Once brown, now green on Buffalo's waterfront

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - New life is transforming a Buffalo brownfield into greenspace.

Another project is completed in the ongoing revitalization program of the Buffalo waterfront with the opening of Ship Canal Commons, a 22-acre park.

This spot along the waterfront adds to the newly renovated outer harbor parkway, the lighthouse at the Coast Guard site, the Times Beach boardwalk, the Gallagher Beach pavilion and the Union Ship Canal node.

The site is part of a brownfield remediation project along the Union Ship Canal at Buffalo Lakeside Commerce Park. What once was a heavily polluted industrial area will now be home to fishing, hiking, bike and walking trails.

DEC Commissioner Joe Martens said, "This was obviously a site that had no economic value at all. In fact, it was a deterrent to business activity. It was a brownfield, it was contaminated and it took people over a decade ago, a lot of vision to see that this was an asset."

The goal is to have the site not only to serve as a place of recreation with public amenities, but to attract businesses to develop the land.