Photo courtesy of Randy Woodbury City of Dunkirk Planning and Development Director Vince DeJoy, right, describes a senior housing project planned at the old Marsh Valve site on Brigham Road by developer Arthur Page (center), at a recent Common Council Economic Development Committee meeting. At left is Councilwoman Natalie Luczkowiak, chair of the committee.

A developer wants to put apartments for seniors at the former site of the Marsh Valve factory on Brigham Road.

Arthur Page attended a recent Dunkirk Common Council Economic Development Committee meeting to preview his plans. He envisions three apartment buildings, each with eight two-bedroom housing units, on the Marsh Valve site.

The parcel abuts railroad tracks, but Page said the buildings would be placed as far from them as possible. He spoke of putting “significant money into landscaping to try to buffer the sound.”

The Dunkirk Local Development Corp. has marketed the site since 2023. Marsh Valve occupied a building there from 1941 to 1994. Its activities contaminated the site, and underground tanks and fouled soil were removed when the building was demolished in 2002. The state Department of Environmental Conservation classified the site as safe in 2003.

According to city Planning and Development Director Vince DeJoy, environmental tests have been underway at the site for the past year to ensure that it is safe. The testing is paid for by a grant, he said.

“We have to remember this site was a former foundry,” he said. “We want to make sure this (cleanup) was done to the point there can be residential development.”

The environmental concerns mean the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to give its nod to any development contract. “Vince has been relentless in trying to get the EPA to sign the contract,” Page said.

The developer noted he will have to submit his plans to the city Planning Board for review.

“It’s what people have been asking for, these senior patio homes,” DeJoy said.

Page is also the developer behind a plan to turn the former School 10 in Dunkirk into apartments, according to a March 2024 OBSERVER article.

Chautauqua County Land Bank Director Gina Paradis said then that Page had recently relocated to Chautauqua County from California in part because of family considerations. She described him as a “high end architect/construction project manager.”

Paradis said Page has never done any development in Chautauqua County before, but is interested in not only the former school, but other projects as well.