About 2,800 tons of contaminated historic fill and concrete have been removed from the landmark Silo City complex to make way for the completion of a $41 million conversion of a former grain mill and warehouse into apartments, offices and other uses.
The State Department of Environmental Conservation said cleanup of the 6-acre brownfield site along the Buffalo River is substantially completed, although agency officials are still reviewing a final engineering report.
The DEC must issue a certificate of completion before developers can complete redevelopment plans unveiled in 2020.
“I don’t have a date certain, although I can tell you that all conversations I’ve had lead me to believe that we’re going to have that in hand by the end of the year,” said Anthony Ceroy, co-managing partner of Generation Development, a Florida-based company with 1,700 apartments in several states.
With a certificate of completion, apartments and commercial space should be ready for occupancy by midsummer 2024, said Ceroy.
That’s two years behind when developers in 2020 had envisioned completing phase one of the Silo City redevelopment, but Ceroy said delays were due more to other challenges and unique circumstances than to the brownfield cleanup effort.
Generation Development sued former construction manager Arc Building Partners in July 2022, alleging shoddy work and poor performance required costly repairs and delayed the project by a year.
“Unfortunately, we’ve realized some significant construction delays that were not related to environmental conditions,” said Ceroy. “We worked through it.”
Ceroy described the DEC as collaborative and responsive in its oversight, and general contractor RP Oak Hill Building Co. was able to continue much of its work during the abatement process.
The former American Mill & Warehouse Building at 139 Buffalo River Place will include 168 apartments with a mix of market-rate, traditional affordable and…
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