Published: June 03, 2008 10:35 pm      

NIAGARA FALLS: City says One Niagara is done

City Planner Thomas DeSantis plans to fire off a letter to developer Frank Parlato within a week, ordering the principal owner of the former Occidental Chemical building on Rainbow Boulevard to stop previously approved uses at the site.

That includes virtually all of the current activity at the building — now named One Niagara — including first-floor retail such as vendors and food stands and paid parking, DeSantis said.

Parlato responded with disdain for the city administration, calling members “a couple of little critters getting too big for their britches,” and vowing to keep the site active and open and fight the decision “up and down every court in this land.”

The letter comes after activity at the site has run afoul of numerous city departments, including public works, police, inspections and planning. The letter will specifically address the inability to bring the building into compliance with codes and standards in a certain timeframe, based on a site plan previously approved by the city planning board.

“We’re going to inform Mr. Parlato that the approvals he had were conditional approvals,” DeSantis said. “The time he was given (to bring the building into compliance) has since lapsed and therefore approvals he previously had are null and void.”

The city’s actions do not affect Parlato’s ownership of the site, which he purchased in 2004 after a developer dug a 40-foot hole in the ground with plans for an underground aquarium but ran out of money.

The siting plan makes up only one of a host of the site’s issues, which were the subject of a multi-department meeting Monday at City Hall.

n Mayor Paul Dyster said the city’s police department has been instructed to enforce the issue of flag wavers for the parking lot, who he said have frequently been found in the street.

Dyster said as recently as Saturday he saw them in the road, creating a chaotic situation potentially dangerous to travelers and the flaggers.

Falls Police said after problems with the parking lot operation last summer, Parlato was warned before the tourist season started to follow the city’s surface parking regulations.

“Captain (Salvatore) Pino went down and warned him and essentially nothing has changed,” Falls Police Administrative Captain John DeMarco said. “Our concerns are he has people driving over the curbs and through the handicap access ramps and flaggers blocking in the street and blocking the sidewalks.”

DeMarco said police would step up their monitoring of the situation, but would not necessarily issue tickets to tourists.

“It’s not their (tourists’) fault. They don’t know what their doing is wrong. You’ve got someone flagging them in. They’re just following directions,” DeMarco said. “It wouldn’t be fair to take enforcement action against them.”

Parlato denied flaggers were consistently entering the street while doing their job. Chitra Selvaraj, who supervises the parking lot, said she warned the flaggers two years ago not to do so and they’ve complied ever since.

n Department of Public Works Assistant Director John Caso said that cars have been illegally jumping curbs to park in spots not designated for parking at the site. He said the practice has damaged curbs and is dangerous to pedestrians, and that the department is taking steps to make sure the practice ends.

Parlato said the issue has been resolved.

n Guy Bax, head of the city’s inspections department, said illegal wiring has been found outside of the building and on the One Niagara grounds, but that it’s being cared for.

The building employs about 50 people, seven food-service vendors, six other vendors and three tour companies — all of whom would have to be let go, Parlato said. He said the action to shut down the site’s operations don’t square with any harm code violations are doing.

He said he’s spent three years trying to renovate the building while fighting City Hall.

His attorney, Paul Grenga, also issued a comment on the issue, saying, “Only in Niagara Falls would they move to shut down an operation that houses multiple tenants and that cleaned up an eyesore,” he said.

David Gross, head of the main contracting company working at the site, insisted that everything’s in compliance.