Plans to redevelop a derelict and burned-out former factory along the Scajaquada Creek into a 50-unit apartment waterfront apartment complex are ready to advance into demolition, remediation and construction, after Savarino Companies on Monday earned city Planning Board approval.
More than a year after initially proposing and winning clearance for a larger project at 1 Howell St., the Buffalo-based company is preparing to start work on its $15 million venture to redevelop a 130-year-old industrial warehouse. In the process, it will clean up a highly polluted parcel that has been used for industrial manufacturing and petroleum distribution and storage.
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The proposed five-story, 49,000-square-foot building will contain 14 studio, 28 one-bedroom and eight two-bedroom apartments. The 0.53-acre site on a dead-end street will also offer 58 on-site parking spaces, including 26 semi-submerged spaces underneath the four apartment floors.
Savarino has to undertake an $2 million remediation of the property, which has “very substantial contamination” from petroleum, solvents and other pollutants, making it “much dirtier than a typical cleanup site in the City of Buffalo,” project attorney Sean Hopkins said.
Savarino intends to clean the property to residential standards under the state Brownfield Cleanup Program.
Built in the 1890s, the 24,488-square-foot warehouse was originally home to the American Buffalo…
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