(Rochester, N.Y.) – The sign that once announced Renaissance Square’s future home on Main Street is now gone. It had been the only visible evidence that the largest public project in local history was planned here.
“I'm perplexed as to why it took 10 years without ever owning a piece of property or turning over a shovel of dirt. It just went on too long I think,” said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport.
Time wasn’t the only thing spent on Renaissance Square. Twenty-four million dollars – most of it federal funds – was spent over the last 10 years. Renaissance Square was a proposed $230 million bus station, MCC campus, and performing arts center. It failed after local leaders could not agree on a concept and design.
“I think it's sad that we couldn't have finished a project that we made such a huge investment in. Yeah $24 million is a large investment, and time and energy for something that we thought would be good for the community,” said County Executive Maggie Brooks.
According to the latest financial information on the project presented at the June 10 meeting of the Main and Clinton board, the projected costs of the authorized work was $23.8 million.
Twelve million dollars went to architects, the bulk of it to architect Moshe Safdie, whose design was later deemed too expensive to build.
Other project costs:
• $2.2 million in legal work
• $1.3 million for construction management
• $1.1 million for “other professional services”
• $873,000 for administrative expenses
• $6 million on the previous effort to build a stand-alone bus terminal
“Taxpayers have spent $24 million dollars. Not a single worker has put a shovel in the ground. No construction has been done, and a lot of consultants have been paid to do designs that we're not even going to use.”
RGRTA still plans to build a bus station on property it owns at the former Renaissance Square site. Brooks said the county property at the site is not large enough to accommodate MCC.
RGRTA officials say that if the transit center is built close to the footprint of the original design, much of the work already done can be reused.
A county spokesman said that much of the work done on a downtown MCC campus, such as studies of the design concept could transfer to a new downtown campus. “Some of the technical work in the schematic design phase including the traffic analysis, historic analysis may be of value in the revised project depending on the location of the Campus,” said Noah Lebowitz in an email.
An RGRTA spokesperson said the money was not wasted, because at the time the money was authorized to be spent, all of the project partners, including the city, were on board.
“I don't want to say it was wasted. We learned a lot from the process. It was an expensive lesson,” said Brooks.
