News & Events
NIAGARA FALLS: Making the move to Main Street
Published: December 20, 2006 10:38 pm
Physical therapy complex is one of three new businesses opening on struggling street
By Denise Jewell - Niagara Gazette
Craig Reinstein saw potential in a vacant office building on Main Street.
James Neiss/staff photographer Niagara Falls, NY - Dave Palivoda, left, and Dan Burns, both electricians with IBEW Local Union 237, work inside the future home of the Advanced Care Physical Therapy Aquatic & Fitness Center at 924 Main Street. Owner Craig Reinstein, a physical therapist, is renovating the old building and plans to open for business next year. |
The physical therapist had outgrown the Third Street location where he started Advanced Care Physical Therapy seven years ago. He looked at sites in the towns of Niagara and Wheatfield, but wanted to stay within the city’s limits.
After buying the former Labor Ready building near Main Street and Elmwood Avenue and spending nearly $1 million to renovate the 10,000-square-foot facility, he expects to open the site next year. When complete, the building will have a suite of medical offices, physical therapy space and a fitness center with a pool.
“I see a lot of growth,” Reinstein said of the Main Street neighborhood and its potential to draw clients to the area. “We can offer a lot of services for people from all over — Wheatfield, Youngstown, Grand Island.”
Reinstein is one of a handful of local entrepreneurs bringing new investment to a neighborhood struggling to rebound. At least three of the projects are moving forward with little or no public dollars.
Across the street, in a former house now painted periwinkle blue, Debora Krieger has opened an independent coffee house in a three-story building that once housed Cactus Jack’s restaurant. A block away, a local family is working through the approval process to open a soul food restaurant.
Construction workers, new paint and coming-soon signs sprouting up amid the vacant store fronts and deteriorating buildings on Main Street are signs of new life in a neighborhood left behind by shopping malls and superstores.
James Neiss/staff photographer Niagara Falls, NY - Physical Therapist Craig Reinstein is renovating an old building at 924 Main Street and plans to open the Advanced Care Physical Therapy Aquatic & Fitness Center next year. The building has additional off ice space expected to be used as medical suites. |
“We’re going to have some choices on Main Street that we haven’t had in the past,” said Claudia Miller, president of the Main Street Business and Professional Association.
Miller believes the new businesses are a sign that another project meant to spur economic development — the $42 million planned city courthouse and police station — may have some success.
“We fought so hard to bring the courthouse, knowing that it was not a panacea. We didn’t expect it to be the answer to all of our problems,” Miller said.
Business pushes toward Main Street
Donna Portale is an associate broker for Realty USA who helped Reinstein find the site on Main Street more than a year ago when he was looking to expand. She sees a natural progression of development toward Main Street and Pine Avenue as businesses that are not tourism-related move from the direct vicinity of the Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel.
That was the case for Reinstein, who has been renting space at the corner of Third and Falls streets for seven years since he started Advance Care Physical Therapy. During the last four years, the block has undergone extensive renovation as the Seneca Nation of Indians turned the Niagara Falls Convention and Civic Center into a glistening, 26-story hotel and casino directly across the street.
Two other businesses on Main Street have moved from downtown areas within walking distance of the casino to the North End within the last year. Krieger’s Bada Bean Cafe first opened on Niagara Street. She moved the business to Main Street this fall after buying a vacant building at the corner of Main Street and Elmwood Avenue.
Connie Hamilton, who operated Sass beauty salon on Third Street for years, moved to a north Main Street storefront last year to avoid the headache of extensive street construction near the casino. The renovated salon joined with the Haircut Warehouse barbershop to open a new location a block from where the city is planning to build the new courthouse.
Like Portale, the Main Street association’s neighborhood revitalization coordinator, Zach Casale, believes the new projects on Main Street are an outgrowth of other development in the city.
“Money goes where money’s spent,” Casale said. “Even with just having Starbucks down the road on Third Street, people start to pay attention to where corporations or chains are starting to spend money.”
New projects provide mix of development
Reinstein, the physical therapist, has a unique vision for Main Street. He is planning to create a “one-stop shop for health and fitness needs” that would provide physical programs tailored to the health needs of individual members.
He has had the inside of the former office site gutted and rebuilt, with room to lease two offices as medical suites. Behind the building, two houses have been torn down to add an indoor pool for physical therapy treatments.
Reinstein’s practice will also offer a golf clinic that will help players identify problems and improve their swings.
Aside from a façade grant from the city and state tax credits eligible to Main Street businesses, the project is being financed entirely through private investment.
A few blocks away, the non-profit Health Association of Niagara County Inc. is planning to expand its Main Street location by 2,500 square feet to accommodate a senior care center that focuses on helping elderly residents remain in their homes. The program, a $3.5 million joint venture with the Dale Association of Lockport, is expected to create up to 150 new jobs during the next five years at its two locations, including the Main Street site.
That emerging mix between public and private development — whether restaurants or health care centers — is the type of development Main Street supporters say they want for the area when the new courthouse and police station opens in 2009.
“With the fact that there will be construction and workers on the street, they’ll be some changes,” Miller said.
“I think what we need to do is make sure that we are carefully involved in a planning process so that we don’t mess it up.”
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News & Events
NIAGARA FALLS: Making the move to Main Street
Published: December 20, 2006 10:38 pm
Physical therapy complex is one of three new businesses opening on struggling street
By Denise Jewell - Niagara Gazette
Craig Reinstein saw potential in a vacant office building on Main Street.
James Neiss/staff photographer Niagara Falls, NY - Dave Palivoda, left, and Dan Burns, both electricians with IBEW Local Union 237, work inside the future home of the Advanced Care Physical Therapy Aquatic & Fitness Center at 924 Main Street. Owner Craig Reinstein, a physical therapist, is renovating the old building and plans to open for business next year. |
The physical therapist had outgrown the Third Street location where he started Advanced Care Physical Therapy seven years ago. He looked at sites in the towns of Niagara and Wheatfield, but wanted to stay within the city’s limits.
After buying the former Labor Ready building near Main Street and Elmwood Avenue and spending nearly $1 million to renovate the 10,000-square-foot facility, he expects to open the site next year. When complete, the building will have a suite of medical offices, physical therapy space and a fitness center with a pool.
“I see a lot of growth,” Reinstein said of the Main Street neighborhood and its potential to draw clients to the area. “We can offer a lot of services for people from all over — Wheatfield, Youngstown, Grand Island.”
Reinstein is one of a handful of local entrepreneurs bringing new investment to a neighborhood struggling to rebound. At least three of the projects are moving forward with little or no public dollars.
Across the street, in a former house now painted periwinkle blue, Debora Krieger has opened an independent coffee house in a three-story building that once housed Cactus Jack’s restaurant. A block away, a local family is working through the approval process to open a soul food restaurant.
Construction workers, new paint and coming-soon signs sprouting up amid the vacant store fronts and deteriorating buildings on Main Street are signs of new life in a neighborhood left behind by shopping malls and superstores.
James Neiss/staff photographer Niagara Falls, NY - Physical Therapist Craig Reinstein is renovating an old building at 924 Main Street and plans to open the Advanced Care Physical Therapy Aquatic & Fitness Center next year. The building has additional off ice space expected to be used as medical suites. |
“We’re going to have some choices on Main Street that we haven’t had in the past,” said Claudia Miller, president of the Main Street Business and Professional Association.
Miller believes the new businesses are a sign that another project meant to spur economic development — the $42 million planned city courthouse and police station — may have some success.
“We fought so hard to bring the courthouse, knowing that it was not a panacea. We didn’t expect it to be the answer to all of our problems,” Miller said.
Business pushes toward Main Street
Donna Portale is an associate broker for Realty USA who helped Reinstein find the site on Main Street more than a year ago when he was looking to expand. She sees a natural progression of development toward Main Street and Pine Avenue as businesses that are not tourism-related move from the direct vicinity of the Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel.
That was the case for Reinstein, who has been renting space at the corner of Third and Falls streets for seven years since he started Advance Care Physical Therapy. During the last four years, the block has undergone extensive renovation as the Seneca Nation of Indians turned the Niagara Falls Convention and Civic Center into a glistening, 26-story hotel and casino directly across the street.
Two other businesses on Main Street have moved from downtown areas within walking distance of the casino to the North End within the last year. Krieger’s Bada Bean Cafe first opened on Niagara Street. She moved the business to Main Street this fall after buying a vacant building at the corner of Main Street and Elmwood Avenue.
Connie Hamilton, who operated Sass beauty salon on Third Street for years, moved to a north Main Street storefront last year to avoid the headache of extensive street construction near the casino. The renovated salon joined with the Haircut Warehouse barbershop to open a new location a block from where the city is planning to build the new courthouse.
Like Portale, the Main Street association’s neighborhood revitalization coordinator, Zach Casale, believes the new projects on Main Street are an outgrowth of other development in the city.
“Money goes where money’s spent,” Casale said. “Even with just having Starbucks down the road on Third Street, people start to pay attention to where corporations or chains are starting to spend money.”
New projects provide mix of development
Reinstein, the physical therapist, has a unique vision for Main Street. He is planning to create a “one-stop shop for health and fitness needs” that would provide physical programs tailored to the health needs of individual members.
He has had the inside of the former office site gutted and rebuilt, with room to lease two offices as medical suites. Behind the building, two houses have been torn down to add an indoor pool for physical therapy treatments.
Reinstein’s practice will also offer a golf clinic that will help players identify problems and improve their swings.
Aside from a façade grant from the city and state tax credits eligible to Main Street businesses, the project is being financed entirely through private investment.
A few blocks away, the non-profit Health Association of Niagara County Inc. is planning to expand its Main Street location by 2,500 square feet to accommodate a senior care center that focuses on helping elderly residents remain in their homes. The program, a $3.5 million joint venture with the Dale Association of Lockport, is expected to create up to 150 new jobs during the next five years at its two locations, including the Main Street site.
That emerging mix between public and private development — whether restaurants or health care centers — is the type of development Main Street supporters say they want for the area when the new courthouse and police station opens in 2009.
“With the fact that there will be construction and workers on the street, they’ll be some changes,” Miller said.
“I think what we need to do is make sure that we are carefully involved in a planning process so that we don’t mess it up.”
Go back to News & Events main page