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New York State purchased 31 properties in the Niagara Falls tourism district

Some elected officials are hopeful the purchase will set the city up for success.

NIAGARA FALLS, New York — New York State solidified a purchase of 31 Niagara Falls properties in the downtown area.

The purchase is made up of a wide variety of locations from a former Niagara Mohawk building, to a vacant hotel and even open land.  

Ideally, the state will be able to sell the properties and boost the city's revitalization efforts. 

Councilman Kenny Tompkins is optimistic. He said, "I'd rather see them do a bunch of small developments rather than trying to do one big silver bullet because that big bullet takes a lot of time and you gotta have someone that's really ambitious to do it."

Tompkins believes Niagara Falls can draw inspiration from some of its Western New York neighbors.

"A bunch of smaller properties makes a quaint little area like an Old Niagara Falls, like a Lewiston or like an East Aurora or something like that. I think we can do really well with that and we can do it rather quickly," he explained. 

But even with this purchase, there's still another problem.

There are still other large chunks of land in the Niagara Falls area sitting vacant, including properties reportedly owned by New York City developer Howard Milstein.

Mayor Paul Dyster previously told 2 on Your Side in a 2015 report he believes the market pressure could force a new approach. 

Dyster said, "There is some sort of project or another plan for most of the large, vacant parcels in downtown Niagara Falls and at some point the tension is going to focus on these large tracks of land available to Mr. Milstein because they're gonna be the last place to go to put a larger project."

Tompkins said things are starting to turn in the right direction but Niagara Falls has a long way to go. 

He told us he hopes to see these properties back up on the building market within a year or two.

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