The Niagara Falls Planning Board has given its approval to a site plan and environmental review that will allow Community Missions Niagara Frontier, Inc. to move forward with its plans to build a new multi-purpose center next to its Buffalo Avenue shelter and headquarters.
Planning Board Chair Ryan Dallavia said members acted at the Sept. 16 meeting to adopt the project’s state environmental quality review (SEQR) findings and the construction site plan for a one-story structure that would allow for an expansion of the mission’s food pantry and furniture giveaway programs.
Dallavia said representatives of the mission told the board they hoped to begin construction “within the next six months.”
At a presentation to the planning board in April, Christian Hoffman, vice president of Public Relations & Development for Community Missions, said the cost of the construction project is estimated at $1.3 million, with an additional $200,000 required to “outfit the building.”
“We have about $900,000 committed at this point,” Hoffman said at that time, “so we have a little more to do. But when we have (the full funding), we’ll be right back here (with a site plan).”
The mission has said that its fundraising efforts have been bolstered recently by a $600,000 grant from the New York State Regional Economic Development Council.
The approved site plan calls for the one-story, 5,000-square-foot distribution center to be built at 1600 Buffalo Avenue on land immediately adjacent to the mission’s current shelter and headquarters. Half the building would serve as a food pantry, accessible by clients; 30% would be used for food pantry storage and 20% for the mission’s furniture giveaway program.
The furniture distribution program is now housed at 324 Portage Road, the site Community Missions is hoping to develop into a new multi-unit facility to house homeless families. The planning board has recommended that the City Council approve a request from the mission to rezone 324 Portage Road, 1431 Robinson Court and 320 Portage Road into a single property and change the property zoning from its existing C1-A (Neighborhood Commercial) to C2-A (Traditional Commercial).
The rezoning would allow Community Missions to construct a 10,000-square-foot, two-story building containing a mix of six two- and three-bedroom units designed only for family use.
Hoffman has said that the organization’s current food pantry, which is 1,000 square feet, is too small to meet the community demand. In 2008, the Mission pantry was providing 30,000 meals a year. Since the Covid pandemic, that has skyrocketed to between 170,000 and 180,000 meals a year.
“We can’t bring people inside anymore to select food that meets their family’s needs,” Hoffman said at the earlier planning board presentation. “People have to wait outside. We want them to have a more dignified experience than that.”
Hoffman said construction of the distribution center is expected to take 8 to 12 weeks.