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Nike missile launch site up for auction in Niagara County
Town of Porter parcel advertised on Internet
By Sharon Linstedt
Updated: 08/06/07 8:29 AM
Sam Kolich/Buffalo News
The mothballed site covers 98 acres off Balmer and Porter Center roads.
"For Sale: 98 acres of mostly undeveloped, treed property in rural Niagara County. Amenities include six underground missile silos."
That could be the federal government's ad for an unusual piece of property located in the Town of Porter, which it is auctioning off via the Internet. The U.S. General Services Administration opened online bidding July 12 for the long-idle Youngstown Test Annex, ocated at the corner of Balmer and Porter Center roads.
"It's certainly a different kind of property," said GSA spokeswoman Renee Miscione. "But the federal government sells and disposes of a very wide range of properties. It's everything from office buildings and military residences to post offices, lighthouses and missile sites."
The GSA, which disposes of properties for the federal government, offers the lands and buildings to various levels of government before putting them on the auction block.
The Youngstown Test Annex was originally part of the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works, which included about 7,500 acres across Niagara County used for military testing. The Army acquired the Youngstown Test Annex property in 1955, developing it as a Nike missile launch site.
The Cold War-era defense system was designed to protect major urban areas and strategic assets, such as power plants, from air assaults. The Nike missiles were secured in underground silos, at the ready in case of attack. At the height of the initiative, there were more than 200 installations around the country, including nearly a dozen in Western New York.
The Air Force took title to the Town of Porter location in the mid-1960s, converting it to a Tropospheric Scatter Radar communications network site.
The property, which has remained under military control, was mothballed in 1990.
In its description of the site, the GSA notes the property includes about 45 acres of wetlands. In addition to six missile silos (which are empty and have been welded shut), the parcel also comes with a handful of outbuildings in "various stages of deterioration." The GSA warns potential buyers they could face asbestos-removal issues. However, the government indicates that the site does not contain radioactive materials or hazardous chemicals.
To date, no one has stepped up with the required $100,000 minimum bid.
Miscione noted it took 21 days for the first bid to be registered in last summer's online sale of the Thaddeus J. Dulski federal office building in downtown Buffalo. That 15-story, 470,000-square-foot tower saw a brisk bidding war in the final days of its auction, attracting a winning bid of $6.1 million.
Of the eight former Nike sites sprinkled across Niagara and Erie counties, this is the last one to remain under federal government ownership. While a few are now privately owned, most have found new life as town or village-controlled parks, recreation areas, senior housing or local government offices.
slinstedt@buffnews.com
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Great Pictures.
awesome pics as always!
Pile of dirt, overnight growth... all the signs!!! They are beanstalks! I knew it!!
thanks guys. the purple finger installation is definitely new. there was still a pile of dirt next to it like a freshly dug grave.
Ooh, yeah, the purple pointy thing picture is like, whoa. Very qoo!
yeah ditto on the purple finger thingie... great photos!
Boy, I'm so glad I didn't kill you yesterday! Nice pix!
They look like a whole bunch of bean stalks in a sinuous dance, reaching high up and up and up... steadily reaching toward the blue vastness of the sky. Yearning to be part of it, yet rooted in the earth beneath; in the process, losing the very form they were born in. It reminds me of something else I saw a while back.
very nice pics
funny that we drove by that purple many-fingered thing near the art gallery today, and (e:matthew) was like, what is that thing? Is it new? But it looks really neat in that pic.