Buffalo is facing big bills

By James Heaney and Pamela Cyran

INVESTIGATIVE POST

on July 12, 2014 - 12:01 AM

, updated July 12, 2014 at 11:15 PM

The bill is about to become due for City Halls chronic failure to maintain and update many of the 240 buildings and 2,180 acres of parks it owns.

Consultants two years ago gave Mayor Byron W. Browns administration an estimate of $607 million to bring those buildings and parks up to snuff over the coming decade, and said that $253 million of that work ought to get done right away. The bill for leaky roofs alone stretched into eight figures.

The bill is about to come due for Buffalos disinvestment, and its got a lot of zeros in it.

Administration officials have kept the estimates under wraps, insisting they are too high. They were scheduled to meet Friday with the Boston-based firm that inventoried the citys holdings and estimated the cost of necessary repairs and upgrades.

Public Works Commissioner Steven J. Stepniak said hes hoping to finalize the cost estimates shortly, which he expects to be drastically lower than the $607 million estimated by VFA Inc.

Regardless, the tally will total hundreds of millions of dollars.

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Buffalo is facing big bills