Nikola Tesla Developer of the Year Award – Carl Paladino
Many know me as the Chairwoman of Niagara Rises, Inc. which is a grass roots organization in Niagara Falls that is focused on reversing the course Niagara Falls is taking and reducing poverty in the Cataract City. Part of Niagara Rises Mission includes a four day celebration at the end of June called Niagara Homecoming. Niagara Homecoming includes a Career Fair, our Kickoff to benefit the NCCC Culinary School, Real Estate Open Houses and a focus on some of the very best things happening in Niagara County. At our 2nd annual Kickoff, we handed out our Frank Thomas Croisdale Volunteer of the Year Award to Dr. David Taylor of Niagara University for his work with at Risk Youth. We work very closely with Dr. Taylor and have some very exciting news coming up in the coming weeks about how Niagara University and Niagara Rises will be partnering together.
There were two new awards that we added this year. The first was our Excellence in Media Award which was given to Mike Hudson of the Niagara Falls Reporter. Their support of our organization when we couldn’t get a single bit of coverage by other outlets is not forgotten. Neither is the fact that the Reporter has become the official program to all events related to Niagara Homecoming is so very appreciated. Like the cover this past week said “there is no place like home”. In an age where Newspapers are dying on the vine, the Niagara Falls Reporter is strong in a city that has not one but two major papers and a third producing a Niagara Section. Western New Yorkers are very lucky to have the options that many communities no longer have. Today they celebrate their 10th Anniversary — a great achievement.
- Carl Paladino accepted the Niagara Rises Nikola Tesla Developer of the Year award from Colleen Kulikowski and in return honored the Niagara Rises Board of Directors on their hard work and dedication.
On Friday night, at the Rapids Theatre it was my honor to present our other new award — the Niagara Rises Nikola Tesla Developer of the Year award to Carl Paladino of Ellicott Development for his work on the Giacomo. Below is my speech introducing Carl Paladino to the audience that attended our Kickoff Gala:
It was a very dark day when they first opened the United Office Building in Niagara Falls. Fortunes were crumbling across the country as the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929. Despite such an infamous introduction, the building rose tall into the sky in the city’s South End and the citizenry seemed to embrace its existence as a standard bearer of prosperity and hope.
Throughout it’s early life it was home to some of the top business names in the city, before it was abandoned in the 1980’s. The elegant, art deco structure with its distinctive monochromatic-colored brick and decorative Mayan sculptures became the topic of much tangled bargaining as many government agencies and private developers tried and failed to breath life back into the abandoned structure. For a long time it stood, empty, crumbling and towering over the city 20 stories high, a reminder to anyone who looked up of great promise gone sour.
- The United Office Building now the Giacomo is once again lit up to light the way to Niagara Falls.
In having both the honor and pleasure of introducing to you this evening our Niagara Rises Developer of the Year, I am reminded of the historic figure for which this award has been named. Nikola Tesla, himself the man who brought AC/DC electrical current to Niagara Falls from Yugoslavia gave us the power that lights our community today!
In an age when Tesla’s remarkable gift of power first lit up the City of Buffalo, New York at the Pan American Exposition we were witness to Tesla’s AC/DC current traveling to Buffalo to be a light to the world attending that significant event.
Tonight, we celebrate another significant event here at the Rapids Theater in honoring a man who’s Ellicott Development Corporation history was already established in Buffalo, New York and who restored prosperity and hope back to our community when he traveled to Niagara Falls and lit up the former United Office Building for the first time in over 20 years. We now know and love it as the Giacomo Boutique Hotel complex at 222 Third Street.
Carl Paladino’s Italian family heritage named the hotel, his business expertise in development became the energy behind this project, and as a result of his tenacity and dogged determination, travelers from around the world once again are welcomed in Niagara Falls to experience this incredibly beautiful hotel located within the shadow of the falls which first harnessed the Tesla power.
The $10 million renovation yielded a rebirth that will provide much needed luxury accommodations to the city’s tourist region and — along with the new West Mall area the Giacomo raises the tide on the entire South End. Certainly, much like in the days when the United Office Building was first opened the opening of the Giacomo has marked a new era in the history of Niagara Falls.
- 2010 Niagara Rises Award Winners – Mike Hudson, Carl Paladino & Dr. David Taylor
Carl Paladino represents a “first” for Niagara Falls in so many ways. He is the first developer from Buffalo to cast his gaze upon our City. He is the first to tell us what he was going to do and then to complete the project. The obstacles were many, the mission massive, but tonight and any night, as you travel through Niagara Falls I would ask for you to look for the “light” at the top of the Giacomo towers beckoning all of the City and travelers to this historic property. In his own words, Carl says that “Lighting up the top of the building was a big thing for him,” he said. “It’s been dark for so long.”
Carl Paladino has turned the light back on to new development in Niagara Falls and tonight, we are proud to recognize him with the very” first” Niagara Rises 2010 Nikola Tesla Developer of the Year Award.
Yes it was a great night! And we the Board of Directors of Niagara Rises have many exciting announcements that we will be making at the Giacomo on September 2nd with our latest Still Fallin For the Falls Happy hour. You will want to be there…
RSVP on Facebook to September 2, 2010 Happy Hour
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