Niagara Falls’ Future: Tech Hub or Empty Stadium?

By Frank Parlato

For years, the land sat empty. Now, it’s a battleground.

Ten acres at Falls Street and 10th. A few blocks from the falls, just off the Niagara Scenic Parkway.

He wants a stadium. Seven thousand seats. A $150 million taxpayer-funded arena.

The land belongs to Niagara Falls Redevelopment (NFR), which has plans for the land.

Nine buildings. A million square feet of data center space for tech companies – 140 megawatts of computing power. AI processing. Cloud storage.

NFR, owned by billionaires Howard and Edward Milstein, partnered with Urbacon, offers the start of a digital economy: an AI digital campus. Private money. No cost to taxpayers.

And five hundred and fifty permanent jobs. Engineers. Cybersecurity experts. It isn’t a proposal. It is ready to be built.

The Taking

Restaino said his arena is for the public good—a way to extend the tourist season. Bring events.

He got the council to approve his taking the land through eminent domain.

Eminent domain moves in two steps. The taking happens in court. The mayor argues that the land serves a public purpose. A highway. A school. A stadium. Ownership doesn’t matter. If the judge agrees, the land is seized.

The judge agreed.

Price

Taking land is easy. Paying for it is the second step.

The law requires “just compensation.” Not what the city wants to pay, but fair market value. That is fought out in court. It sometimes takes years.

Based on prior takings, the value of the 10 acres may be more than $25 million, maybe more than $50 million, considering the 10 acres were supposed to be part of a $1.5 billion AI data center project. A launchpad for an industry. Jobs. Investment. A future.

The mayor’s arena kills the data center.

Rewriting the Past

He had fought to take the ten acres through eminent domain. He won. In so doing, the city admitted in court that NFR owned the 10 acres of land.

Then, the mayor realized the city did not have the money to buy the land. He considered borrowing the down payment against the future budget reserved for street paving and other city services from the federal government over 10 years. He floated the idea of borrowing through a municipal bond and paying back investors over 20 years.

Then, the mayor changed course. He could try to save money on the purchase price. He argued five of the ten acres weren’t NFRs after all.

The five acres were the city’s, even though the city sold the land to NFR more than 20 years ago.

For when the city sold the land to NFR, it was an abandoned playground.

Restaino’s argument leaned on the public trust doctrine.

If land was once officially designated parkland, it stays protected for public use.

However, in 2004, when it sold the land to NFR, the city determined that the land, once the Tenth Street playground, had never been legally designated as a park. Not by law. Not by process. Not by any legal standard.

Then-Mayor Vincent Anello made it clear at the time:
“Just because you call some place a park doesn’t mean it went through all the processes of becoming a park.”

Restaino’s claim that it was officially parkland two decades later—after the city sold it to NFR and NFR paid taxes on it and maintained the property as privately owned land—will require the city to litigate its claim and possibly restart the eminent domain process.

The Real Cost

Beyond the lawsuit, beyond the land itself, Niagara Falls is on the verge of losing an opening bid in the AI industry.

Other cities are competing for data centers. Most cities are chasing AI.

The Stargate Initiative—a $500 billion private-sector led by OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle, aims to develop AI infrastructure across the USA.

Niagara Falls is the first and only city actively fighting AI in its community.

Other cities see the spinoff value. An AI Digital Campus would attract:

• Tech firms looking for AI-friendly infrastructure.
• Startups that thrive near data centers.
• Venture capital firms funding innovation hubs.
• Other industries leveraging AI for automation and analytics.

The Fight for the Land

Restaino claims NFR’s AI plan is fiction, a reaction. He claims NFR threw it together only to get more money from the payment phase of eminent domain. He claims NFR does not plan to build an AI center.

Emails and filed documents tell a different story.

Nine months before Restaino announced his arena plan, NFR executives met with city officials. There was no arena plan then.

They proposed their $1.5 billion data center plan.

In October 2021, NFR submitted a zoning amendment. The city acknowledged it.

It was not until January 2022 that Mayor Restaino announced he planned to build an arena, and he selected 10 acres owned by NFR. At the time, he did not say this would stop the AI project because he would seize the land.

Restaino’s Arena

Restaino announced his arena plan without a site selection study and feasibility study.

His arena will bring employment. As many as 20 full-time jobs—a manager, sales and marketing person, janitors, and maintenance workers—will be needed full-time. And part-time work on the days the arena hosts an event.

Restaino is banking on landing a junior hockey team from the teenage Ontario Hockey League (OHL) as the anchor tenant. The OHL hasn’t yet committed to authorizing a franchise to Niagara Falls. 

Economics is a consideration. Buffalo, 20 miles away, has an adult team—the NHL’s Sabres. They can’t fill their arena.

Based on typical attendance for OHL games, the mayor’s proposed stadium is too big. If Niagara Falls got the OHL team, the mayor’s 7,000-seat arena in Niagara Falls would be about half-empty for the 34 OHL home games per year the league provides.

Arenas are empty most of the time. If Niagara Falls does not get a team from the teenage league, the city will maintain a large venue with no anchor tenant and depend on one-off events.

The Real Question

Two competing visions. One backed by private funding of billionaires in the fastest-growing industry in the world.

The other is public funding with a hope for a teenage hockey team in one of the poorest cities in the USA – based on the grand assumption of a mayor that if he builds it, they will come.