City council should spend about $36 million between now and 2008 creating the right conditions to encourage more activity in the downtown area, a report from the city’s finance department says.

“We’ve designated downtown as an area for revitalization,” said Ald. Wayne Campbell, chairman of the city’s corporate services committee. “We’ve got a developer (interested in investing). There needs to be some further money into the ground.”

The report is on the agenda for a budget amendment meeting Monday at 6 p.m.

It lists three downtown projects and associated costs:

n $14.1 million to construct a parking garage

n $12.8 million for streetscaping, sewers, new lighting and road reconstruction

n $8.7 million for parks

n $540,000 in associated legal and planning costs

The report says the city would have to borrow about $27.8 million of the $36 million costs. Applying $6.75 million from the sale of city-owned land at the northwest corner of McLeod and Montrose roads would also go toward the downtown project. They could find $2 million from other funds already existing in the budget, the report states.


Though the report put the full cost of the improvements at more than $36 million, Mayor Ted Salci said assistance from other governments could reduce the city’s commitment. If Niagara Falls can get the federal and provincial governments to contribute one-third of the cost each, the city’s commitment would drop to about $12 million.

“We’ve got to focus our attention over the next year or so on getting those monies,” said Salci, who has often said he would only support a downtown project “if it makes sense financially.”

“I don’t want to see that borne on the backs of the taxpayers’ assessment,” Salci said.

Since 2004, council has adopted recommendations in two studies aimed at revitalizing downtown the Community Improvement Plan and the Strategic Implementation Plan.

Both studies recommend public money be used to make the area more attractive. But they indicated those improvements be made over a longer period that is being suggested now.

The pressure to move faster came earlier this year when New York City businessman Aaron Lichtman presented the Historic Niagara plan. Lichtman has said a group of investors will spend $100 million to renovate commercial property they own and attract a variety of retailers to the Queen Street area. But Lichtman has said the city’s public realm improvements need to be in place by 2008.

Lichtman had said he planned to be in Las Vegas for a convention this week, promoting to retailers the idea of setting up shop in Niagara Falls. He could not be reached to comment on whether the proposed budget changes would give his investors what they need to move ahead.

City council members support the goals of the Community Improvement Plan and Strategic Implementation Plan. But they are divided over how much money they should commit and how quickly it should unfold.

“I support the CIP. I always have,” said Ald. Janice Wing. “I can’t support doing that much in so short a period of time.”

The city shouldn’t go further into debt over the downtown project when roads and sewers need work and there are drainage problems in the rural areas of Niagara Falls, Wing said.

The $36 million council will consider adding to its capital budget Monday is in addition to the budget passed in March. That five-year plan called for the city to spend $156 million over five years on construction projects.

A capital budget is a five-year plan for spending on big-ticket items. Typically, it shows how to pay for large construction projects using long-term borrowing.

Under the budget that has been passed, the city’s debt would peak at about $53 million in 2008. It would cost about $7 million a year to pay the interest and principal repayment on a debt that size.

Adding more spending to the capital budget isn’t a guarantee it will happen. Every year, politicians adjust their capital budget to fit their current financial position.

“We can pretty well put that into next year’s budget and have a sober second look at it then,” Campbell said.

But the reason for showing the downtown improvements occurring by 2008 is to give Historic Niagara the confidence it needs to proceed.

“There would be no purpose to change that unless they weren’t walking down the same path with us,” Campbell said.