By Nate West
News Editor
The Town of Allegany Planning Board granted St. Bonaventure University their request to rezone the property for Bonaventure Square, according to a Nov. 14 release from the university.
The University requested the Town of Allegany Planning Board rezone the properties owned by them and Kinley Corporation for commercial use, according to John Hare, Town of Allegany Supervisor.
A commercial district can host business like retail stores and office space, he added.
Kinley Corporation, who was announced as lead developer last August, was unable to gather the finances necessary to fund the Bonaventure Square property. Since Bonaventure Square is such a specific project, it would have been difficult for another company to match the necessary zoning terms and conditions, Hare said.
“When the Bona Square property was first announced, there was special zoning adopted for that parcel which was unique for that development,” he said. “It’s only applicable for that specific project. As the content and the size of the project started changing, the original district created by the board was no longer appropriate.”
According to the same release, Kinley Corporation no longer represents the university as lead developer for Bonaventure Square.
“Despite its very best efforts, Kinley Corp. was not successful in securing financing for the Bonaventure Square development as it was proposed due to the very difficult economic conditions of the region and the fact that the demographics of the region do not solidly support financing such a large project,” Brenda McGee, senior vice president for finance and administration, said in the release. “We determined that the best course of action to support future development was to return the property zoning to ‘commercial use,’ as it had been prior to the zoning needed specifically for Bonaventure Square.”
Currently, there are newly-added survey stakes on the Bonaventure Square property. A representative from Mike Canada Land Surveying in Olean wouldn’t confirm whether or not they had entered to a contract with St. Bonaventure, but did say they had workers on the Bonaventure Square site.
According to Hare, there are situations where approval from the Town of Allegany Planning Board is needed to move forward.
“(St. Bonaventure) certainly would control who they sell a portion of that property to,” he said. “If a prospective developer was to buy a parcel from the university and propose a different project for it, that would have to be approved. Also there are still Town approvals which would be required for a new project.”
