11-06-2025
Appeals court ruling ignites war of words between city and NFR
A new war of words has erupted between Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino and South End land owner Niagara Falls Redevelopment (NFR) in the aftermath of a ruling by a state appellate court that has affirmed the city's use of an eminent domain proceeding to acquire 10 to 12 acres of land for the proposed Centennial Park project.
Both the mayor and NFR released statements addressing the latest ruling from the Appellate Division Fourth Department of New York State Supreme Court which rejected a request from NFR asking that the appeals panel overturn its previous eminent domain ruling based on efforts by city officials to reclaim ownership of approximately 5 of the roughly 12 acres of property subject to the eminent domain decision because NFR never properly gained title to what was previously the 10th Street Park.
An NFR spokesperson expressed disappointment with the latest ruling.
'... we have argued for years that the taking of private property for so speculative a project as Centennial Park is illegal — particularly when, two years after it was authorized by the city council, there still has been no feasibility study completed to show the best location for the mayor's unfunded and tenantless event center,' spokesman James Haggerty wrote in an email to the Gazette.
Restiano argued that NFR is simply trying to stall development in the city with its legal challenges.
'The ruling by the New York State Appellate Division clearly demonstrates that Niagara Falls Redevelopment is running out of legal options in its latest attempt to persuade the courts to reject the city's eminent domain action in our efforts to build Centennial Park,' the mayor said in a statement released to news media. 'NFR owns approximately 140 acres of property in downtown Niagara Falls and the fact that they are pulling out all the stops fighting the city over a few acres in which we are offering a fair market value for is revealing.'
NFR filed a motion with the Appellate Division in March asking the justices there to review and reverse their July 28, 2023, unanimous ruling that the city was justified in seeking to use eminent domain to take up to 12 acres of undeveloped land for its park and events center project. Lawyers for NFR had argued that the claim by the city that it already owns some of the proposed park property, based on newly discovered evidence, 'probably would have produced a different result' if the appeals court justices had been aware of it in 2023.
In an unsigned, three-sentence decision released on Friday, the court wrote, 'Now upon reading and filing the papers with respect to the motion, and due deliberation having been had thereon, it is hereby ordered that the motion is denied.'
Haggerty noted that the city and NFR are now locked in a legal battle over who actually owns the former 10th Street Park property, within the eminent domain acreage footprint.
The Niagara Falls City Council has directed the city's corporation counsel to 'take all necessary steps to commence any and all legal action ... in order to declare the transfer of (10th Street Playground, 907 Falls St.) null and void.' The city's special counsel for the Centennial Park project, the Buffalo-based law firm of Hodgson Russ, has filed what is known as a quiet title action to reclaim the former parkland.
Haggerty said NFR has 'invested millions of dollars (in the park) preparing for the Niagara Digital Campus', its proposed $1.5 billion nine-building data center project.
'Through court-supervised document disclosures and depositions, we will learn how — and by whom — this new idea was hatched, and whether the mayor's scheme is simply aimed at trying to lower the valuation of NFR's property,' Haggerty wrote. 'Sadly, taxpayers continue to pay legal fees for all the mayor's litigation, and are forced to watch as, for reasons nobody understands, he works to prevent NFR from building its economy-transforming, privately funded, $1.5 billion data center.
Despite recent action by the city council to have the data center project proposal reviewed by the county and city Planning Boards and the city's Zoning Board of Appeals, officials have said they do not believe NFR will ever build the project.
'NFR has accused the city for 25 years that their rationale for not developing one acre of property they own was due to the lack of development by the city in and around NFR's footprint,' Restaino said. 'This is not about a multi-billion-dollar data center as proposed by NFR, that without the disputed acreage of 10th Street Park will not happen, it's about a continued illogical pattern of preventing Niagara Falls from fulfilling its potential as a true world-class tourism destination.'
