City officials are ordering Hostel Buffalo-Niagara to vacate its downtown facility on Main Street next month in preparation for expected critical structural repairs.
But hostel officials are complaining that the city is kicking them out without even firming up its construction plans or guaranteeing that the hostel will be able to return as promised.
The Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency, which owns the century-old hostel building at 667 Main St., plans to spend up to $2 million to stabilize and repair the rear structure at 664 Washington St.
That’s designed to address health and safety concerns that city building inspectors have cited, while preserving the property instead of demolishing it.
The project was approved by the agency on Nov. 30. Construction was expected to start around March 1.
Yet hostel representatives and its attorney claim that “March 1” was more of an estimated time frame that was arbitrarily selected as a deadline. They argue that the city hasn’t even finalized its stabilization plans or put out bids to contractors, and isn’t close to starting the construction work.
“What BURA said at the meeting is we estimate that that date is on or about March 1. That’s not the same thing as saying it’s March 1,” said hostel attorney Laurence K. Rubin of Kavinoky Cook. “That could be March 30 or April 1.”
Business as usual
Hostel officials have tried unsuccessfully since the BURA meeting to obtain added clarifications from the agency about the construction plans .
In a Dec. 18 letter to BURA Senior Director Hope Young-Watkins, Rubin urged that “any temporary shutdown of the Hostel be avoided.” He argued that “any closing, and especially an extended one, will be detrimental to the Hostel’s financial health.” And he noted then that the hostel needed to know when to stop taking new reservations.
But aside from indirect communications that the construction plans were not complete, hostel officials didn’t hear from BURA for two…
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