FILLING A HOLE

By the time you read this, the "infamous" hole next to the world-famous "Flash Cube" building -- aka AquaFalls -- will be getting filled.
Rocks blasted from the Quarry are filling the hole -- trucked into the hole, just as six years ago, rocks were blasted and trucked out.
For 400 million years these rocks, called "dolomite" by geologists, sat undisturbed, several feet under soil, until entrepreneurs from Paris and Hong Kong decided to build a mammoth, salt-water aquarium in downtown Niagara Falls, New York.

"They're gone, and forgot nothing, but to say goodbye to their creditors."
All they left was the hole. And, next to it, a nine-story, all-glass building at the top of the gorge, with views of Niagara Falls -- possibly one of the most valuable and important buildings in North America -- now renamed "One Niagara."
They wanted the land next to the building to build the hole which AquaFalls was to fill. They took the building as a throwaway. When they failed, when the project tried 26 times for financing and missed, I bought the hole, and the building too. Then I bought dolomite from the Quarry. And now I'm filling the hole where a salt water aquarium was to exist -- in the capital of the greatest fresh water region in the world.
These things come under the category of destiny.

A BUILDING NEGLECTED

I bought both building and hole on December 9, 2004.
Almost immediately, one Sunday, with sub-zero temperatures, the furnace went out. The temperature was dropping rapidly. Were it not repaired soon, it would be too cold for occupancy -- with 300 government workers due to come in for work on Monday.
What a spectacular failure I might have been. Imagine the headlines, "developer flops as building freezes, government tenants evacuated."
The former management team was not particularly adept at managing the building, and could tell me little. Because they hadn't paid their bills, some of the local experts were not willing to help. I fixed it myself, by trial and error.
Next I found, under the previous owners' unhappy control, the air handler ducts had collapsed. The air circulating through the building was coming not from outdoors, but from a dusty, rarely cleaned basement. The tenants had been unknowingly breathing basement air (with dirty filters) for, possibly, years. Within one month, I fixed the air handlers and got them working efficiently, now utilizing the ozone-charged air from the updraft of Niagara Falls, the gorge, and the State Park.

CHALLENGES

Before I bought the property, the Federal Government elected to move the Small Business Administration (SBA) -- the one major tenant in the building -- to Buffalo. Two hundred jobs were leaving Niagara Falls.
Some of the more piquant SBA people had been complaining about the old owners and finally their complaints were heeded. The Government would move them, much to the chagrin of many SBA employees -- Niagara County residents who worked near their homes. Now they'll work miles away in downtown Buffalo, and pay triple the cost for parking.
I tried to please my SBA tenants, knowing they were soon to leave, and plans for the building must be worked around them. There were improvements which could be done, but not for tenants about to move. I had to develop this building without reckoning the long-term needs of a soon-to-be-moving tenant. I must develop this property in such a way so that when they leave, in June, I won't have a vacant, 200,000-square-foot building -- yet another failure in Niagara Falls.
Few, perhaps, can understand what it is to buy into poverty stricken, downtown Niagara Falls, and buy a long-neglected, yet beautiful building, with a monstrous, one-acre hole, and try to fix it, with 300 departing tenants -- unhappy because of the past condition of the building, and impatient for improvement, and because the complaints of a few got them relocated to where they do not wish to go, and, because some of them will be losing their jobs since SBA is downsizing.

ACT DECISIVELY

Most developers wait a year or two with a "big property" to get their "sea legs," to get used to the property. Some developers, losing their anchor tenant, "mothball" the building, in other words -- cut expenses by leaving the building vacant -- while they engineer, then execute, long-term plans.
Do you know what it takes to operate a 200,000 square foot, all-glass, hi-tech building which had been neglected, in a bankrupt city, with a million-dollar mistake of a hole, and try to fix everything at once? In some ways, it was the worst of both worlds. I had tenants to please, but who were leaving. From elevators, air handlers, chillers, cooling towers, and furnace, I had to fix them on an as-urgent basis, not knowing what was next, not knowing if there would be another tenant, not knowing what was wrong with many of these things at first. But I learned.
The people who managed the building before did not have much money, and did not know how to manage a building. For example, the roof was leaking. They patched it repeatedly, but improperly. On top of that, they had failed to learn there was a valid "Carlisle Sure Seal" warranty on the roof, which they invalidated by patching it wrongly. Ironically, the warranty document was not hidden. It was glued to the door which led to the roof.

In any event, one by one, I fixed most of the interior problems of the building during winter, and, at the same time, developed a long-range plan.
For my tenants, the best I could do was fix as fast as I could, giving them as much courtesy as possible. For example, the SBA was crowded on two floors. They could teach sardines lessons. Here they were in one of the world's most beautiful locations, and were huddled, hundreds on a floor, in central corridors, away from windows, rarely seeing the sun streaming through, or setting over the gorge.
I gave the SBA -- free of charge -- 3,000 square feet of space, so they could spread out a little. Later, I gave them free access to other floors for meetings and parties. I gave them free coffee and tea. I felt bad because they were leaving, and had to put up with inconveniences while I grappled with the building.

MOVING FORWARD

And grapple I did. It was like wrestling an alligator. You have to be quick, you have to dodge fast, you have to grab firmly, outside the jaws, and work with the power of the jaws as they close, then hold the mouth shut tight. Simultaneously, you have to exert the full power of your abdomen, pulling it upward so that the swinging, jerking motion of the gator won't throw you off balance and cause you to lose your hold on the gripped tightly, shut jaw. Then you have to have endurance to outlast the burst of reptilian energy -- a burst, but not long-lasting -- till the beast, exhausted, surrenders. Then you turn it on its back, and you conquer.
So it is with a building.

It seemed to some that the alligator would throw me, and consume me for lunch. But I tamed the beast. Within five months, I got the building under control, and ready for first-class tenants. I improved energy efficiency. I can offer the finest view in North America for an unbelievably low rent.
And not to continuously brag, but One Niagara has, by newly engineered design, increased natural lighting. People who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder need suffer no more. You'll get ample light in One Niagara -- even during winter. It makes workers love working here, not only for the view, but for the energizing feeling one gets from abundant light and healing solar energy.

While doing repairs, engineering environmental quality, and engineering a plan for the hole, I was also planning a conversion of the property to include an affordable restaurant on the ninth floor, so that the city would have a spectacular view of its natural wonder, Niagara Falls. And banquet rooms on the eighth floor for people to have private parties and conferences with a view of Niagara Falls, maybe even get married there. And open the first floor to make a Welcome Center, a food court, and retail stores, even expanded rest rooms, for the the millions to see us.
We need to fill the needs of tourists so they can see that Niagara Falls is not dead and buried, but alive and well, and ready for them. Even welcoming them.
Without taking one penny of government money.
And now I'm filling the hole.