The City of Buffalo has identified a plot of land on which to build a new Department of Public Works campus and Resiliency Center and has entered an agreement to acquire and develop that land, Mayor Christopher Scanlon announced Friday, Oct. 10.
Through a public-private agreement with Uniland Development Company, the city would acquire approximately 60 acres of former railroad land at 1000 Bailey Avenue, near Dingens Street, and 250 Baitz Avenue.
“This is a need for the City of Buffalo and our residents,” Scanlon said. “Obviously a large component of this is public safety when it comes to snowstorms, things like that, but also being able to administer the services that we have to.”
Among the assets that would move into the new campus would be snow clearing operations long housed in the Broadway Barns.
“We're going to have an 18,000-ton salt barn, which we don't currently have, vehicle washouts, fueling stations, mechanic shops, storage for the plows, storage for our high lifts, a modern operation center, the ability to have a snow storm command center, milling storage, you name it that it comes with DPW, we'll be able to consolidate on that,” said Nadine Marrero, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Planning. “Even moving so much as the tote storage facility that we currently have off site, really being able to bring all of those facilities onto one site.”
The plan has been submitted to the Common Council for consideration at its next meeting, Tuesday, Oct. 14.
Marrero said the city hopes to close on the land sale by the end of this year. She added that a brownfield cleanup application has already been submitted, but it might be about 18 months before ground could be broken.
In addition to environmental remediation, the first phase of the DPW campus project would include construction of a new Streets and Sanitation garage, maintenance and tire facility, the salt barn, a fueling station, and vehicle storage areas. The estimated cost of this phase of the project is $57 million.
Phase two, estimated at $35 million, would include construction of a new engineering garage, tote storage facility, and auto impound lot.
The land will be purchased for $5 million, with the funds coming from a previous state grant. Scanlon estimates the City has up to $20 million already available for the project but adds they’ll seek help from partners to help move this forward.
“We'll rely on working with our partners. We'll continue to talk to the state and the federal government about how important this is to the city of Buffalo and how they can benefit us,” the mayor said.
