NT Business Park Advances

Infrastructure work to help turn a formerly contaminated site on Oliver Street into a business park is on track to be completed by the end of May, City Engineer Dale W. Marshall said this week.

Last week, the Common Council voted unanimously to award Scott Lawn Yard of Sanborn the bid for construction work at the former Roblin Steel site.  Scott Lawn Yard submitted the lowest of 12 bids for road construction and other infrastructure work at the planned Buffalo Bolt Industrial Park.

"We want the job done and to be able to market the vacant lots," Marshall told the Buffalo News.  Scott Lawn Yard's $783,415 bid beat an $850,332 bid from New Frontier Excavating & Paving, the next lowest bidder.  The highest bid amount, about $1.3 million, was made by Pinto Construction, according to documents from the city Engineering Department.

The project consists of building a 900-foot roadway and cul-de-sac, as well as sewer lines, a water main and concrete curbing, on the 23-acre site, between East and Ninth Avenues.  The roadway will come in to the site at 10th Avenue.

The state Dormitory Authority awarded a grant of up to $1.2 million for the project in April 2008.  Though a timetable hasn't yet been established, construction of the infrastructure could begin in two or three weeks, once necessary paperwork is completed.  Following a break in work during January and February, construction would pick up again in the spring, Marshall said.

The infrastructure work includes a storm sewer system designed so tenants won't have to pay for additional runoff detention capacity, he said.  The site underwent a $3.4 million environmental cleanup supported by the state and the city.  Remedial work was completed in 2004. 

Last year, the Lumber City Development Corp., the city's economic development agency, selected Hunt Real Estate to market the site.  James B. Sullivan, director of Lumber City Development, said marketing of the site "hasn't really panned out yet" in terms of signing up tenants.

"I think everybody's kind of waiting for that road," Sullivan said. "We've got people in the wings," he added.  The project also received a grant of up to $190,000 from National Grid through the company's brownfield redevelopment program.

That grant money, which Sullivan said Lumber City Development probably won't fully spend, is being used to pay by TVGA Engineering for engineering work on the project.