It was the early 1980s when Lucas says he “fell into it,” growing up a stone’s throw from the historic UB South Campus and drawn in by the avant-garde thinking inside the halls of what was then known as the School of Architecture and Environmental Design. As a student, he was inspired by the intellectual force of faculty members like Harold Cohen, who served as dean from 1974 to 1984, futurist Magda Cordell McHale, and Ibrahim ‘Himi’ Jammal, a pioneer in international planning.

After graduating, he worked for a local nonprofit, which engaged SUNY Distinguished Professor of Architecture Robert Shibley’s former Urban Design Project to develop an award-winning plan for the city’s Lower West Side, before returning to UB to join Henry Taylor, professor of urban planning, and his emerging urban studies center on community-based research in neighborhoods. “It was an interesting time, to have all these different ideas thrown at you as you’re trying to understand the world. It opened my eyes and got me thinking about problems differently.”

Lucus would take that ethos to the Seneca Nation during the early 2000s as the tribal nation made a historic move toward greater sovereignty, and then to the City of Buffalo during its resurgence in the 2010s as planning director of BURA, the neighborhood-level implementation agency for government housing and community development grants.

Benjamin, who grew up in the Albany area, got his first glimpse of urban planning as a 12-year-old riding his bike, frustrated by a lack of sidewalks. He studied English Literature as an undergraduate student at the former College of Saint Rose and discovered New Urbanist authors like James Howard Kunstler before jumping into state government, where he administered federal Land and Water Conservation Fund and outdoor recreation grants for New York State Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation, and then advanced programs in downtown renewal for the New York State Homes & Community Renewal office.

“While the implementation work of state government is satisfying, I found I wanted to be involved in planning in the earlier stages, to be more on the ground and at the point of conceiving a plan. That’s what brought me to UB.”

He, too, was ignited by his faculty, like Kate Nelischer, a former assistant professor of urban planning who changed his outlook on growth as a paradigm for cities. “I took away a degree of skepticism in the notion that growth is the be-all and end-all for a municipality. I now lean more into economic resilience and sustainability, with solutions that provide residents with jobs and wages that allow them to get by.”

Indeed, underlaying conditions of vacancy is a rich urban fabric featuring the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Niagara Falls State Park (the oldest state park in the United States); late 19th-century and early 20th-century residential revivals; and historic civic and commercial buildings such as Niagara Falls City Hall, downtown's former Hotel Niagara and United Office Building (both listed on the National Register of Historic Places), and the Paul Rudolph-designed Earl W. Brydges Building, which serves as the Main Street branch of the Niagara Falls Public Library. 

Benjamin agrees that the city is taking a new tack: “We have seen that past. And, like the rest of the planning community, we are rightly skeptical of silver bullets.”

“Today, we work with many developers and many community members, whether that’s downtown or along Main Street,” continues Benjamin, whose office white board is covered in Post-it notes of constituencies to reach out to, like the Trinity Baptist Church and neighborhood groups in the DeVeaux area, or the city’s growing Yemeni and Hindu communities.

“We need to be able to pivot. We’re trying to connect all these pieces to build the economic base, meet the needs of the people who live here, and work incrementally to bring places back in a way that can be sustained.”

Both point to the Bridge District revitalization plan for the city’s historic but long-shuttered Main Street shopping area in the North End as an example of this nimble approach to community development.

With goals to diversify local ownership and transform historic buildings into mixed-use residential and commercial space, recent wins include agreements to convert the former Jenss Department Store into market-rate apartments, a student housing project linked to a nearby university, and the adaptive reuse of an abandoned church into a market and antique mall. Supported by the NYS Downtown Revitalization Initiative and Empire State Development (ESD) and advanced by a new public-private partnership acquisition strategy led by Mayor Robert Restaino, the plan builds off completed projects like the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center and includes streetscape upgrades, public plaza enhancements, lighting, and traffic-calming features.

Lucas and Benjamin have also inherited a host of in-the-works plans, many of them backed by New York State and linked to regional economic development priorities in community wealth building through workforce development, placemaking in commercial corridors, stronger public connections to the waterfront, and small business development. (Notably, the city's planning office was previously directed by fellow UB planning alumnus Thomas DeSantis (MUP ’96, BAED ’78), who held that role from 1997 until his retirement in 2020).

Operating as a small team, Lucas and Benjamin, along with environmental planner and GIS Coordinator Serge Del Grosso, Jr., manage the city’s Comprehensive Plan (with its first update since 2009 in the works), support the city’s Planning Board and Historic Preservation Commission, and coordinate land use, zoning, site planning, and community engagement city-wide.

Their long list of partners includes USA Niagara Development Corp., a subsidiary of ESD, the city’s own Economic Development Department and nonprofit NFC Development Corp., and government agencies as diverse as the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency and NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. The city is also part of the Regional Revitalization Partnership, a Western New York economic development initiative supported by ESD, the municipalities of Buffalo, Rochester, and Niagara Falls, and philanthropic partners like The John R. Oishei Foundation, M&T Bank, and the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation.  

Other major projects planned or under way in Niagara Falls, which have been led by New York State but supported by the city, include the Gorge Gateway Park & Hydraulic Power Plaza, a 3.7-acre public space reuse project connecting the city’s center to Niagara Falls State Park; the Riverway Tree Walk, an elevated viewing platform and connector path to the Niagara Gorge (both led by the USA Niagara Development Corp.); and the continued dismantling of the former Robert Moses State Parkway into new sections of the pedestrian-oriented Niagara Scenic Parkway Trail, which now links neighborhoods to the formerly walled off waterfront (led by NYS Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation).

Meanwhile, The Nest, a new mixed-use and affordable housing development also supported by ESD, recently broke ground downtown. The historic Niagara Falls City Market is set for a makeover to provide year-round access to healthy food. And the city has partnered with Neighborworks Community Partners on a NYS Homes and Community Renewal-sponsored housing infill program to create 28 units of affordable, ranch-style, single-family homes.

Looking ahead, Lucas says a range of other initiatives are keeping his team busy. The office recently launched the FallsViewer Municipal GIS Web Portal to provide public access to parcel data, zoning districts, and mapping layers. His team uses that same data to help the city’s building code officers pinpoint property owners with neglected properties, and guide efforts to clean up vacant lots. The office also supports critical policy efforts, including establishing regulations for solar energy systems and student housing, and (in partnership with its sister departments in City Hall and the NYS Energy Research and Development Authority) drafting a new law to guide the development of Battery Energy Storage Systems. 

“And don’t forget the park,” Lucas says, pointing to the window behind him, which reveals the rising mist of Niagara Falls, a force of nature that sends 750,000 gallons of water per second over the brink and attracts more than 9.5 million visitors to the city every year. The geological wonder, which generates enough hydroelectricity to power 3.9 million homes and feeds into the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area, remains the city’s most important natural asset and economic driver.  

Benjamin, a fellow cyclist who frequents the Shoreline Trail, an expanding greenway along the Niagara River that will ultimately connect Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, says celebrating the little wins and listening to the community remain priority No. 1.

“There still needs to be more proactivity in efforts to talk to the community and understand their needs,” he says, adding that those conversations are starting to change, slowly but surely. “People are seeing that this is for real. Buildings are being rehabbed and grass is being cut in vacant lots. It’s something.”

“They’ve been seeing that for the past couple of years, and they’re going to see a lot more of it in the coming years.”