cleanup · Erie County
Main & Hertel / The Rails
Buffalo
Former manufacturing and electroplating property cleaned through the Brownfield Cleanup Program and redeveloped as apartments with commercial space.
The documented story
What happened here?
The 4.9-acre Main and Hertel brownfield supported manufacturing beginning around 1910. Products included paint, vehicles, and gasoline pumps, and the Keystone Corporation later used the property for electroplating.
New York's Brownfield Cleanup Program addressed contaminated soil, drums, underground-storage-tank material, transformers, and demolition debris before the property was redeveloped as The Rails, a mixed-use apartment and commercial complex.
Chronology in context
Turning points in the public record
1910 onward
Successive manufacturers produced paint, vehicles, gasoline pumps, and other goods on the property.
Electroplating era
Keystone Corporation conducted electroplating operations, adding a metal-finishing chapter to the site's industrial history.
2024
DEC issued a Brownfield Cleanup Program Certificate of Completion after reviewing the completed remedy.
Present
The property has been redeveloped with apartments and adjoining commercial space.
News record
Major news events
Coverage selected here marks a turning point in public awareness, policy, enforcement, employment, or cleanup. Links open at the original publisher or archive; WNYAtlas does not reproduce restricted articles or images.
A former plating property enters public cleanup review before housing construction
DEC invited comment on the Main and Hertel remedy before the industrial property became The Rails, keeping contamination, vapor protection and controlled residential reuse within one public record.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation ↗The remediated site becomes a 312-unit transit-oriented apartment complex
Construction reporting documented the transformation of the underused brownfield beside LaSalle Station while the brownfield remedy supplied the environmental foundation for residential and commercial use.
WKBW ↗Environmental record
Documented impacts
- Historic industrial uses contaminated soil and left drums, tanks, transformers, and building material requiring controlled disposal.
- Electroplating and manufacturing histories guided investigation for metals, petroleum-related compounds, and other industrial contaminants.
- The brownfield boundary is a defined 4.9-acre cleanup site and should not be expanded to the entire Main–Hertel neighborhood.
Response
Cleanup and controls
- Approximately 1,700 tons of contaminated soil were excavated and disposed off site.
- Cleanup also removed about six tons of drums and underground-storage-tank material and roughly 500 tons of building material, including concrete, wood, and transformers.
- DEC's Certificate of Completion confirms that the approved remedial objectives were met for the site's planned use, subject to any controls recorded in the final engineering documents.
Then and now
The site today
The Rails demonstrates residential and commercial reuse of a former industrial property after state-supervised cleanup. The completion certificate applies to the defined brownfield remedy and does not erase the site's manufacturing history.
School-map connection
See the documented campus relationship
The schools research map explains the documented property, adjacency, or mapped-parcel relationship without treating proximity as evidence of exposure or present school conditions.
Linked schools mapLEWIS J BENNETT HIGH SCHOOL OF INNOVATIVE TECHNOLGY / MIDDLE EARLY COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL →