In downtown Lockport, a former General Motors manufacturing plant is about 180 days from opening its doors as a mixed-use apartment complex. Harrison Lofts — the Kearney Group's adaptive reuse of Building 3 within the historic Harrison Radiator complex — is on track to welcome its first tenants this winter, developer Ken Kearney told WKBW in May 2026. With 82 apartments, 24,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, and a farmers' market confirmed as a ground-floor tenant, the project represents the most significant downtown Lockport construction project in years.

From Auto Parts to Loft Apartments

The Harrison Radiator Company was a General Motors division that manufactured automotive radiators and cooling components. Buffalo Business First reported in November 2024 that when GM closed the Harrison Radiator operation in Lockport in 1987, the facility left behind a large industrial complex in the heart of downtown — one that Lockport has been trying to redevelop ever since. The city eventually reopened portions of the campus as a business incubator in 2006, but Building 3 — the primary structure of the current redevelopment — remained underutilized for decades.

Kearney Real Estate and Development formally began the $30 million project in 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic significantly slowed progress, as it did for adaptive reuse projects across the region. Environmental remediation and interior demolition work were completed in the initial phase; the current construction phase represents the vertical buildout of the apartment units and commercial space. WKBW's May 2026 reporting confirms the project is now physically coming together on schedule for a late 2026 opening.

What Harrison Lofts Will Look Like

The three-story industrial building will house 82 apartments on its upper two floors, with rents ranging from $700 to $1,100 per month — pricing that targets working professionals and artists. Kearney has specifically positioned the project as an artist-friendly community, with some apartments oriented toward the building's signature interior atrium and others facing the exterior. The 24,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space is designed for restaurants, retail, and community uses; a farmers' market has been confirmed as one of the anchor tenants, adding an active use to the street-level program.

State funding through New York's Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI) contributed to the project, though the amount was under a million dollars — a modest grant that helped bridge a financing gap in the early stages. The bulk of the project's $30 million cost has been privately financed.

The Broader Harrison Place Campus

Harrison Lofts is one component of a larger multi-building campus known as Harrison Place in Lockport. The city has long viewed the campus as a potential anchor for downtown revitalization, and the lofts project — if it opens successfully — could catalyze further investment in the surrounding buildings. A 2024 Lockport RFP outlined the city's vision for the Harrison Place campus as a mixed-use hub combining residential, commercial, maker, and community uses, and signaled openness to additional developer interest in the remaining buildings.

For Niagara County's construction market, the project is notable as a demonstration that adaptive reuse of large industrial buildings is financially viable even in smaller cities with modest residential markets. The pricing structure — rents below $1,100 — requires a construction and renovation cost model that differs significantly from the luxury adaptive reuse projects common in larger metros, and Kearney's experience here may inform future development approaches in Lockport and similar Upstate New York cities.

Niagara County's Adaptive Reuse Moment

Harrison Lofts is not the only adaptive reuse project advancing in Niagara County in 2026. The Hotel Niagara at 201 Rainbow Boulevard — another long-stalled project with NCIDA approval dating back to 2018 — is reportedly moving toward construction after years of planning. In the City of Niagara Falls, Element Development's $125 million Gateway Project at 901 Buffalo Ave. is targeting a construction start in the next 12 to 14 months. And across Niagara County's smaller communities, the state DRI and NY Forward programs are funding building renovations and adaptive reuse projects that collectively represent tens of millions in construction activity.

The common thread in all of these projects is the reuse of buildings that were once productive contributors to the regional economy — auto parts factories, hotels, warehouses, depots — and their transformation into uses appropriate for the 21st-century economy. That transformation is not simple. It requires architects experienced in adaptive reuse, contractors with expertise in working in existing structures, and project finance professionals who can assemble the complex capital stacks that make these projects viable. Western New York has these capabilities, and the current pipeline of adaptive reuse projects is giving local firms the opportunity to deepen that expertise.

Financing Complexity in Smaller Markets

The Harrison Lofts project illustrates the financing challenge that defines adaptive reuse in smaller Upstate New York cities. Unlike a Buffalo or Rochester project where state tax credit programs, federal historic tax credits, and LIHTC equity can generate a substantial portion of project costs, a Lockport project at the $30 million scale must rely more heavily on private financing — a harder lift when lenders are cautious about market-rate rental demand in a smaller market. The state DRI grant, while modest relative to total cost, was a meaningful piece of evidence that the project had public backing, which helped Kearney secure private financing commitments.

The rent structure Kearney is targeting — $700 to $1,100 per month — is calibrated to the local wage base and represents a sustainable operating model if the building achieves reasonable occupancy. At 82 units with an average rent in that range, the building can generate stable cash flow without requiring the kind of luxury rent premiums that would make the project infeasible in a city Lockport's size.

What to Watch

The November/December 2026 target is contingent on completing the remaining construction work, obtaining certificates of occupancy, and attracting the tenants needed to stabilize the commercial ground floor. Kearney said in May that he hopes to have people in by November or December — a tight but achievable window given the progress on-site as of mid-May 2026. The Lockport community, which has been watching this project develop since its 2019 start, will be paying close attention.

Sources

https://www.wkbw.com/niagara-county/coming-together-lockports-harrison-lofts-expected-to-open-in-six-months
https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news/2024/11/01/harrison-place-lockport-kearney-build-radiator.html
https://lockportny.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/RFP-Harrison-Place-Campus-Lockport-NY.pdf
http://kearneyrealtygroup.com/residential-developments/harrison-lofts/