In a modern, white-walled boardroom with high ceilings and designer light fixtures, Michael Ball sits at the corner of a massive wooden conference table. Leaning forward in his ergonomic leather chair, the Executive Director of Planning and Implementation at the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus calmly emphasizes the role of his institution in the community. “More than anything, we try to be good neighbors.”
A few blocks away, shadows dance upon the eroded brick façade of a two-story residence as a soothing breeze penetrates the afternoon haze. Shards of glass protrude from weather-beaten window frames, shifting back and forth like loose teeth in the mild draft. The front entrance to the dwelling is blocked by a piece of plywood, painted grey as the Buffalo sky in February. In the background, a conglomeration of modern buildings furnished with smooth glass, brushed steel and fresh cement, dwarf the dilapidated domicile. Somewhere within this mass of contemporary structures is the boardroom in which Mr. Ball described the institution’s relationship to the community. The contrast is stark, the proximity is startling.
Scenes like this one are not uncommon in cities across the country. The aforementioned panorama, however, can be observed just ten minutes from University at Buffalo’s South Campus, in the heart of Buffalo’s Fruit Belt neighborhood, called this for the names of its streets such as Peach Street and Grape Street. This aesthetic disparity exists between the decaying Fruit Belt neighborhood at large and the relatively new hundred-acre Buffalo Niagara Medical campus, which for the past six years has called the community home.
The Fruit Belt is a neighborhood encompassing a 36-block area, bordered by Best Street and Kensington Avenue to the north and south, respectively, and Jefferson Avenue to the east. A point of contention between the community and the medical campus has been the definition of the neighborhood’s border to the west. Some residents vie that the neighborhood has traditionally been bordered by the Main Street corridor, which would encompass BNMC. The institution defines that border as Michigan Avenue, which would render the campus void of any neighborhood affiliation. The neighborhood is one of Buffalo’s poorest. According to the United States Census Bureau, the median household income in the neighborhood is $22,991, compared to $44,228 for the State of New York. The poverty rate is 36.1 percent, compared to 14.5 percent for the State of New York.
The aesthetic contrast, though staggering, is merely a surface indicator of a complex series of dynamics that exist between the community and the institution that is now housed within its confines. At its inception, members of the planning staff at BNMC stressed the importance of strong neighborhoods in the development of strong institutions. Many of the needs within the community were identified as part of the Master Plan development. Several priorities were emphasized in the document. These included beautification, stabilization, streetscape and infrastructural improvements (for the purposes of this article, infrastructure refers to a series of physical or social elements which comprise a whole. For example, streetlights, are part of the physical infrastructure of a neighborhood), rehabilitation of housing stock, new residential development, demolition of structures beyond repair, and cultivation of commercial development.
Over the past six years, BNMC has undergone enormous expansion, while many Fruit Belt neighborhood improvement initiatives remain in the planning or discussion phases. Some question whether or not enough has been done to create a substantive dialogue between the community and the institution—and whether that dialogue will lead to more palpable change in the Fruit Belt community.
Within BNMC’s one hundred-acre footprint, there are over eight thousand employees. Nearly 600 million dollars is invested within the campus annually. The campus houses seven top flight medical, academic, and research institutions. Among these are Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Kaleida Health, and a number of University at Buffalo facilities.
BNMC’s economic impact on the Buffalo-Niagara region is not insignificant. According to a recent case study by the Environmental Protection Agency, the campus has an annual impact of 300 million dollars on the Western New York economy. With so much money pouring in and out of the campus, the issue becomes whether or not this fiscal force has facilitated improvement of the quality of life in the Fruit Belt and upheld its neighborly pledge.
Economic Growth by Proximity
BNMC asserts that by expanding within its own borders, it will ultimately attract outside investment in the surrounding community—an assertion that has been realized on a relatively small scale. The founding principle here is that as the campus expands and grows its employee base, those employees will need places to eat, shop, and live. Hence the majority of funding acquired by the entity is invested within. So how much has BNMC actually invested in the Fruit Belt neighborhood?
“We are not an economic development agency,” says Ball. “We’ve probably put up—maybe five or ten thousand dollars in the past few years.” These monies have gone to fund neighborhood signage, and to aid in the building of a playground and basketball court. The development of such recreation facilities has been organized and implemented by grassroots community groups such as Fruit Belt United, which have acquired the majority of their funding from sources other than BNMC. Although BNMC is generally not providing funds directly, Ball is insistent that the institution is still an integral part of the funding acquisition process.
“It’s not the Medical Campus going in and redeveloping the community, but it’s us at the table facilitating the dialogue,” Ball says. Thus the role of the campus in the improvement of the neighborhood is essentially supportive, advisory, and self-promotional. Ball hopes that by promoting the accolades of the campus itself, possible funding sources will be more apt to invest in the neighborhoods around it. Indeed, the campus has expanded physically and economically over the past six years, and during that time some development has occurred throughout the community. Most of the major development that has taken place has been initiated by faith-based organizations in collaboration with entities like UB’s Center for Urban Studies, founded by Dr. Henry Taylor.
St. John Baptist Church Initiatives
At the center of almost every major development initiative in the Fruit Belt is Reverend Michael Chapman of St. John Baptist Church, located at the corner of Michigan and Goodell Avenues. According to Dr. Taylor, Chapman and his church have born a great deal of the burden of developing the Fruit Belt. Along with the Center for Urban Studies, which grew out of an invitation by Fruit Belt residents for Taylor to develop a comprehensive plan for the neighborhood in 1999, the church has been at the forefront of developing the area. Both Chapman and Taylor have been unflinchingly dedicated to the community throughout the process. The initiatives of Chapman and Taylor were in place prior to the unification of institutions into what is now known as BNMC. Reverend Chapman was not available for comment.
Dr. Taylor asserts that every time outside institutions or political entities are confronted with the improvement of the neighborhood, they will inevitably point to the initiatives of Reverend Michael Chapman and St. John Baptist. “They’ll say, ‘we’re supporting in every way we know how,’” he says. “And then they’re done. They can’t go beyond that.” Taylor’s Center for Urban Studies and Chapman’s St. John Fruit Belt CDC have built substantive relationships between themselves, the Medical Campus, the Community Action Organization, Futures Academy, Locust Street Art Classes, Friendly Fruit Belt Block Club, Fruit Belt United, the Healthy Communities Initiative, and numerous other organizations. These connections have been aimed at addressing a cornucopia of social, economic, political, and public health issues which complement attempts at improving the physical infrastructure.
Under the direction of Chapman, the St. John Fruit Belt Community Development Corporation has led a $54 million neighborhood development initiative based upon the comprehensive plan developed by the Taylor’s Center for Urban Studies. The St. John Fruit Belt CDC is the development division of the church, and has been the proprietor of a number of developments. According to The Buffalo News, the church recently completed a $6 million project that included the addition of 28 new townhouses, dispersed throughout the neighborhood. Other projects that have already been completed in the area include a hospice, an apartment complex housing 150 units, a senior housing facility and the Family Life Center. Many more are in the works, but according to Taylor, funds are being obtained on a project by project basis.
Ball stated that although BNMC has not made any fiscal investments in the St. John Fruit Belt CDC initiatives, the campus has tried to forge a partnership with the church, apparently in order to aid with funding acquisition. For instance, BNMC’s Executive Director, Matthew Enstice, traveled to Washington with Reverend Chapman in order to “stress the importance of what the church is trying to do.” In essence, BNMC has, as Taylor put it, supported in every way it knows how; economic investment has not been a part of that support structure.
Although St. John Fruit Belt CDC has been integral in gaining developmental momentum, it has been made clear that the needs of the community cannot be addressed by a single entity. The process must be a collaborative effort between public and private institutions, community members, and government. It has also been established that the efforts must not be purely infrastructural. In order to produce and maintain sustainable development in the Fruit Belt, Taylor states that a multifaceted approach is necessary. “It’s not just brick and mortar. Building a neighborhood requires not only the physical infrastructure…but it also requires the social infrastructure and the social transformation.”
What has been proposed and accomplished thus far, Taylor believes, is simply not enough. The project is too large for St. John Fruit Belt CDC, the Center for Urban Studies, and the collection of smaller community organizations, to take on alone. Members of the community agree.
Community Voice
Throughout the development of BNMC, the institution has emphasized the involvement of the Fruit Belt community in the process, and the inclusion of community expressed needs in their approach to expansion. In theory, this inclusion helps to create the social infrastructure which centralizes the needs of the community, and leads to a substantive response. Joyce Wilson, Community Crisis Specialist at the Community Action Organization and longtime Fruit Belt resident, disputes the institution’s commitment to its neighbors.
“At first, they were in denial that they were even a part of the Fruit Belt,” said Wilson with an air of frustration and a clear sense of abandonment. Wilson emphasized the fact that St. John Baptist CDC is the crux of the Fruit Belt development. She asserts that although smaller community organizations are well-intentioned and try to create cohesion and upward mobility, they don’t have the funds to establish their goals for the long term. As a result, BNMC has offered very minimal assistance to these groups beyond that of moral support.
Wilson, speaking for many of the community members she interacts with on a daily basis, feels as though efforts to include residents in the process have amounted to a clever public relations campaign. “That’s like a pride thing,” she says, “to have [the campus] so close to you, and actually in your neighborhood. But then on the other side, we feel like they don’t want us, we are nothing…we have mouth, but we don’t have money.”
Wilson goes on to state that BNMC did invite members of the community to be present when plans were discussed, and to voice concerns, but “even in that,” she said, “they were talking more about coming down Main and connecting to Allentown. I didn’t see anything over here. It was discouraging.” She then suggested that the only way the medical campus would take greater strides to help her community would be if governmental sources of funding were to attach some sort of stipulations regarding community investment to the monies being received by the BNMC.
Although Wilson expressed a clear sentiment of frustration, she still remained mildly optimistic. Her optimism is not unfounded, but the outcomes still remain to be seen. Outside of the Fruit Belt community, there are some who believe that UB’s recent investment in the campus may facilitate more interaction between BNMC and the community; that possibility, however, is tentative.
UB Makes Big Commitments
The University at Buffalo has recently expanded its presence on the medical campus, which already includes the School of Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, the New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics & Life Sciences, and the Research Institute on Addictions. According to a recent press release, the University purchased the former M. Wile Co. building and the former Trico Products Corp. building, both located at the corner of Ellicott and Goodell Streets. According to Professor Robert Shibley, Director of Urban Design at the University at Buffalo, the M. Wile building will be utilized around a “civic engagement focus…related to the needs and requirements of regeneration in the Fruit Belt itself.”
The essence of this idea is a mutually beneficial relationship between university scholarship and the community. “Our very first move out of the box,” asserts Shibley, “is to buy M. Wile and to program it with an educational opportunities center.” This center will include a high school equivalency program and adult education program. In addition, the University plans to include social services programs and law clinics within the structure.
Shibley emphasized the need for a collaborative effort, stating that “all of us can do a better job than any one of us at delivering a comprehensive point of public scholarship opportunities.” He further states the possibility of utilizing long standing connections to constituents in the Fruit Belt pioneered by entities like Dr. Taylor’s Center for Urban Studies. He does, however, concede that “we’ve got a lot of planning to do.” Although the outcomes remain to be seen, Shibley believes that this is an important element both in the expansion of the University, the improvement of the Fruit Belt, and the growth of the Buffalo-Niagara region. He also shares Ball’s opinion that success within the established borders of the campus will ultimately catalyze investment in surrounding neighborhoods. That contention remains to be seen.
Looking Forward
Despite a plethora of claims that BNMC’s expansive success will trickle down to the communities around it, large scale realization of such phenomena is absent. Shibley emphasizes the long-term nature of planning operations, and states that there is a great deal of impatience associated with awaiting their outcomes. One thing is abundantly clear, however. An enormous amount of physical and fiscal expansion has occurred within BNMC’s confines while the scale of development in the Fruit Belt, though commendable, has been relatively minute.
Taylor asserted that if we want progress, “we have to change in fundamental ways the way we approach the development of neighborhoods.” He later emphasized the developmental disparity between community and campus, being that both had created comprehensive plans for development at about the same time. “Look at the Fruit Belt six or seven years later, and look at the medical campus. Look at the magnitude of investments that have gone into the medical campus, and look at the investments that have gone into the Fruit Belt. They’re like—crazy night and day.”
Nick Meyer is a senior English major and a Features writer for Generation.
