Engine House

A need for space, and to more efficiently use what’s already available at the Engine House at 3 West Main St., has prompted Genesee County officials to map out plans for an approximately $4 million project to add several more offices and amenities, install an elevator, extend the second level, and temporarily move out all of the attorneys.

If the project is approved and construction begins in April, everyone will vacate the premises, and the Public Defender’s Office will move over to the current Genesee Justice site, which is set to move over to the new county jail on Route 5.  That will also mean finding a new home for Batavia Peace Garden folks after planting their roots at the site for the last seven or eight years, Barb Toal says. 

“We’re looking for a place; we’re going to be homeless,” Toal said Friday. “We talked to the city manager, we’re trying to keep it as close as possible to the Peace Garden as we can.  The town of Batavia is working with us as well. We can get by with an 8 by 10 space, all we need is a desk and a computer.”

Toal and County Manager Matt Landers each said that he gave the nonprofit advance notice that this would likely be happening once the project was officially approved by the County Legislature. It has gone to one county committee already, has received a loose nod of approval from legislators to proceed, and will go to the Public Service Committee for review Feb. 20 as architectural plans get adjusted and bids are sought before final cost estimates are brought back to the county leaders for a final vote later this spring.

“We’ll be putting a change order to our existing engineering contract, to finish the full engineering and then follow through with the project afterward. And that means bidding it out, and all that comes along with that, and then we'll bid it. Once we bid it, and those bids come back, then we will go to the full Legislature for approval," Osborn said.

That gives the Peace Garden volunteers until April to find a small space with similar minimal rent that the county was charging. The town of Batavia has freed up a space for the group’s meetings, Toal said, but again, it would be ideal to find a location closer to the garden that’s alongside Holland Land Office Museum for use as an office. 

A walk-through of the Engine House, which certainly has had its share of renovations over the years — being used initially for municipal services, including to house pumps that forced water from the Tonawanda Creek into the water mains, and perhaps most notably for locals, as Engine House #1 Restaurant and Lounge from 1980 to 1991, and in more recent years housing the county’s History Department and then the Public Defender’s Office. For more about 3 West Main St., go HERE. 

Sadly, for those who frequented the restaurant and bar, that iconic booth with an inlaid wooden circle will be removed during future construction. The heavy-duty black, intricate wrought iron gates at either end of the entrance may get sold or repurposed, Landers and Osborn said, and many pieces of the house, such as a quarter moon stained glass window now hidden in a ceiling truss, will be incorporated as pieces of nostalgic history. 

Due to the funky steps that wind around and are not handicap compliant, an elevator will answer that call, and allow attorneys and visitors, when necessary, better and safer access to the second floor. That upper level now stops short at about a third of the way over the first floor, and will be extended some 10 more feet to about halfway, Osborn said. 

The eastern wall will get more lighting with glass windows on the upper portion so that staff can have an outside view and look down, he said. The hallway leading toward West Main Street will include an elevator and three single bathrooms closer to the entrance.

“One of the coolest spaces that you’d want to see is the Turret Room,” Landers said, of the small tower-like room that almost seems like a standalone entity unto itself. Tall and slender, it takes a couple of small steps to get into this room, traditionally used as a defensive position allowing covering fire to the adjacent wall in the days of military fortification. This particular room contained a fire pole for firefighters to slide down during emergencies and later served a more refined purpose as private dining for a table of six. 

“The pole was for the fire department; it came from upstairs where their sleeping quarters were. That's where they would slide down,” Osborn said.

That room’s future calling is to be a kitchenette and break room for employees, and the remaining hallway will lead to offices and a conference room toward the west end of the building.

Public Defender Jerry Ader has obtained a grant for just under $1 million to put towards the project cost — an elevator in particular -- to allow better access to the second floor, and although the deadline has been extended, Landers believes that if it can proceed and officials can demonstrate that it’s on track, another extension is possible so as not to lose that funding. 

There’s also additional potential funding to come, he said. The remaining expense would be paid for with county reserves, Landers said. 

Given its varied levels, steps, and spacing — not to mention the outside layout of little to no public parking — selling the property has not proven successful, leaving a renovation and creation of at least 14 offices with room for more as the most feasible option, Landers said. 

“There's always been a desire to try to find a way to put an elevator in this building to make it accessible and find grant funds to do it. So I’d say, what, 12 months at least that Jerry has been looking at, 12 to 18 months, that we've been kind of looking at this more seriously with Jerry having this money, and it could be a little longer than that. But it's been a goal for a while to try to find a way to utilize the space,” Landers said. “It was out on the market for a little bit years ago, but there wasn't a lot of interest in the space because of the challenges of parking, and the cost of renovating an old building like this. So we have come to the realization that we have a need for employees over in the current court facility and that this is probably the best use of it to stay in county hands.

“One of the deterrents from developing this building before was not having accessibility to the second floor. And now that we have the ability to utilize the funding to the Public Defender's Office to get an elevator in here, that opens up the entire building, but the public defender is still going to be utilizing half the building for their own needs to justify them putting the money into the building,” Landers said. “But that helps us open up the back end. And we're doing some renovations here in this corner of the building to allow for other county offices to start spilling over into this location. And the ultimate goal, if the Legislature approves the contract coming up later in February, is that we would be renovating this building fully for county purposes.”

There will be a handicap-accessible ramp built at the south end of the building for a proper ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant egress, Osborn said. 

“So if we have an elevator that allows them into this space, they can't just drop themselves down off the steps. So we have to create them a means of egress for them out as well,” he said. 

For anyone with strong Batavia roots, the Engine House conjures up dining memories of corned beef sandwiches for $2.10 and a champagne Sunday brunch for less than six bucks. Now the longstanding historical icon earmarked as a capital project has some much higher dollar figures attached.

The county Legislature is expected to vote soon on the $1.86 million project, to be offset by a $892,610 grant and sales tax proceeds of $975,990. Since the funding was from 2022, it’s considered a 2022 capital project.

County Manager Matt Landers laid out the explanation during Wednesday’s Ways & Means meeting.

“And the reasoning behind this is that we're running out of space. We have run out of space with public defenders. So that's why there's already four over there in the engine house. And we're putting two more over there,” Landers said. “This is utilizing outside funding, outside of the county, to be able to put an elevator into the building. That is in our long-term plans now, based out of necessity, because the courts facility was not built large enough. It's an access issue to be able to access that building properly.”

The courts facility — a complex built for city, county, and family court, children’s services, the district attorney and various other legal professionals — is now unable to accommodate all county personnel.

Landers credited Public Defender Jerry Ader for securing the grant of nearly $893,000. Part of the expense includes an amount not to exceed $150,600 for the renovation design for SWBR of Rochester.

Plans include an elevator, since it has been difficult to reach the upper floors of the building, Landers said. As it is, the public and county employees cannot access the space, he said. Legislator Marianne Clattenburg believed it was there for a reason.

“It’s a historic space, and it’s not going anywhere,” she said. “So, we might as well use it, right?”

The design may not be completed until 2024, Landers, said, and there will be flexibility in the plan.

“As soon as we have the design done and a full cost estimate out there, if it is on target like we thought it would be, then we would increase the budget, increase the project for the vendor space and then award the contracts for doing the construction work,” he said. “If it comes in too high, then we simply would pull back our funding and reallocate that sales tax into our reserve and for future purposes. This really is a building that's underutilized now … And the best part of this is it's right next door to the courthouse, right where their work is, and we have the ownership of that, and we should make good use of it.”

This isn't the first time the county has mulled the use of the Engine House. In 2017, there were discussions of giving it up or opting to renovate the site to accommodate a growing number of public defenders and make the second-floor handicap accessible. Those discussions got as far as setting a public hearing, which was canceled in lieu of tabling any definite action.

According to former county Historian Susan Conklin, the site at 3 West Main St., Batavia, had been built in the late 1800s — first as a sawmill, and later as a two-room brick shelter that housed water pumps. City leaders decided in 1948 to convert the building into a fire station, giving it the name that has stuck for the next several decades — even when purchased in the 1980s to operate as a restaurant.

The Engine House bar and restaurant closed in 1991, and it took eight years before Buildings and Grounds began to convert it into a county department. In July of 1998, the History Department was relocated into the front section of the property.

Top Photo of a more recent version of the brick Engine House, and above, former buildings, including one that was partially collapsed from an explosion. Photos from the county's History Department archives.