Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The petition to halt demolition of the Great Northern Grain Elevator was dismissed by State Supreme Court Judge Emilio Colaiacovo, who made his ruling Thursday.
The dismissal is actually good news for preservationists, who say they can now appeal in hopes to cease demolition.
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"Once it's dismissed, that's a final enough decision that it can be appealed. So it's up to them, they could file a notice of appeal and then they could contact a single judge on the Appellate Division and ask them to sign a stay order staying any activity pending the resolution of the appeal," said local defense attorney Paul Cambria.
Preservationist Tim Tielman says he's ready to file an appeal as quickly as possible before the owners of the elevator, Archers Daniels Midland (ADM) can have the opportunity to demolish, he knows that they have the equipment on-site ready to go.
How likely are the preservations to get a successful appeal? Cambria says it hard to say, "You know, in the past, the Appellate Division has looked at this case, a couple of times. It's been in front of the trial judge a couple of times, whether or not that would be a new and different basis for them to ask for a stay and eventually asked for an appeal, remains to be seen. At this point in time, their only real option is to file a notice of appeal and to try to get another stay."
Does ADM have options? Nothing has changed for them, they can still demolish the elevator until they receive any type of further instruction saying they can't.
The efforts to preserve the Grain Elevator have been going on a couple months shy of a year now and there's a good chance that demolition may not start this week or next if the preservationists prevail, "It's pretty obvious that this has been going on for months now and and you know, that's a good thing. It's a deliberative kind of situation where you want to be careful, because obviously, once it's demolished, that's it. You know, there's no turning back," said Cambria.
Tielman told WBEN's Max Faery on Monday that they have an avenue that they can pursue if the judge doesn't throw the case out in time, whether or not they have a plan if they fail to get an appeal and an order remains unclear at this time, but Tielman says they will no stone unturned.
"[There's] nothing I can think of. I mean, they're very experienced in these matters. They've done these a number of times with other things in the community and if there was some other remedy, I assume by now they would have used it," Cambria says.