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Brewery CEO, Rich Lozyniak, said Thursday that those who want to save 13 Cataract Street are “a very small group of people standing in the way of progress.” I don’t believe tearing down a 120 year old brewing landmark for 27 parking spaces is progress… I’ve always supported the idea of a Brewery Visitor Center. But I also support the effort to save the 120 year old brewhouse across the street (13 Cataract ). And I know I’m not alone…

Now you can send an email to the Brewery’s CEO and City Hall to show your support .

After the jump you’ll see the story from News 10 NBC’s Lynette Adams…

Here’s the story as seen on 10 NBC last night…

A local group is fighting to save an old Rochester building that Genesee Brewing Company wants to tear down in order to make room for a parking lot. It’s part of a plan to open a new ale house and museum, but the group says that plan shouldn’t have to include leveling the building.

They are architects, communications and marketing professionals and environmental experts, among others. They are representatives of a large local group working to save 13 Cataract Street.

“The parking lot is just a very expensive place to store cars for a few hours a day, the building can do much more than a parking lot…and there’s still plenty more land for parking. Its really not an either or situation,” says Carlos Mercado. He is one of many who want to save the building from demolition.

Genesee Brewing Company wants to open a brew house and museum at the brewery. It says it would attract visitors to the city. To make room for more parking, the company wants to take down the old, rundown building on Cataract Street. It had zoning board approval, but last night, the Preservation Board put on the brakes.

The CEO of North American Breweries, which owns Genesee Brewing, says he didn’t see this coming. “We are so disappointed that a group of five people we didn’t even know existed two weeks ago could turn around and unilaterally put this project in jeopardy,” says Rich Lozyniak.

The Preservation Board granted members of the group an opportunity to make their case for saving the building and designating it a local landmark.

Wayne Goodman is the Executive Director of The Landmark Society. He says the idea would be to rehab the building into a mixed retail, office and residential space. “Historic preservation is about economic vitality. It’s about neighborhood revitalization. You can look all over the city of Rochester and find areas in the city that have been completely revitalized by rehabbing some of our old buildings,” he says. “We just simply want to have some more time to work with potential developers and planners so that we can come up with a project that will satisfy the needs of Genesee Brewing, will help actually make the Brew house more successful as a venture and will also anchor the economic development of the area.”

The Brewery Square Development Group is working to secure a contractor who would take on a project of this magnitude before it makes it’s presentation to the Preservation Board. As for the parking issue, the group says there is plenty of city land that could be used for parking.

Members of the group estimate that to tear down the portion of the building that’s not salvageable, build and adjacent building, and redevelop it, would cost the same as it would cost to tear down and build a parking lot. Each of those projects would cost about $1-million.

CORRECTION: In the last paragraph this story incorrectly states it would cost $1-million to redevelop the buildings. The cost of redevelopment would actually be higher and would vary greatly depending on how it was redeveloped. What the group actually estimated is that it would cost roughly $1-million to make the building presentable from the outside (to do necessary roof repairs, masonry work, sealing up windows, removing ugly appendages, etc.). $1-million is roughly the same as it would cost to tear it down and building a parking lot.

See this story at 10 NBC here .

You can help…

If you support the effort to save 13 Cataract as well as the Brewery’s planned visitor center, you can send an email to show your support .

Tags: Cataract Brewery, Genesee Brewery, North American Breweries, Rochester, Rochester NY

This entry was posted on Friday, March 9th, 2012 at 9:57 am and is filed under Rochester News, Urban Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.