Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The costly multiple alarm fire at the Buffalo Grand Hotel last week has been ruled an arson according to Buffalo Fire Department officials.
The extensive fire, which started on the second floor in a banquet area, left at least $3 million in damages to the expansive hotel downtown.
Hotel owner Harry Stinson was publicly raising suspicion about the fire's origin and stopped commenting as the Buffalo Fire Department launched a full investigation.
Buffalo Fire Commissioner William Renaldo Monday said an extensive investigation continues and adds hotel owner Harry Stinson is fully cooperating with the probe. Renaldo would not elaborate on Stinson's involvement in the investigation but did not identify him or anyone as a person of interest in the blaze. "We have no person or persons of interest at this time."
"It's a joint investigation between the ATF and Buffalo Fire Department," said Renaldo. "I can confirm the fire was deliberately set." The investigation could take weeks or months to conclude, says Renaldo.
According to Stinson, the ballroom of the Buffalo Grand Hotel had just undergone extensive renovation. Other than a few touch ups with paint and some new carpet that needed installing, the new ballroom had just been completed.
Renaldo says contractors involved in the hotel renovations are also cooperating in the investigation.
"That's the most heartbreaking part of it. It was quite spectacular, and now it's basically all black," Stinson said. "The ceilings are down, there's inches of water from the sprinklers and the firemen, there are walls melted. It's just a mess up there."
The fire also happened just hours after Stinson had signed paperwork to join the Wyndham Hotel network and change the Buffalo Grand Hotel into a Ramada Hotel.
While Stinson says the third floor kitchen is destroyed and the ballroom is "not pleasant", he believes this can be a positive for the future of the hotel going forward.
"Given that there's nothing one can do about turning back the clock, I would say this is a phoenix moment," Stinson said. "Certainly the hotel, in its early days, it was the talk of the town, it was the place in town. Our intent was to bring it back to that level, and if anything, no we have no choice but to do that.
"The intent was to put a condominium hotel on the second section of land, where the open parking lot is now, and build a new tower there completely from scratch. Maintain the hotel as it is, the 486 guest rooms, as a completely self-contained hotel, the new section would be residential, and then the conference center would be in-between."