After years of debate and delay, Williamsville’s Asher Crossing project is close to crossing the finish line.
The development of apartments and town houses, at a total cost reaching $35 million, is nearing completion just off Main Street.
This brings to a close an eight-year effort by developer Angelo Natale, who ran into some fierce pushback soon after unveiling plans for the site in 2015.
The fight pit density and traffic concerns against an interest in boosting the village’s population and tax base.
“Residents in that neighborhood were really, I guess, sacrificed for the tax revenue,” said Joe Spino, an early critic of the project who lived nearby on California Drive.
Over the years, Natale, Williamsville officials and residents wrangled over the fate of a neighboring ball diamond and whether the village would build an additional access road into the development.
Natale, frustrated at lengthy delays, saw Covid-19 drive up project costs even further. Two years ago, he asked the Village Board to support an application for tax breaks before putting the request on hold and leaving the fate of the development uncertain.
“We just determined we gotta put our heads down and push through it and get it open and get it occupied,” Bobby Corrao, president of Natale Development, said last week. “And that’s what we did.”
The last of the three apartment buildings, holding 90 total units, should be fully rented this summer, Corrao said. And work on the final town house complex should finish by early next year.
It’s the latest tangible sign of change in the village, where chain restaurants have sprouted up but large-scale development often spurs opposition.
“Williamsville is not that sleepy little village that it used to be,” Williamsville Mayor Deb Rogers said.
Mixed reactions
Natale in 2015 revealed his plans to buy and build on a 5-acre site on California Drive at Milton Street, south of Main and east of Union Road.
The construction contractor Herbert F. Darling Inc. had operated there for more than 75 years before moving to the City of Tonawanda. Neighbors said the contractor produced little day-to-day traffic.
Natale cited the proximity to South Long Park and the restaurants and businesses along Main as the key reason the Darling site was attractive. The developer initially proposed constructing 30 upscale town houses for sale and 112 apartments for rent, aimed at empty nesters and millennials.
Williamsville officials welcomed the transformation of the construction yard into a complex of town houses and apartments, saying it would bring in new residents and fit the village’s community plan. Memorably, planners at one forum encouraged residents to use Lego blocks to show what they’d like to see built, and where.
However, by 2016 the project had stalled, after neighbors packed meetings to raise concerns over its scale and the additional traffic it would bring.
In response, Natale agreed to construct 90 apartment units, instead of 112, and worked on a plan to move the apartment buildings onto a portion of the village’s South Long Park, closer to Main and farther from homes along California and Milton.
Natale would have built the apartments over the park’s aging, little-used ball diamond and the village, in return, would have received an equal amount of land, nearly 2 acres.
This prompted organized opposition, with lawn signs sprouting up criticizing the land swap proposal and urging the village to “PROTECT South Long Park.”
Townhomes, both finished and under construction, are seen along California Drive at the Asher Crossing development on Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023.
Joshua Bessex/Buffalo News
Starting over
With further concerns over the village’s cost to rebuild the park, and delays in negotiations, by late 2017 Natale was left to start over again with his initial construction plan.
By 2018, the project had received the required approvals, and Natale began site work and demolition. But the development continued to roil Williamsville, with neighbors frustrated the final plan didn’t include an access road that would steer traffic away from California and onto South Long Street.
Critics in 2019 passed out anonymous flyers and flocked to a Village Board meeting to press the issue, but Williamsville officials balked at the $250,000 cost of the road and it never was built.
“That was kind of a slap in the face,” Spino said.
Construction lagged through much of 2019, as the developer tied up final loose ends, and 2020 brought pandemic-related challenges.
In January 2021, Angelo Natale went to the Village Board to say he couldn’t finish the project unless he receives hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax breaks from the Amherst Industrial Development Agency, citing cost increases for materials and labor, among other considerations.
Cars park outside of the Asher Crossing apartments on Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023.
Joshua Bessex/Buffalo News
It’s unusual for a developer to request tax breaks for this type of residential project – and to do so after construction work has started – and Natale ultimately never filed a formal application with the agency. In the two years since, though, construction has advanced considerably. The company made the decision to finish the project even though, Corrao said, the overruns and delays mean Natale will realize a lower profit margin on the development now expected to cost $34 million or $35 million.
Natale is constructing seven buildings on both sides of California that will hold 30 total townhouse units: five with four units each, one with eight units and one with two units.
Of those, a single, four-unit building is finished and fully occupied. Two other four-unit buildings are under construction. The two-unit building is almost ready for use. And construction is about to begin on the eight-unit building, followed within the year by the final town-house buildings.
So far, 15 of the 30 units have been sold, Corrao said. Prices start at $550,000 and exceed $800,000 depending on the finishes and features, he said.
For the apartments, two of the three-story, 30-unit buildings are finished and fully rented out, Corrao said. The third is partially occupied after it opened one month ago, he said, and should be full by summer.
“It fits very well in the village and it’s got great character for the village,” Corrao said. “And the people surrounding it, a lot of the neighbors, have approached us to let us know how happy they are with the end result that’s coming out now.”
More likely to come
Not everyone is happy.
Spino and his family, who bought their home on California in 2015, moved to Orchard Park in late 2021. The traffic and lack of a second access road were reasons, though not the only ones, that they moved out, he said.
Asher Crossing didn’t scare off the Size family.
Colin and Christina Size bought their home on Milton Street in March 2021, and Colin said he thinks the ongoing construction helped them get a good home, in a walkable neighborhood, by limiting interest from other prospective buyers.
A sign is posted outside townhomes at the Asher Crossing development on Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023.
Joshua Bessex/Buffalo News
Their neighbors have put up with the work longer, he said. “For us, once this is over, it’s over,” Size said.
The South Long Park ball diamond was paved over to make way for new tennis, pickleball and basketball courts. The village is looking to rebuild the diamond elsewhere in the park later on, said Rogers, the mayor.
Asher Crossing is one of several development disputes that have bubbled up in the village, including a pitched fight over the fate of the Blocher Homes senior housing complex on Evans Street.
Rogers, who said the increased traffic around Asher Crossing is noticeable, nonetheless believes Williamsville can’t remain frozen in time.
The village, where the creation of a proposed historic district sparked a brouhaha of its own, needs appropriate new development to boost property-tax revenue, she said. Williamsville residents in 2010 voted to preserve village government, she noted, but providing those services comes with a cost.
“There needed to be something for the tax base, right? For the village to continue to be a village,” she said.
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