Demolition of a one-story, mid-block building between St. Paul and North Clinton on East Main Street could begin in May — and take eight months to complete.
The former McDonald’s is being razed to make way for an envisioned Main Street Commons, a pedestrian passthrough between East Main and Division streets.
But it’s more than that.
The commons area would create a gathering spot, with space for sidewalk cafes extending from the larger, long-vacant buildings on either side. Work already is underway renovating the buildings immediately west of the project site into apartments with first-floor retail space. The former Kresge building to the east should be redeveloped after the demolition is completed, with geothermal wells beneath the commons to heat and cool the structure.
"Several projects hinge on the start and completion of the commons," said developer Patrick Dutton, who is part of the team working on Kresge. "It's hugely important."
Costly undertaking
The 1970s-era steel frame structure has shared walls with those adjoining structures, and is anchored into those buildings down to its much older foundation. City Council is being asked to sign off on more than $2 million for the demolition, along with outside construction inspection and design services, and shoring up the adjacent buildings.
Those costs reflect the complicated nature of the work ahead. Coupled with the $800,000 the city spent to buy the building, total expenses stand at $3 million.
“If this was a free-standing building with ample space around it, you’d probably be talking a month, at best,” said Jeff Mroczek, the city’s senior landscape architect.
Instead, the timeline stretches out eight months, he said, “give or take.” The hope is to be substantially completed this fall, with demolition being done by Utica-based Ritter & Paratore Contracting.
“You can’t just get a front-end loader and knock this thing down, and take it away,” Mroczek said. “You kind of have to take it down piece by piece.”
Tight quarters
This stretch of East Main Street between St. Paul and North Clinton “has been for decades one of the most moribund blocks in all of downtown,” said Erik Frisch, the city’s deputy commissioner of neighborhood and business development.
“We have talked for decades about opening this up,” Mroczek said, whether for a pedestrian walkway or extending Stone Street, which lines up on the other side of East Main.
Once the building is down, and before the foundation is backfilled, Dutton and his development team plan to install the geothermal wells. Given the constraints of the work area, that likely will require bringing in a crane to pick up the drill rig and set it down in the excavated space, lift and turn it around once to reach the entirety of the lot, then hoist it up and out again, once finished.
"It's not an inexpensive ordeal," Dutton said.
The lot then will remain a fenced, graveled, construction staging area for a time as the adjacent redevelopment work proceeds. Dutton and the team had proposed putting a small hotel into the former Kresge building, currently the temporary home of Greenspark Solar. But in the current market, he said, "we're not super boutique hotel bullish."
The convention center is undergoing renovation, and major redevelopment projects on the Rochester Riverside Hotel and First Federal Building have yet to begin or are not yet certain.
"We're in a place where we're hedging our bets," he said, including an option that could flip to either a hotel or apartment building. "We're watching the market."
