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From The Manhattan Project To Businesses of the Future

Chandler Street is becoming a hotspot of redevelopment. The Black Rock neighborhood is quietly undergoing a renaissance of itself. One large redeveloped building is the former site of the Linde Air Products Plant.

BUFFALO, NY - Built in 1902, the Linde Air Products plant on Chandler Street in Black Rock saw its fair share of innovative ideas. The facility produced the country's first liquid oxygen, and a few decades later was pressed into service to help develop the atomic bomb.

The former Manhattan Project site is now redeveloped and houses several growing businesses. The largest tenant, Utilant, is a software developer that serves the health insurance industry. They are not only the main tenant, but they are in the process of trying to add staffers.

Developer Rocco Termini says he knew a bit about the history, but was surprised by the amount of radioactive materials that were still on site that he had to remediate. He adds that "the DEC was too, they thought it was all removed." The removal added a few zeroes to the overall cost, but he is happy with the outcome.

Another surprise, says Termini, was on the old air tanks that were still in the facility. "On those old canisters there was a swastika, because the company was actually owned by Von Linde, and Von Linde was supposedly a Nazi sympathizer."

Today, the old Linde plant is just one of several redevelopment projects underway on the street. Soon Chandler Street will be home to software companies, a food business incubator, a brewery, a cidery and several other companies. A new beginning emerging from an Unknown Story of WNY.

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