At this point, the Civil War-era brick Italianate that stands at 399 Franklin Street is as good as gone. Its fate is sealed, the demolition permit granted. Last week volunteers from Buffalo ReUse picked through the decrepit building and stripped it of its salvageable architectural elements—more than 30 doors, two clawfoot bathtubs, 15 porcelain sinks, roof brackets and decorative dental moldings from the façade—putting the period firmly at the end of this building’s nine-year-long death sentence.

This is not, however, a death that goes unnoticed. In fact, it’s being closely watched by the whole community. That’s because the Horton House, which dates back to 1867 and stands within the Allentown Historic Preservation District, has become the most recent battleground between the business community and local preservationists. Ralph Salerno, a local businessman and owner of the building, sees the demolition as a simple operation in order for him to build an addition to his neighboring print shop, Keller Bros. & Miller, Inc. Printing. Many preservationists, however, see it as a premeditated travesty, an example of the city’s Preservation Board doing precisely the opposite of the job it is charged with.

This story goes back to1999, when Salerno purchased 399 Franklin with the sole purpose of knocking it down. His print shop is located next door at 401 Franklin Street, and demolition would allow him to expand in the future or simply, in his eyes, get rid of an eyesore. According to Salerno, friends in City Hall advised him to demolish the house on a Saturday and the city would ask no questions. Upon advice from his lawyers, however, Salerno decided to do it the legally and ethically correct way. He proposed surface parking for the site, and later a park with trees and garden beds. Both plans were rejected by the City, which wanted him to replace the building were he to tear it down.

Then Salerno thought about restoring the building. “We actually have architectural plans to turn that building into a four-unit condo,” he says, “because we saw some of the development that was happening in the area. When we weighed the return on investment with what it was going to take to rehab the building and turn it into apartments or condos, the risk was very high.” He says he’s had offers to buy the building, but from his standpoint to do so would put his business at risk. “I wouldn’t be able to expand my business, which means I’d have to move.” Salerno thinks that a move would be too expensive, and he simply doesn’t want to move. He looked at other neighborhoods—Black Rock, North Buffalo and the Cobblestone District—and decided he’s happy where he is. After all, Keller Bros. & Miller, Inc. has been in that location since 1922, when Salerno’s grandfather began work there.

Once those options were exhausted, Salerno says, the Preservation Board “led us down a pretty nice path.” After initial addition plans were rejected, the Preservation Board suggested that adding a historical element to the plan would increase his chances of getting the project approved. The original façade plans for his building at 401 Franklin were uncovered, and Salerno said he’d restore his current shopfront (once a livery stable, he says) to its original 1880s design, and build the single-story, slab-on-grade addition in like kind and quality. That is the current plan.

After seven years, the Preservation Board finally approved Salerno’s plan last November, this time unanimously. The outcry from the preservation community was loud and immediate. An online petition against the demolition circulated, garnering 319 signatures. Questions were asked, accusations were fired off: Why didn’t the City enforce building codes on 399 Franklin between 1999 and 2006? Salerno was letting the building fall into disrepair so he could justify demolishing it. Can’t Salerno reuse the building? The Preservation Board was leading the fox to the henhouse by working with Salerno for eight years to demolish the building. Stop letting developers knock down our buildings. Allentown should be off-limits to demolitions. The print company should simply move to one of the countless empty lots downtown.

Long-time preservationist and librarian Cynthia Van Ness says, “The Buffalo Preservation Board collaborated with the owner for eight years, thus enabling eight years of neglect, when eight years of code enforcement and rehabilitation would have given everyone a jewel to be proud of.” Chris Brown, the president of the Allentown Association, thinks that at the very least the façade of the Horton House should be preserved and incorporated into the new addition.

For Salerno’s part, he doesn’t seem to understand what the big to-do is about. “I’m bringing a building back to its 1880 design and tearing down something that’s got little economic use at all to anybody,” he says, clearly exasperated. “So for people to continue to have their backs up without seeing the positives in the process, that’s really frustrating. And I haven’t encountered too much negativity lately, but I assume it may regenerate itself when the wrecking ball shows up, but who knows?”

He says that the building was decrepit and vacant for three years already when he bought it in ’99. “It’s a bastard building. It’s the same architecture as the building right next door,” he says, indicating the building on the opposite side of his business. “It’s not like it’s one of a kind, it’s not like McKinley had his last meal there. Give me something more of value to hang onto than the fact that it was built in 1880 and maybe I could sympathize a little bit, too.” In the end, he sees the preservationists’ anger as part of a trend. “Every time a businessman tries to do something around here, it’s amazing what we run into.” He says that his business supports 11 households, and his employees live here, support restaurants and businesses here and pay taxes here. “It’s all about what, you want to save a building and move another business out?”

He’d rather point to the positive aspects of the demolition—the bricks are being donated to neighboring St. Louis Church to construct a new building, and he let Buffalo ReUse into the building to salvage some of its historially significant fixtures and architectural elements.

Both sides of the argument are probably right to some degree, but the language they use is telling and points to the real problem. There are half-truths and ideology worked into some of the arguments, whether those who advance them see it or not. Some preservationists refer to Salerno as a “developer.” He’s not a developer in the heartless, greedy sense the word is often employed to convey. Rather, he’s a proud local entrepreneur whose business has operated continuously in Buffalo since 1916. If you visit him, he’ll take you on a tour of the office and tell you how his grandfather took over the business from the original owners, how his father used to strap rolls of paper to his back and walk them up the stairs to the hulking print machines on the second floor at 401 Franklin. His company is making it in a world marketplace that is no longer very friendly to small- and mid-sized, independently owned businesses. He gives back to the community through his involvement with the March of Dimes, the Police Athletic League and Kids Escaping Drugs. He’s invested himself and his business wholly into Buffalo, and now he feels attacked by the community to which he’s given so much.

At the same time, 399 Franklin Street is historically important, and, yes, simply for the fact that it’s old and in a historic preservation district. There may be nearly 100 late-19th-century Italianate houses in Allentown, but they should all be restored when it’s feasible. New construction of old architecture does, in the end, appear somehow cheap, and it’s not as valuable to a community as an actual, restored old building.

This is more than a story about an old building that is about to be knocked down, as important as that may be. It’s not really a news story at all. It is, in fact, illustrative of the ongoing problem of preservation in Buffalo. This story could have been written today or in 1980, because neither the problem nor the solution has changed much. Both sides have something to offer, but neither side is taking. They are talking at each other, not to each other, painting caricatures of one another. The businessman is greedy and doesn’t care about Buffalo’s architecture or collective community benefit. The preservationist is a bleeding heart who will stop at nothing to save a rotting old building, then do nothing himself to restore it. And he hates businesspeople. The truth is that both groups have the same central interest at heart: to improve Buffalo and see it grow intelligently and succeed. Businesspeople have a vested interest in that end as much as preservationists do.

It seems like there’s got to be a change in the way preservation is carried out in Buffalo. And the onus should be on the City and the Preservation Board to come up with more creative solutions. What would happen, for instance, if instead of using tens of millions of public dollars to lure an out-of-town retail chain (this is, of course, a nonspecific example), the City had put up some public dollars to help Keller Bros. restore the Horton House and incorporate it into their addition? It would support locally owned businesses and help preserve our architecture.

But that hasn’t happened. For now, it looks like the businessman won this round, and 399 Franklin will become another martyr for the preservation community. But does anyone really win? Until a better system is worked out, both sides will remain wary of one another, and the city will collectively scratch its head as potentially beautiful historic buildings disappear and frustrated businesses move out of town.