By Frank Parlato Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino proposes to build an arena on a property the City doesn’t own. To do so, he must stop Niagara Falls Redevelopment LLC (NFR) from developing a $1.5 billion AI Data Center on its own property with its own money. Restaino wants toRead More

Niagara Falls, NY, has the opportunity to have a world-class, state-of-the-art data center with developers ready to go. It will be a huge project. The developers, Niagara Falls Redevelopment and Urbacon, have the money, the skill, and the plans to build a mammoth $1.5 billion digital center with an emphasisRead More

Live entertainment experts such as Christian Printup have voiced their opinions in opposition of Mayor Restaino’s proposed event center in Niagara Falls, NY. One of their key arguments as to whether or not this project is even feasible involves the saturated market for live events in immediate proximity to ourRead More

Two points keep nagging me about Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino’s plan to build an arena on NFR land – land he has gone to court to force the sale through eminent domain. The location for the arena seems to be the mayor’s deliberate plan to favor the Seneca NationRead More

Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino is hell bent on building his Centennial Park, actually not a park but a 7000-seat arena right at the entranceway of Niagara Falls Redevelopment land, on NFR land, and in so doing block NFR’s plan to build a $1.5 billion data center. The Restaino arena,Read More

This past Friday, the Niagara Gazette’s investigative journalist Mark Scheer published an editorial entitled “Economists on sports venue public financing: ‘read the fine print’.” Scheer astutely compared expert analyses on the public funding of the new Buffalo Bills stadium with Mayor Robert Restaino’s proposed use of public funding for hisRead More

This is not how eminent domain is supposed to work. It is also not how development is supposed to work, even when, like Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino, you’re spending taxpayers’ money. Mayor Restaino told his Buffalo lawyers to tell the NY State Supreme Court that 10 acres of privateRead More

While the City of Niagara Falls has stalled a proposed Data Center with a $1.5 billion investment by Urbacon, one of the world’s largest data center developers, and NFR, the city’s largest landowner, other areas in the country, are seeing the need and taking advantage of the AI boom. AnotherRead More

The proposal of the Niagara Digital Campus, a $1.5 billion data center, allows the city to compete with the big cities in the world of big tech and AI advancements. The project has two of the three main ingredients needed to succeed. The developer, Urbacon, is a successful data centerRead More

Niagara Falls Redevelopment Reveals $1.5 Billion Data Center Plan Niagara Falls Redevelopment (NFR) recently revealed a site plan for the first phase of its ambitious $1.5 billion data center project, coined the Niagara Digital Campus. Despite this unveiling, Mayor Robert Restaino has opposed the proposal despite a global surge inRead More

The Niagara Digital Campus is an innovative, $1.48 billion technology and data center hub that will bring thousands of jobs and cutting-edge technological infrastructure to the City of Niagara Falls. The joint project between Niagara Falls Redevelopment (NFR) and Urbacon—a Toronto-based developer of state-of-the-art data centers—is privately funded and willRead More

By Tony Farina While Mayor Robert Restaino narrowly won re-election with a 3.5 to 1 vote advantage, he still appears committed publicly to building his events center arena on 10 acres of land the city will have to purchase from NFR on John Daly Blvd. if the city wins theRead More

Bold Vision: Leveraging State Land for Event Center, Tech Campus to Spur Growth! With the Mayoral election over, Niagara Falls can now turn its attention to the “two-project solution” as a potential avenue for economic growth and development in the city. This solution aims to provide residents with an arena,Read More

Mayor Robert Restaino wants to build a taxpayer-funded events center. He does not yet have the funding or land. But we understand the principle behind his effort, and we want to support it by proposing some better, more accurate names than his preferred one: Centennial Park. Mayor Robert Restaino’s MajesticRead More

By Dennis Elsenbeck I have lived and worked in Western New York for decades now. Many in the area know me from the nearly 30 years I spent at Niagara Mohawk and National Grid (culminating in the position of regional director for Western New York), or from my role onRead More

By Tony Farina Simply stated, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has now become part of the story of the competing Niagara Falls development projects, one supported by the mayor and the second by Niagara Falls Redevelopment (NFR). In denying a FOIL request by the Niagara Gazette,Read More

Niagara Falls Redevelopment (NFR) and Toronto-based developer Urbacon have unveiled a $1.5 billion plan for the first phase of the Niagara Digital Campus, a state-of-the-art data center project in Niagara Falls, NY. The development is centered on a 12-acre plot known as “Parcel 0,” which is key to the project’sRead More

By Tony Farina There was good news for the taxpayers at Wednesday’s Niagara Falls City Council meeting as lawmakers beat back a bid by outgoing councilmember Ken Tompkins to cut ties with the outside counsel which would have effectively ended the possibility for continuing negotiations with NFR in the eminentRead More

By Tony Farina NFR’s development partner, Toronto-based Urbacon, last week released its site plan for the first phase of its $1.5 billion data center project which would be built on 10 acres of what is now referred to as “Parcel-0” off John Daly Blvd. on land owned by NFR butRead More

NIAGARA FALLS — A land-use tug-of-war in Niagara Falls puts jobs and innovation in the balance. Mayor Robert Restaino, anticipating a tough election battle against Dr. Carl Cain this November, is championing a plan to develop what he calls Centennial Park. The mayor envisions a $150 million, 7,000-seat stadium, despiteRead More