A visit to the back portion of the Harvester Center, 56 Harvester Ave., Batavia, in the daylight of a Friday afternoon reveals that the old factory buildings are in as bad a shape as the collapse of a wall of one of the buildings suggested on Thursday night.
The city of Batavia has cited six buildings in the complex for code violations, and the owners are under court order to submit an action plan for addressing the code violations.
City Manager Rachael Tabelski has recommended that City Council submit a $1 million Restore NY grant application to fund an extensive demolition project at the Harvester campus.
The city’s plan, developed in cooperation with Amerinac Holding Corp., proposes demolishing the severely deteriorated buildings to open space for parking, lighting, and green areas, while supporting redevelopment of the remaining structures.
Amerinac Holding Corp. is a company based in Ohio led by John F. Wachter III and John F. Wachter Jr.
The complex spans 29 acres, contains approximately 1 million square feet of former industrial use.
Tabelski described the project as “phase one of the redevelopment of the campus,” to transform the site into a mixed-use destination similar to Buffalo’s Larkinville district. The total cost for demolition and redevelopment is estimated between $8 and $12 million, with the Restore NY grant covering a portion of that amount.
The Harvester Center, originally the Massey-Harris-Ferguson plant, closed in 1958, causing a sharp rise in local unemployment. The Mancuso family purchased the complex and, in 1959, pioneered the business incubator model by dividing the space for use by small businesses. Over the past six decades, more than 3,000 businesses have operated within its walls. The property was sold to Amerinac Holding Corp. in 2021.
Photos by Howard Owens.
