Developer pitches loft conversions at former St. Francis schools, asks city to sell adjacent lot for parking

David Sutton, a developer, asked the Tonawanda Common Council during the informal session to consider selling a vacant municipal lot at 20 Adams Street to provide parking for a proposed adaptive-reuse project that would convert two former school buildings into apartments.

Sutton said the buildings — identified in his remarks as St. Francis of Assisi properties at 144 Broad Street and 76 Adams Street — are “beautiful, underappreciated, underutilized” and could be converted into about 40 high‑end, loft‑style apartments that would return the properties to the tax roll. “My goal is to bring them back to life, put them back on the tax roll, and fill them with high end or luxury loft style apartments,” Sutton said.

He told council members the project’s viability depends on securing nearby parking. Sutton said local zoning requires roughly 1.5 parking spaces per unit but that he would prefer two spaces per unit to accommodate guests and overflow; for roughly 40 units that translates to a target of about 60–80 spaces. Sutton said the city-owned lot…