NIAGARA FALLS — When local Realtor Bruce Andrews considers Howard Milstein’s presence in Niagara Falls, he doesn’t think about disappointment or missed opportunities.

The owner of Great Lakes Real Estate thinks about the condition of the downtown area more than a decade ago when Milstein, the owner of Niagara Falls Redevelopment and its local affiliates, was one of the few investors willing to take a chance on what had become a blighted, undesirable section of the city.

“All the buildings they demolished, the city was ultimately going to have to demolish there anyway or watch them burn to the ground,” said Andrews, whose company has been involved in real estate deals with NFR throughout the years. “They should be praising him for cleaning up that area.”

Praise hasn’t exactly been heaped upon Milstein or NFR in Niagara Falls in recent weeks. Following news of Milstein’s planned appointment to chairman of the New York State Thruway Authority, dozens of members of the local faith-based group Niagara Organizing Alliance for Hope, or NOAH, gathered on Falls Street in front of a vacant NFR property to hold a mock ribbon-cutting to protest the company’s failure to live up to lofty development goals it set under various agreements with the city dating back 12 years. In the wake of the protest, Andrews and others stepped forward to offer different opinions about Milstein and his Falls-based companies.

Andrews maintains that Milstein’s local businesses — totaling five in all — have been successful in razing blighted structures to free up space for future development. He believes the lack of progress within NFR’s territory has more to do with outside factors, such as weak demographics, high taxes and a general sense that Niagara Falls is not a good place for an investor to earn a return. He also believes NFR’s people have been working hard to promote other investment opportunities downtown, but has been hampered in large part because conditions just aren’t right.

“I give the guy praise for what he’s done,” Andrews said. “This is big development. You need something big enough to draw people in from the outside. To get something big in there is difficult. It’s hard.”

Following NOAH’s mock-ribbon cutting, Council Chairman Sam Fruscione and Councilman Robert Anderson penned a letter to local newspapers, expressing full support for Milstein’s appointment as Thruway Authority chairman. They were not alone. Andrews and other residents and individuals publicly supported Milstein as well. The list included the head of the union representing Niagara Falls police officers, leaders from the Niagara Street Area Business Association and Community Missions, Inc.

In their letter, Fruscione and Anderson acknowledged that NFR has been a “lightning rod for criticism” and, by extension, Milstein has been as well. They also said they did not blame Milstein or his companies for the lack of development in the city, suggesting there are “many reasons why growth has either stalled or failed.”

 “If we get some of the things moving forward, maybe NFR would move forward with us,” Anderson said in an interview following the release of the letter.

 Anderson, who is up for re-election this year, said he signed on in support of Milstein’s appointment because he believes more needs to be done to make the local environment more business friendly for companies like NFR. He said high taxes — both locally and at the state level — are serious problems that have yet to be addressed in the 10-plus years Milstein has been buying property here.

“Who’s going to come to the highest taxes in the nation and put in a business?” he said.

 Anderson added that he believes it’s in the city’s best interest to maintain an open dialogue with NFR, saying Milstein’s development record should be viewed as an asset, not a liability.

“If you communicate with them instead of fighting with them all the damn time, eventually you’ve got to come up with something,” Anderson said.

 Supporters point to NFR’s record of property maintenance and tax payments as evidence that the company is contributing to the community despite not having built hotels or other attractions once envisioned under its original 1997 redevelopment deal. Milstein has a total of five interrelated companies with holdings in the downtown area, including Niagara Falls Redevelopment, Eleventh Street Properties, NFR Gateway, Blue Apple and NFR Turtle.

City Assessor James Bird said those companies collectively own 442 parcels, primarily within NFR’s development territory which is bordered by John B. Daly Boulevard, Portage Road, Buffalo Avenue and Niagara Street. Many of the properties are worth less than $10,000. A few are worth millions.

More valuable properties include the old Native American Center for Living Arts, commonly known as the Turtle building, which has a value in excess of $1.5 million. Milstein’s affiliates also own the former home of Nabisco, a pair of parcels that are worth more than $3 million combined.

Bird said the holdings of all five NFR-related firms represented a total assessed value $10,591,700 last year. City Controller Maria Brown said the five companies combined paid a total 2010 tax bill of $604,972.58 including $316,122.45 in city, $199,589.86 in school and $89,260.27 in county taxes. City officials consistently say the companies’ properties are maintained to satisfactory levels and when there have been problems in the past, NFR has been quick to address them.

Some say Milstein’s presence has been a benefit to the community in other ways. Robyn Krueger, executive director for Community Missions, Inc. on Buffalo Avenue, said NFR, and by extension Milstein, have been prominent supporters of her organization’s annual fundraising drive. She said direct support and advertising supported by Milstein’s company through local media outlets has helped generate more than $250,000 for Community Missions in the last seven years. She said the fundraising drive helps her agency provide roughly 65,000 meals and give shelter to more than 1,000 homeless and needy individuals annually.

“Certainly, from the organization’s perspective, it’s invaluable,” she said. “Without a donor of that magnitude, the agency would be hard pressed to come up with the additional dollars.”

Critics aren’t satisfied. They maintain that paying taxes and maintaining property is the responsibility of any land owner in the city. They argue that Milstein, whose company originally envisioned plans for significant development projects in the city, should be held to a higher standard. They also question the motives behind Milstein’s generosity, suggesting his company donates funds to area groups and individuals as a way to deflect attention away from what it hasn’t produced in the past 12 years.

The Rev. David Crapnell, leader of NOAH, said he does not hold the New York City real estate developer solely responsible for the lack of activity within the company’s development territory and understands that other forces play a role in its ability to move projects forward. He also believes the community has a right to demand more from NFR and its affiliates after all these years.

“I would say that 12 years is more than enough,” Crapnell said. “He has enough resources to begin to do something. I think that people are so desperate here that they are willing to take pennies on the dollar rather than look at the potential of what Niagara Falls could be.”

Andrews and Anderson contend that Milstein is here to stay and deserves help, not criticism. Anderson said Milstein is the kind of developer Niagara Falls needs and the city and the state need to find ways to tackle the serious problems they have been facing for years in order to assist him in moving projects forward.

 “High taxes. Utilities. Crime. What have the people in Albany done to help us?” Anderson said. “Nothing right now.”

Andrews agreed, saying Milstein has not yet asked for a single penny in assistance from the city or the state, but that offering incentives to him might be wise considering the condition of the downtown area and the reputation of Niagara Falls itself.

“They’ll get the job done,” Andrews said. “They have to overcome a lot. Everybody does in this area. It’s virtually impossible without the incentives and gifts from the state.”

NFR spokesman Charles Zehren did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Contact Mark Scheer at 282-2311, ext. 2250.