BATAVIA/Attorney: Harvester Center Building 8 coming down on Tuesday

Construction crews from Regional Environmental Demolition out of Niagara Falls were on site today preparing for the demolition of Building 8 on Tuesday morning.

BY MIKE PETTINELLA
For Video News Service

A lawyer representing the owners of the Harvester Center said that a building considered “unsafe” at the 29-acre complex will be coming down on Tuesday morning.

Attorney Michael W. Cole of Alden — who appeared in City Court on Monday afternoon to address ongoing code violations — told Video News Service that Building 8, which partially crumbled in mid-May, is being taken down via an emergency demolition permit.

The work will be performed in a regulated work area because there is asbestos in the building and can only be done by workers certified for asbestos removal – in this case employees of Regional Environmental Demolition, Inc. of Niagara Falls.

“My clients continue to make progress in addressing some of the building issues raised by the city, and we’re working in concert with the city’s building department through (Code Enforcement Officer) Mr. (Doug) Randall and corporation counsel for the city,” Cole said.

The attorney has been in City Court four times on behalf of Harvester Center LLC principal owners William Golden and John Wachter, managing partners of Amerinac Holding LLC.

File photos-May 15th/16th 2025

Since 2023, the city has deemed Building 8 – which partially crumbled in mid-May — and five other vacant buildings (numbers 3, 4, 5, 20 and 21) as unsafe and needing to be demolished.

Previously:

https://videonewsservice.net/index.php/2024/11/05/batavia-harvester-center-to-become-uptown-batavia/

As far as the five other structures are concerned, Cole said he is working with city officials to acquire a sitewide permit – something that will happen once crews from Toal Plumbing of Batavia successfully cap all existing water and sewer lines and a fire suppression company addresses fire suppression issues outside of the regulated work area.

Cole acknowledged that unforeseen problems have delayed rectifying the situation.

“As you may guess, we’re talking about a very large-scale project and a very set of old buildings,” he said. “So, as we dig into literally some of these issues, new issues emerge.”

He said crews have completed the electrical and natural gas cuts and caps – “and we’re moving on to completing the cuts and caps relating to water and sewer.”

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“A new issue has emerged in that once those water lines and cut and kept, we’ll have the fire suppression issues for the buildings that remain. We’re working with the city to come up with a plan that makes sense for the city and those remaining buildings.”

Cole said he did not know how many buildings would remain standing after the acquisition of the sitewide permit from the city to take down the other structures branded as unsafe.

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He did point out that the owners have “focused on a steel superstructure identified as Building 11.”

“That’s the building that we’re going to need to work on fire suppression for,” he said, adding that the issue there is mostly with the steel girders.

Video News Service reached out to Randall for comment. His department would have to inspect and sign off on the line capping before issuing the permit to take down the other five buildings.

Cole said that once all of the buildings earmarked for demolition are down, crews will come in and run the fire suppression line and tie it into an existing main that isn’t affected by this project.

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City Court Judge Durin Rogers has set a trial date for September if the violations aren’t addressed within a month.

“The hope I think certainly from my clients is that we don’t want to enter a trial and my understanding, or at least my hope, is that the city doesn’t want to either,” Cole said. “We want to remain partners with the city as we have been.”

In late May, Harvester Center management informed its 20 or so tenants that their existing leases would not be renewed and would be terminated as of June 30. That action spurred those business owners to find other locations.