Architects hired for Erie Canal plan

[Kris]

Architects hired for Erie Canal plan

Rick Armon
Staff writer

(September 9, 2003) — Two architectural firms that teamed up to boost recreational opportunities on the Erie Canal in the mid-1990s are now in charge of creating an overall strategy for economic activity and preservation along the historic 524-mile waterway.

The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor Commission and National Park Service on Monday announced the hiring of Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners LLP of New York City and Sasaki Architects, Landscape Architects & Professional Engineers PC of Watertown, Mass.

The firms will produce a cohesive strategy and recommendations to preserve historical aspects of the canal and to promote development along its shores, said Eric Mower, chairman of the commission.

A final report is expected in about two years. The contract is worth $874,000.

“ This canal, without any question, is the most important corridor in the United States,” Jack Beyer said at a news conference in Rochester, where the commission was meeting. The Genesee River and a portion of the abandoned canal under Broad Street served as a scenic backdrop.

Beyer and Sasaki are quite familiar with the canal, which was first opened in 1825 and later expanded. They created a master plan for the state Thruway Authority in 1995 that promoted trails and boating along the waterway. That plan was the genesis not only for the boom in recreational opportunities, but also a boost to the New York economy, Beyer said.

The firm will work with existing canal groups and communities in developing its latest plan, Mower said.

The Erie Canal was designated in 2000 by Congress as one of 23 National Heritage Corridors in the United States. The 27-member commission was created last year to oversee it and promote tourism, recreation and economic development in an area that includes more than 200 cities, towns and villages.

One of its first tasks was to hire a planning firm.

The commission can receive up to $1 million a year in federal funding for 10 years. Additional money can be obtained for specific projects through requests from Congress.

Reps. James Walsh, R-Onondaga and Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport, Rochester Mayor William A. Johnson Jr. and Monroe County Executive Jack Doyle attended the announcement and praised the effort to promote the canal.

“ We’ve never capitalized as much as we should have on the Erie Canal,” Slaughter said.

RARMON@DemocratandChronicle.com

For more details about the National Heritage Corridor, go to: www.nps.gov/erie

[Kris]

October 22, 2003

Take Back the Erie Canal

Heads up. We have action in Albany. The New York State comptroller, Alan Hevesi, has rescinded the approval of a deal allowing a Buffalo developer to pay $30,000 for the development rights along 50 prime miles of the Erie Canal and its tributaries. The comptroller labeled the competitive process for this agreement a "sham." He said the state's Canal Corporation, which approved the contract, made "false and misleading" statements 18 months ago to get validation from the comptroller's office. So Mr. Hevesi removed the comptroller's seal of approval, voided the contract and passed his findings along to the attorney general for more investigation.

While some old Albany hands scratched their heads about whether a comptroller could undo what a predecessor had done, the real question is why Gov. George Pataki or the New York State Thruway Authority, parent of the Canal Corporation, had not made this action unnecessary. A mere $30,000 for options to develop the Erie Canal should be an embarrassment to Mr. Pataki for lots of reasons.

After the developer presented his plan for a waterfront residential development, the corporation advertised — in an insider's newsletter — for proposals that sounded a lot like those same developer's plans. Others considering development of the canal now complain that they were not properly notified. And now there are even questions about whether the developer is in default on the contract by subcontracting to another developer with political connections. It all makes Mr. Pataki's administration look like a place that funnels its juiciest business to friends, hiding such ventures inside the huge network of semiprivate state authorities.

The first response from the Thruway Authority officials who oversee the canal system was to label this politics. They say Mr. Hevesi did not give them a decent chance to respond to his charges. A better route would be for the Canal Corporation to hold open hearings, recognize the flaws in a system that produces such a contract and send the developer back his $30,000.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

May 11, 2004

State Cancels Deal to Develop Erie Canal

By MICHAEL COOPER

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/05/11/nyregion/11ERIE.xl.jpg
A developer, Richard A. Hutchens, planned to put homes on the canal.

ALBANY, May 10 - The Pataki administration has quietly moved to terminate a contract it awarded that gave a real estate developer the exclusive rights to build along the shoreline of the Erie Canal for only $30,000, officials said Monday.

The deal became a political embarrassment for the administration last year after Democrats questioned why such potentially lucrative development rights were being sold for so little money after a little-publicized bidding process yielded only one bidder. After the office of State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi rescinded its earlier approval of the contract last fall, Gov. George E. Pataki asked the state attorney general and inspector general to investigate the contract.

Both investigations are continuing, officials said.

After defending the contract for months, officials at the Canal Corporation, a subsidiary of the New York State Thruway Authority that awarded the contract three years ago, decided to end it. On Friday they faxed a letter to the winning bidder, Richard A. Hutchens, telling him the deal was off as of May 20.

In the letter, the Canal Corporation said it was terminating the contract not because of any questions about how it was awarded, but because it had determined that Mr. Hutchens's company "has not satisfied material provisions" of the agreement. It faulted Mr. Hutchens for improperly bringing another developer into the project and for failing to certify a list of sites suitable for development.

Thomas A. Bystryk, the general manager of Mr. Hutchens's firm, said in an interview Monday that he believed the contract allowed a 30-day period to remedy any problems.

He noted that none of the investigations had found any wrongdoing by the company and said he was consulting lawyers over a course of action. "If they do this, it's another kick in the teeth for the state," he said. "There's a potential for a great deal of development and they want to stymie it. Think of it. Who will want to do business in the state if they do this?"

Asked if he thought that the administration was using technicalities to kill the contract and end a political embarrassment, Mr. Bystryk said, "That is our assumption."

Michael R. Fleischer, the executive director of the Canal Corporation and the Thruway Authority - which are both controlled by the same three-member board appointed by the governor - said Monday that he believed the problems were beyond remedy.

The deal has helped turn the Erie Canal from a symbol of one of the most successful economic development programs in the state's history to what critics call a symbol of all that is wrong with the state's current system of using public authorities and corporations to do government work with little of the oversight customary for state agencies.

"The Pataki administration has botched, on both an economic and an ethical basis, this entire process," said Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, who brought details of the deal to light during legislative hearings that he held. "It has become the poster child for what is wrong with state authorities."

The case highlights the need for a fundamental overhaul of the state's public authorities, he said on Monday.

Mr. Hutchens won the bid after the Canal Corporation announced that it was offering the development rights in a small advertisement on Page 62 of an obscure, subscription-only publication called The New York State Contract Reporter. The solicitation for bids was sandwiched between advertisements looking for a firm to provide mops to the State Power Authority and another looking for a company to maintain hiking trails.

It was later learned that Mr. Hutchens had been alerted to the ad by the Canal Corporation, and that he had been in talks with the corporation long before bids were solicited.

The contract gave Mr. Hutchens the right to cut private canals into the Erie Canal and its tributaries, allowing him to build housing developments with access to the canal along about 45 miles of its shoreline.

Despite the Canal Corporation's earlier defense of awarding the contract, Mr. Fleischer said the corporation would be changing its procedures.

"We're canceling this contract because he didn't comply with the contract's provisions," he said. "Going forward, the Canal Corporation and the authority are developing new procedures for the disposition of land on the canal."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company