BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — After months of no progress on the $40 million Heritage Point project at Canalside, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz is asking the question: What’s taking so long?
The current state of the Heritage Point development project includes piles of construction equipment, an unfinished floor, and not a single worker present.
Ground first broke in 2021, now three years later, we have been following the lack of progress at this site.
In August, the message from the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation to developer Sinatra & Company over the project was "Finish what you started, or give us back the property." You can watch our previous report below and read more here.
“There’s been no progress on it for quite some time, it’s disappointing to see,” Poloncarz said.
In August, the property developer, Sinatra & Company, told us they temporarily paused work months prior due to increased labor and materials costs, and that their initial lender went out of business.
They then requested a $4 million loan from the state to move forward.
“We are negotiating with Sinatra to try to get the project moving... nothing is final,” Senior counsel for Empire State Development Stephen Gawlik said.
Gawlik told me that months after that loan request, still nothing is finalized, but he didn’t rule out additional funding for the project.
“We are talking about all options; nothing is off the table at this point…The governor is very interested in the project, and we want to move it forward, it’s important to Canalside,” Gawlik said. “The goal would be to get the project moving by the spring.”
Sinatra & Company is being fined daily for failing to meet the agreed-upon opening date. Gawlik told me the payments for those fines would be rolled into the agreement that is currently being negotiated.
I reached out to Sinatra & Company for an update on construction. They told me that they have no further comment at this time, and they hope to have an update in a few weeks.
Regardless, the long-paused project is still without a date to resume work.
