Scanlon proposes police use of Braymiller

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The now-shuttered Braymiller Market. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker.

Acting Mayor Christopher Scanlon wants the city to rent the former Braymiller Market building for use by the Buffalo Police Department, according to documents filed Monday with the Common Council.

Scanlon is requesting lawmakers approve a one-year lease between the city and owner Stuart Green, who has defaulted on a loan from Evans Bank used to buy the property in 2021. City records indicate Green purchased the property for $7 million. He still owes approximately $5 million to the bank, according to Fillmore Common Council Member Mitch Nowakowski.

The city’s proposed lease.

The lease, for $1 per month, would allow police stationed in the B-District building on the corner of Main and Tupper streets to move in while “an urgent sewer main replacement and interior renovations” over the next year.

“This temporary relocation will ensure the safety of residents and businesses in the B District area as well as ensure the building is secured and maintained while the owner determines the most appropriate next steps,” according to a memo attached to the proposed lease.

Costs would not be limited to $12 per year, however. According to the lease, the city would  be on the hook for all utility payments “including electric, gas, water, sewer, user fee, internet, and security service to the building.” Those utility payments could include the refrigerators in the building’s cold storage area, about 60 percent of the 46,000 square footage, as the city is not permitted to “alter or disconnect the refrigeration equipment located on the leased premises.”

The city would also be responsible for any renovations required to turn the grocery store into a temporary police station. That would likely include security cameras, partition walls and other alterations.

Scanlon’s memo contended the city could get the building for a steal, stating that Green could charge $25 per square foot, netting him $1.1 million over a year’s lease. The going rate for class A office space in downtown Buffalo is $25 to $35 per square foot, according to Jim Militello, a longtime commercial real estate broker. The memo stated that the $1 per month rent would “result in savings of roughly $800,000 over the lease term.”

Scanlon’s administration described the former Braymiller Market building as the “best available property” downtown to temporarily relocate the B-District and argued it would improve public safety in the surrounding blocks.

“This temporary relocation to 225 Ellicott Street will also provide an active police presence in the surrounding neighborhood, which has seen a dramatic increase in the volume of 911 calls in recent years,” the Scanlon administration wrote in the memo.

While the police occupy the building, the memo stated, the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency, headed by Scanlon, will help Green market the property to potential tenants, including a new grocer. In addition, the city’s Human Resources department will host three employment training sessions to aid the former Braymiller Market employees.

The lease further states that the agreement could be terminated early because of Green’s default with Evans Bank. In the event the bank forecloses on the property, the city will have 90 days to move out. 

Braymiller Market, which opened as downtown’s first grocery store in the fall of 2021, closed last week. Due to its opening date, the business was not eligible for pandemic-era business assistance which, combined with a loss of foot traffic downtown, resulted in steep losses. Investigative Post obtained records showing those losses averaged more than $20,000 per month at times. City officials, in a bid to keep the store open, granted the store a $561,000 loan last summer, forgivable if the business stayed open through the end of 2025.

It’s unclear if Common Council members will approve the lease. At a hearing last week, lawmakers said they want Green to pay back a $561,000 loan the city granted his business last summer. Scanlon has said he favors forgiving the loan. Neither the lease or the memo made mention of Green repaying the city.

“A public use for a public safety campus or use is not appealing to me,” Nowakowski said at last week’s hearing. “There has to be someone that can pay that note on that building and it needs to be revenue generating because there are bills that are owed on that structure.”

Lawmakers further said they would like to see a grocery store occupy the now-shuttered market.

On Monday, Nowakowski said he was “not thrilled” by the proposed lease and had concerns about the “future and survival of that structure.”

“Any approval of a potential lease, needs to come at no cost to the city — and the operator needs to find a grocer to lease that space during the time it doesn’t operate as a grocer,” he said.

Mike Read, the mayor’s spokesperson, did not immediately provide answers questions about the lease posed by Investigative Post.

Militello, who’s owned J.R. Militello Realty Inc. since the 1980s, reviewed the city’s proposed lease and called it “harmless.”

“While [Green] waits for the bank to take over, he’s saying, ‘Here you can use the building,'” he said. “It’s good for the city.”

This story has been updated.

J. Dale Shoemaker