A new roof is expected for the old Ehler’s furniture store in downtown Dunkirk this spring.

The building, which sits at 400 Central Ave., is owned by the Chautauqua County Land Bank.

Gina Paradis, the land bank’s executive director, discussed plans for the building at a recent county Planning Board meeting. “We hope to have it redeveloped into some market rate apartments and some retail space on the bottom floor,” she said.

Paradis said they’ve done some work inside the building but the roof is full of asbestos and needs to be replaced. They have set aside $200,000 for the work to be done and hired a contractor who will work on it when the weather improves.

Paradis said originally the Ehler’s building was recommended to get a portion of the $10 million awarded to the city of Dunkirk as part of the Downtown Renewal Initiative, but the state declined that recommendation.

Because of that, Paradis said the original developer for the Ehler building walked away. She hopes that once the roof is done, they can find a new developer. “We’re actively talking to developers to try to regain some interest in it. We have some interest, so cross our fingers, maybe something can happen in the next few months,” she said.

With a $200,000 price tag, the Ehler’s building is by far the biggest capital project over the last couple of years funded by the county Planning Department.

Some other projects Paradis noted included:

– $34,000 for former Silver Creek Moose Lodge demolition to assist with redevelopment of former Petri’s into Dave’s Christmas shop.

– $7,500 for environmental assessment for redevelopment of Celoron auto shop/junk yard.

– $3,500 for former Sheridan pawn shop environmental assessment to assess risk of ownership.

The Silver Creek Moose Lodge demolition was completed in August. The property is now owned by Dave’s Christmas Wonderland.

The Celoron auto shop/junk yard environmental assessment was completed last spring. According to Celoron Village Clerk Shirley Sanfilippo, the property is for the former Chautauqua Lake Auto. After the land bank’s environmental assessment, the village had to do another environmental assessment which showed there are two fuel tanks underground.

The next step, according to Sanfilippo, is for the soil to be tested before the fuel tanks can be removed. “Before we can dispose of the dirt, the county landfill needs to know whether certain things are present,” she said.

With the former Sheridan pawn shop, the environmental assessment was completed and given to the town board. “As we suspected, there’s a lot of contaminants, which makes ownership very risky because if there is site contamination, anyone with title could be held responsible,” Paradis said.

At this point, it appears the Sheridan Town Board is not pursuing ownership of the property and instead is trying to get the owner to clean it up.

The property was previously owned by James Langendorfer and is now owned by Nathan Strawder.

Paradis said by transferring the property, it’s caused a delay in the courts to get the property improved. “Unfortunately, it’s one of those real problem properties that the owner is using loopholes and strategies to shirk their responsibility,” she said.