I’m a developer in this weird mini-place called the tourist district of Niagara Falls, N.Y.
And it is weird; surreal, actually, since it’s surrounded by prosperity — and it’s broke. Dead broke.
If you look at the map — here is Niagara Falls, N.Y., amidst Niagara Falls, Ontario, a boom town, a land gone rich with prosperity and tourism. And here is Niagara Falls, N.Y., amidst the world-famous Niagara Falls State Park — the oldest and most visited state park in the USA — utterly controlled by Albany.
The State Park should rightly be called “Niagara Falls, Albany,” since Albany alone profits from it.
It, too, however, is rich — from tourism. Then, of course, there is Niagara Falls, Seneca, a newly created (by Albany) tax-free nation in the midst of what was once downtown Niagara Falls, N.Y. It has a gambling monopoly and tax-free status for any business it cares to open. Naturally, because of that, it, too, is, also, rich, ultra-rich. Rich enough to take our poor broken downtown and smother it and buy it back at bankrupt prices. Maybe that’s what the planners had in mind in Niagara Falls.

Map of the four nations of Niagara Falls
1. Niagara Falls, Ontario = Rich
2. Niagara Falls, Seneca = Rich
3. Niagara Falls, Albany = Rich (profits, however, go mainly to New York City)
4. Niagara Falls, N.Y. = Bankrupt

In any event, there is no even playing field in Niagara Falls.
Nevertheless, being a developer, something somewhat akin to the ancient bone-rolling gambler, I bought and am developing the closest privately-owned building nearest the brink of Niagara Falls. But, alas, it is not in Seneca; or Niagara Falls, Ontario; or Niagara Falls, Albany; but in old and weary, curd-pale Niagara Falls, N.Y.
Still, it was here, in late 2004, where I came to look at distressed real estate and wound up buying it: a dusty jewel of a recently-bygone era — the former “Occidental Chemical Center.” I renamed it “One Niagara.”
Before I knew about the uneven playing field, I supposed, because of its location, it would be a sure-bet winner: 2-plus prime acres bordering the Niagara Falls State Park. From within this nine-story all-glass building there is a stunning aerial view, the only building on the American side where one can see the whole Niagara Falls panorama. On the border of Canada, right next to the state park — the gateway property of Niagara Falls. How could one lose?
I never fully reckoned on how uneven the playing field is or how inimical to success the governance of this sole loser among the four competing towns of Niagara Falls could be.

It was an office building: One Niagara (top left of photo) in Niagara Falls, N.Y. Because of its location, its highest and best use is tourism.

One Niagara swarms with tourists from around the world. Here local vendors make money from tourism instead of only Albany and Seneca.

And the building, too — in this slowly losing everything town — was, naturally enough, a loser too. First, it had never been used for tourism. Oxy — the largest employer in the city — used this choice location, commencing from the time it was built in 1981, to provide executive oversight for thousands of year-round factory jobs for locals.
By the mid ’90s, however, Oxy laid off most of its employees and the building became vacant. In 1999, it was sold to David Ho of Hong Kong, who claimed he would build an underground aquarium. After getting millions in tax benefits and millions more from investors, he left the building in shambles.
Mr. Ho is gone and forgot nothing but to say goodbye to his creditors. He left, however, amazingly, blasted into bedrock, an acre-wide, 40-foot deep hole that he said was going to become an underground aquarium. It became instead the eyesore of the town.
After I bought the property, I filled the hole, fixed the building and tried to catch some tourist dollars. But it struck me as ironic: Oxy built an all-glass building (with a view) next to one of the wonders of the world, in a location that should have been used to promote tourism. Oxy however did not, of course, use the location for tourism, but foolishly — and this was poor planning indeed — an office building that deterred tourism.
However, big-time Oxy was fated to go, effectively, out of business. Then, strangely, they sell the building to a fake aquarium developer who dupes the planning department into believing his false-hearted story and swindles the whole town, leaving but a vacant dream and a big hole in the heart of downtown.
Finally, I buy the property in foreclosure. Ironic, truly: A vacant office building in a depressed, over-taxed tourist town, across the river from a boom town; in between two wealthy tax-free fiefdoms (Seneca and Albany’s State Park) and it provides a chance for a developer like me to try to turn the building (and hole) from an eyesore into something magnificent: a tourist magnet in Niagara Falls, N.Y.
I started with the first floor and opened restaurants and stores, and sold tours and other services to tourists. I stuck with local vendors — no chains. No big corporations. All local people who I staked to a store or a restaurant and charged them no rent except a percentage of the gross receipts. If we failed, we failed together. Or won together.
Actually, we have been winning. More than 200 local people earn money from out of One Niagara. But opening the ninth floor was always the ideal.
Planners may not wish to see it happen, for it might bring prosperity outside the State Park, but, in my mind, to develop a brand new vista for the millions who come to Niagara Falls — for its vistas — would be a boon to the building, the community and, of course, the tourists who venture here from around the world.
A world-class view — with a banquet facility, a restaurant and an observatory — the first and only panoramic view in the USA of the most famous natural landscape in the world. It will be quite an attraction.
“Record it for the grandson of your son — A city is not builded in a day.” Niagara Falls, N.Y. — where they planned, developed and
perfected the uneven playing field — has been declining for nearly 50 years. It may be that generations may pass away before this city is rich again with tourism like Canada and Albany and Seneca; “Where every street is made a reverent aisle; Where music grows, and beauty is unchained” and prosperity returns to Niagara Falls, N.Y. Like its neighbors.
Still, let us seek amid the silver loneliness for new developers for Niagara Falls, N.Y. Maybe we can rebuild our city once again. Meanwhile, I have a worthy slogan, an advisory for developers thinking of coming here, if there be any such: “Niagara Falls, N.Y.: It has all the inconveniences of hell with none of its advantages.”
Just ask Niagara Falls, Ontario, Seneca or Albany. And they, in return, have if not a benediction, at least, a motto for us: “May you live all the days of your life.” But, as a cold codicil, our rich and privileged neighbors might add, in a whisper, “but not, most definitely not, on an even playing field.”
Three rich; one poor. Take a drive through the four nations of Niagara Falls. The kind of disparity you’ll see did not come by accident. Maybe it’s time we change that. If one Niagara, literally starting out in a hole can succeed, it stands to reason so can all of Niagara Falls, N.Y.
(Coming soon: The history of the Niagara Falls Planning Department under the direction of Senior Planner Thomas DeSantis.)

Frank Parlato Jr. can be reached at frank@frankreport.com.