Residents can participate in the city’s downtown waterfront planning on Aug. 27 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. during a Local Waterfront Revitalization Program public workshop held at the Dale Association.
Earlier this summer, the city received an $85,000 grant from the New York State Department of Transportation, contributed $15,000 in required matching funds and contracted LaBella Associates, an engineering firm.
Mike Marino, CEO of Nussbaumer & Clarke, the engineering firm on retainer with the city, said the Erie Canal is designated an inland waterway, which makes it qualify for the state program.
“The first step of the process is to have this formal plan in place,” Marino said this spring, “and then you can go back and apply for implementation funding. It’s going to be two years to finish the LWRP plan. I think they’re looking by the end of 2028. Then hopefully you can get a project submitted and groundbreaking in 2029 or 2030.”
Marino said Tuesday that the first order of business is to establish the boundaries of the planning area.
“That has to be approved by the state,” he said. “The planners need to show connection and purpose to the waterfront.”
“It’s about more than just the water,” said Kevin McDonough, a member of the city’s waterfront planning committee. “It’s about an entire downtown environment.”
McDonough was involved in the city’s first waterfront planning process 16 years ago.
“It was to come up with a long-term strategy for making the best use of our waterfront, not just as a tourist destination, but also as a place for people to live and work,” he said. “You can’t have a successful waterfront if you don’t have people living close to it.”
McDonough said the city’s past waterfront planning district included Walnut and Main streets roughly from Prospect to Market streets and the north side of the canal to Clinton Street.
The city’s past plan featured the Lockport Heritage Harbor Project located on the canal between the Stevens Street bridge and West Avenue, McDonough said.
“It’s a logical place for a harbor because it’s a widened part of the canal. It is well suited for adding dock space without blocking canal traffic, the idea being that we could draw boats from Erie County if they had someplace to stop and something to do without having to lock through.”
McDonough said research more than a decade ago found that Erie County had the largest number of privately owned small watercraft in the country.
“The idea was to try and draw those people in,” he said. “If you turn Lockport into a destination west of the locks, we can get more people here.”
Last summer, New York State Canal Corp said the Lockport Heritage Harbor Project was in “deferment.” The project was part of the state’s Reimagine the Canals Initiative, said Jackie Schillinger, senior communications strategy manager for the New York State Canal Corp. The project entered the initial development stage with the canal corporation, and Schillinger said a scope of work was developed, 30% of the design was completed, and initial soil borings were collected. Schillinger said that preliminary work identified that “the terminal wall of the site has significant needs,” referring to the reinforced canal bank that runs the entire length of the current parking area. Estimates made in 2024 identified costs of at least $8 million, she said.
Due to budgetary pressures, Schillinger said the canal corporation reviewed Reimagine the Canals to see which projects could be deferred, and the marina on the west side was put on hold.
Mark Devine, former 3rd Ward alderman, had advocated for the project, which was to include eight to 10 docks.
“It wasn’t going to be like North Tonawanda, but it was going to be substantial enough,” he said last year. “They just wanted to get something in there that they could expand on in the future. This was so that people didn’t have to go through the locks, but they could hang out in Lockport. It takes a lot of time to go through the locks.”