The History and Future of the Williamsville Water Mill

The water mill once owned by the namesake of Williamsville will be remodeled into a hotel and boutique retail store that will connect to Glen Park. The renovation project will be a joint effort between the Village of Williamsville and Iskalo Development Corp.
A year after the Iskalo Corp. introduced its initial re-development plan to the village and the registered historic site is still unoccupied and waiting for major rehabilitation.
Iskalo Development Corp. President, David Chiazza explained that the corporation does not own the property but is planning on taking over the property in 2014.
“The village owns the property,” said Chiazza, “and the village is a village- and not a private enterprise is able to get some historic preservation funds to help stabilize the property. We’re working with them on that and once they complete that then the plan is that we would then take ownership of the property and then complete the redevelopment of it.”
According to Chiazza the village has one final grant to secure before Iskalo can take over ownership.
“They are in the process of applying for the last of their grants from the state. That would complete the balance of the stabilization work,” he said.
 “Then we would acquire the property in 2014 and do our piece of the work.” After the village acquires its final grant, according to Chiazza, the village will remodel Spring St.
“They also have an engineering and landscape-architecture team,” Chiazza said, “to completely re-construct Spring St.”
Iskalo’s plan for the building originally incorporated a restaurant but parking concerns caused the corporation to change its goals.
“We submitted a presentation this past December that talked about, maybe eliminating the restaurant concept,” he said. Chiazza explained that the corporation has a perspective tenant that will use the space for food made and consumed on site; however, the name of this illusive tenant has not yet been released.
“We have a perspective user for the mill. We have not identified who that is yet,” Chiazza said.
The new plan calls for 12 to 15 “hospitality units” that would be located in the mill but operated by another Iskalo hotel.

A History Worth Saving
In 2006, Bero Architecture, a Rochester firm, prepared a historic analysis of the building’s history. The firm’s owner, Virginia Searl said: “We wrote a Historic Structure Report on the mill in 2006.” According to the report, the Williamsville Water Mill was once owned by Jonas Williams – who the Village of Williamsville is named after.
According to the Historic Structure Report, Williams built the current mill in 1811 as an improvement to an older mill he operated on the eastern end of the river. According to the report, “he built an improved mill on the west side with a 12 ft. overshot water wheel fed by a raceway from a stone dam built on the south side of Main Street.” This raceway can still be seen today on the rear of the building from Glen Park.
The saw mill was eventually converted into a cement mill around 1818 which ushered in a strong natural cement industry into the area. Throughout the mill’s troubled history the building has switched from owner to owner.
In 1947 the building was bought by Daniel and Grace Niederlander who started the early restoration of the building as well as marketed the mill as a historic site.  “[the] Property continued in use as a “historic mill”, with some milling activity, seasonal cider making, and a gift shop, through 2003,” explained the report.
It was Iskalo’s plan for a remodel that won over the Village Board of Trustees. “We were not selected to continue with redevelopment of the mill,” said Virginia Searl.
Preservation Studios, a Buffalo run consulting firm, which describes itself on its website as a “full-service historic preservation consulting firm”, was placed in charge of negotiating a development deal between the Village of Williamsville and Iskalo Development Corp. in spring of 2011. While Preservation Studios is no longer involved with the project, Jason Yots was willing to explain the firm’s involvement with the project. “Preservation Studios was previously engaged as the consultant to help find an additive reuse,” he wrote in a typed statement.




The Price of a Restoration

According to Iskalo’s 2011 presentation the Williamsville Water Mill renovation will cost $7.940 million dollars to complete.
The village is not alone in funding the project. A multitude of grants and funds are available to the village. According to Jason Yots the Preserve New York program, NYS Environmental Protection Fund and private funds are all available to historic buildings.
 Jason Yots cautioned that remodeling an historical building in a small town can be difficult. He wrote: “Economic challenges... Declining and sprawling populations often make re-use infeasible without incentives.”