The owner of the former OxyChem building downtown made a sizable payment Friday on his outstanding tax bill to the City of Niagara Falls.

Frank Parlato Jr., manager of One Niagara, the nine-story office building adjacent to Niagara Falls State Park, presented the city with a check for $311,105.55, an amount that covers the first installment on city taxes owed on the property for 2006.

“I’m inching my way up to being current with a great deal of toil and sweat,” Parlato said. “I’m raising myself up by my own boot straps.”

One Niagara, located at 360 Rainbow Blvd., is the former site of the ill-fated AquaFalls project which went belly up several years into its development, leaving a gaping hole in the ground where an underground aquarium was supposed to go.

Parlato assumed 50 percent ownership of the property in 2004 and has since replaced the 40-foot hole with a paid parking lot for tourists. In addition, he currently operates a welcoming center inside the building, offering tours of the area to visitors.

Before Friday’s payment, Parlato owed more than $1 million in back taxes on the property, part of which he says he inherited from AquaFalls investors who defaulted on a payment-in-lieu-of-tax agreement put in place for the project. He previously made good on city, school and property taxes owed for 2004 and 2005 and said he invested roughly $2 million to fill in the hole and make other improvements to the property.

On Friday, Parlato said he will continue making tax payments as he is able and intends to keep the property from entering into the city’s in-rem tax foreclosure proceedings.

“We are playing catch up and we are starting to get ahead now,” he said.

Parlato said this year’s revenue from his parking lot covered the cost of the 2006 tax bill as well as $127,000 paid under the final installment for the building’s 2005 taxes and a $53,000 bill for sales tax.

Parlato, who has been openly critical of the downtown business environment, noted that his building operates near a parking lot operated by state parks, a city-owned parking ramp located across the street and the Seneca Niagara Casino, which has a free ramp of its own just a few blocks down from his location.

Unlike his operation, Parlato said those competitors are not obligated to pay taxes on their properties.

“It operated solely for the welfare of the City of Niagara Falls on a uneven playing field where all my direct competitors were tax free,” said Parlato.