Wow! Eight planners from the Urban Land Institute spent a week in Niagara Falls and they have figured out what to do with the 200,000 square feet of available space in the hulking Rainbow Mall, given some new life recently by the opening of the NCC Culinary Institute.
The recommendations include “three workable design concepts,” said the panel’s chairman, a former mayor of Orlando, Fla., home of Disney design concepts that work quite nicely. One of the recommendations includes cutting the mall in half with a road in the middle, and another would be to put in businesses to attract tourists, maybe even a movie theater. Why didn’t city planners think of that? Maybe it’s just too complicated for city planners to come up with such a grand scheme!
And all that good advice only cost $125,000, with USA Niagara, the state entity that won’t respond to a FOIL request for its financial records, putting up $65,000, hardly a blip on the $2 million it gets each year from the nearly bankrupt City of Niagara Falls.
But there’s even more. USA Niagara, by agreement with the city, has the exclusive rights to solicit bids and develop the empty space at the mall which now has been given the blessing of the Urban Land Institute that USA Niagara hired with its hefty bankroll.
Amazing isn’t it. Bring in eight planners at a cost of $125,000 and they will tell you what to do. In short, make the mall attractive to tourists, maybe by sawing it in half. Boy, I guess that was money well spent because nobody here knew what to do. Thanks, USA Niagara for saving the day again. I don’t know what the city would do without USAN, the agency most favored by connected developers with big ideas and even bigger promises, and an entity that won’t make public its financial records. Enough said!
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