sidbuilds

SAVING A CITY ONE HOME AT A TIME

Vacant South Troy properties are getting a new lease from community-minded residents

By CHRIS CHURCHILL, Business writer Times Union Newspaper
First published: , Albany, New York

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

TROY -- Sid Fleisher grew tired of the cold and quiet hulls that dotted his neighborhood, the dark buildings where no children played, no dogs romped and no televisions blared.

So over the years, he purchased a few of the vacant buildings and gussied them up. He brought them back to life.

He isn't alone. There are others taking on South Troy 's abandoned buildings.

There is, for example, Judy Meyer, who in recent years has bought and rehabbed three vacant structures. Or Melissa and Jeremiah Roberts, a young couple now rehabbing the long-empty building that will be their home.

And there are, no doubt, similar examples elsewhere in the Capital Region, folks tackling the region's many vacant structures, buildings that are a visual blight and an economic drain.

For Fleisher, the work started in 1980, when he moved to Troy to take a job at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has since rehabbed five buildings, three of which were vacant. He still owns all but one, garnering rent money.

They pay for themselves, he said.

He likes the work so much he joined with two partners, Carole Furman and Karla Kavanaugh, to start The Madison Project. The group hopes to rehab empty building after empty building, using the proceeds from each to pay for the next.

Their first project, aptly, is on Madison Street . The bought the building, vacant for four or five years, for $40,000 and have already spent $80,000 on a renovation that is giving the building top-notch energy efficiency.

This summer, they hope to end construction and sell the building at 109 Madison St. to an owner occupant.

"Part of the reason for doing this is to develop more of a sense of community in the neighborhood," Fleisher said.

Said Furman: "Right now, we'd be happy just making a slim profit on it."

Slim profit is an apt description of Meyer's last project, a former saloon on Fourth Street . She bought it for $30,000, spent $110,000 on a renovation and sold it for $145,000.

Meyer is now wrapping up her most recent renovation. She's planning an open house for the project at 64 Washington St. from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday.

"It's my semiretirement hobby," Meyer said.

While Meyer sells her buildings, Melissa and Jeremiah Roberts plan to hold on to theirs.

The couple, each in their late 20s, bought the two-story building in April for just $59,000 and are spending $15,000 to fix it up. The last owner had actually begun the renovation, but walked away before it was complete.

But it was complete enough for the Roberts and their boxer, Timo, to move in before they finish the renovation.

Melissa Roberts estimated the First Street building, not far from the South Troy Diner, had been vacant since 2003.

South Troy, like other urban neighborhoods in the Capital Region, has no shortage of vacant buildings, and conversations with folks like Fleisher, Meyer or Melissa Roberts show how difficult it will be to save them all.

Sometimes the owners of the buildings can't be found. Sometimes they can but have no interest in selling, even as decay kills value.

 And Troy 's government is not always an ally: Roberts, for example, says the city seems to be in no hurry to issue the couple a building permit. Fleisher, meanwhile, notes that wealthy downtown rehabbers get tax breaks, while neighborhood rehabbers get higher tax assessments.

"The city is not giving us the respect it should be giving," Fleisher said, while standing on the second floor of the Madison Street building. "And you have a whole area of the city with buildings like this."

Still, despite the hassles, Fleisher and others said the projects bring rewards, including the satisfaction of reversing the decay of a building, a neighborhood, and a city.

"I'm basically doing it for the pleasure of doing it," Meyer said.

Chris Churchill can be reached at 454-5442 or by e-mail at cchurchill@timesunion.com.