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The complex story of fixing 80th St. in the Falls

80th Street near the Fashion Outlets in the Falls is used every day by shoppers and has recently been filled with a bunch of potholes.

NIAGARA FALLS, NY - There is a strange, complex story of whose responsibility it is to fix a portion of one street in Niagara Falls.

80th Street is near the Fashion Outlets in the Falls and is used every day by shoppers and recently has been filled with a bunch of potholes.

People on a Facebook chat room have said the potholes here have been terrible. When 2 On Your Side started asking questions about the problem today, repair work immediately got underway.

We started taking a look into whose responsibility it is to maintain the road.

The City of Niagara Falls DPW said it wasn’t the city’s.

We contacted National Grid which owns a parcel of land here. We also contacted Benderson Development which owns commercial property here. It turns out, the owner of this portion of 80th Street is the Niagara Falls City School District.

"It’s not fair to the citizens and the shoppers who have to travel a road that isn’t in good repair," said Niagara Falls superintendent Mark Laurrie.

He says 80th Street has some history.

"That was an access road to get into the old LaSalle High School that was built in 1967," Laurrie said. He adds that in 2003 the school was demolished and the property turned over to Benderson Development.

But what ever happened to 80th Street?

"A very small portion of the entranceway was left unattended," Laurrie said. "It’s really hard to tell who dropped the ball, it’s such a small piece of property," Laurrie said.

And it has deteriorated over the years…

The Niagara Falls superintendent says he got a letter a couple months ago from the city administrator raising concerns about 80th Street’s condition - that’s when the district began the process of transferring the land to Benderson.

When 2 On Your Side started asking questions about 80th Street today, within hours the road was repaired with cold patch.

A spokesperson for Mayor Paul Dyster’s office says Benderson Development paid for the repair work.

DPW had planned to close down the road for safety reasons.

"Right now, we’re at the final stages, we believe, of our attorneys working with the Benderson attorneys to bequeath the land," Laurrie said.

There was no response from Benderson on why they patched the road, since it is school district property. But you can imagine the company did not want this road shutdown - that would affect shoppers.

Superintendent Laurie says he hopes that land transfer can be complete in the next couple of weeks.

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