A closer look: McCarley Gardens' big makeover

Seven years ago, Viola Green moved from an apartment building near the Buffalo-Cheektowaga border into one of the garden-style units at McCarley Gardens, where she could live near her best friend.

She's only the second tenant in that apartment since the affordable housing complex was built over 45 years ago, and it was showing its age. That is, until this year, when a Brooklyn developer partnered with St. John Baptist Church on a top-to-bottom $57 million rehabilitation of the entire community.

Now Green is enjoying new kitchen appliances, new cabinets, new counters, a new bathroom, new flooring, new lights, new paint, new windows and doors, and an energy-efficient water heater.

"I love it. I really appreciate it," Green said as she proudly showed off her newly completed unit. "It’s like moving into a brand new house."

It wasn't easy, of course. She took her young children and stayed with her mother for six weeks, to stay away from the disruption and dust of construction work.

"It's all worth it at the end," she added. "You've got to trust the process."

Green's family is one of the 150 households who are enjoying either newly built or completely overhauled apartments at the low-rise community north of Goodell Street and south of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. Owned by St. John Baptist Church and its community development arm, the prominent 16-acre campus was built in 1978 and consisted of 21 existing townhouse-style buildings with 135 units.

But the aging community was badly in need of investment and upgrades that the church couldn't afford or manage on its own.

That's a challenge now facing many affordable housing complexes, which were built 40 to 50 years ago during urban renewal and public housing initiatives, but which are now reaching the end of their lifespans.

But renovation projects, like the one at McCarley, are already very costly, burdensome and difficult to finance without significant government help.

In McCarley's case, the upgrades would also entail significant and unseen expenses for infrastructure because it's so spread out.

McCarley Gardens also is a highly visible part of the neighborhood, sandwiched between downtown Buffalo and the burgeoning medical facilities, with the historic Fruit Belt community to the east.

The development has been the target of developers in the past. The University at Buffalo explored purchasing the site 13 years ago, first for its new medical school – now built on the Medical Campus itself – and later for unspecified potential future development. But the UB initiative died after several years amid strenuous community opposition to displacing residents.

Nick Sinatra's Sinatra & Co. Real Estate eyed a $35 million state-funded renovation project for the site, in conjunction with St. John Baptist Church. Sinatra's proposal – which would have kept McCarley intact as affordable housing – won city approval in 2017, but never progressed.

Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Meanwhile, McCarley endured, but without the upgrades that were needed more acutely with each passing year.

That's when the church found BFC Partners, an affordable housing developer from New York City whose managing principal, Donald Capoccia, is a University at Buffalo graduate.

The 40-year-old development firm has worked on major affordable, mixed-income and market-rate housing projects and mixed-use ventures, mostly throughout New York City, but also in the Capital District. The company has built or preserved 11,000 housing units, while developing 2 million square feet of commercial and retail space, and another 1 million square feet of community facilities, such as sports courts, health centers and nonprofit offices.

Since January, BFC has led a thorough renovation of both the interior and exterior of the apartments, as well as the grounds and infrastructure beneath. It also built four additional two-story townhome buildings with 15 units, to replace a handful of apartments in the northwest corner that will be demolished later to make room for a six-story mixed-use building with another 212 units, in a major expansion designed to meet a growing need for housing.

That second phase of construction – which will include Sinatra as a partner – has been held up by a legal challenge by the Medical Campus over a planned reconfiguration of North Oak Street.

But the rehab project – which started in earnest in March with Sinatra as a consultant, and was supposed to be completed early next year – is already nearly complete. The rehab is done, the new builds are finishing up, and only a few exterior items remain.

"We didn’t know how it was going to go. I’m very pleased with it, because of the nature of the project. It’s been a real challenge keeping our tenants cool through all of this, but they’ve pretty much stayed there," Capoccia said. "We’re finishing ahead of schedule. We’re right on budget. And we’re going to make a very significant change in the living conditions of 150 households."

That includes people like Sandra Crum, who has lived at McCarley for 16 years.

"I think they did a good job," she said. "It's very nice. This is the first time we’ve gotten new floors and new paint jobs and new siding, and a new kitchen. It was worth it."

On the inside, the kitchens and bathrooms were completely revamped, with new stainless-steel Frigidaire appliances in the kitchens - including new dishwashers that they didn't have before and microwaves vented to the exterior - as well as cherry-stained wood cabinets, new laminate countertops, and new backsplash. Bathrooms have new tubs and showers, new vanity lights, and high-efficiency fixtures.

All units also got laminate vinyl flooring and carpeting; new baseboards; new six-panel doors; and new paint jobs.

"The inside just has a whole different aesthetic and appeal to it," said Rob Sanna, assistant director of preservation at BFC. "It’s completely different."

Outside, new siding was also installed on the buildings, and the small and narrow vertical windows that couldn't accommodate air-conditioning units were reconfigured and replaced with larger horizontal sliding windows, with more insulation and double panes.

The renovation also focused on improving energy efficiency, with new and modern double-pane windows, as well as new roofs, new siding and new electrical and plumbing.

"We always try to do window replacement," Sanna said. "It’s one of the most expensive items to do in a project, but it usually helps a lot with energy efficiency and lighting and just comfort."

Workers also added another 1.5 inches of insulation to the exterior, blew insulation into the attics and changed up 30-year-old boilers and hot-water heaters for tankless equipment that heats up water on demand.

Tenants even got new high-tech programmable thermostats, making it easier to control conditions in their apartments. "We’re hoping that will be big water savings," Sanna said.

All of that was done through a "tenant-in-place" process, in which the construction largely progressed during the day while residents were still living there. Tenants could either just stay out of the way of the workers each day, or they could utilize one of several "hospitality suites" that were set up around the campus, using renovated units that were divided into upper and lower sections.

Only a few tenants, like Green, chose to move out for a few weeks or less. However, eight handicapped-accessible units were somewhat more challenging, as workers had to reconfigure stairs and walls to ensure they were accessible. That meant moving those tenants to hotels.

"It was incredibly inconvenient for the tenants," Capoccia said. "There’s probably not a more difficult way to deliver a unit like this than having the tenant in the unit while you’re doing the work, but we tried to reduce as much as possible the inconvenience. So our goal was to try to get out as quickly as we could."

Then there was the extensive infrastructure work, "which was way messier and way more difficult," Sanna said.

BFC and its contractors had to replace the entire underground storm sewer system on the campus, because the ground had long since settled, causing damage to the pipes. The water lines "were in good shape," he said, but the sanitary and storm pipes "were all messed up and broken," sometimes causing backup of sewage into washing machines.

"When it really rained, the site would just flood, and people would get water in their basement," Sanna said. "So we had to go underground across all 16 acres and replace all this underground pipe."

That meant the sidewalks and ground was torn up for months. Much of the curbing was replaced, and the parking lots were repaved. New landscaping is being put in. And roof gutters and downspouts had to be replaced and piped into the storm drains.

BFC also plans to put in new amenities, such as a 1,000-square-foot community room with a small kitchen and a new playground.

In all, Capoccia estimated, the infrastructure work accounted for a quarter of the "hard costs" of $33 million.

"The system was a mess," he said. "We did more there than we did on any other job in terms of infrastructure."