Big news for South Buffalo! kta preservation specialists has listed the McKinley Parkway Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. This represents the culmination of five years of work completed for the City of Buffalo, from 2020-2025. We are honored to have completed this nomination!
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2025, the McKinley Parkway Historic District is now the largest historic district in New York State. The designation encompasses approximately 5,300 properties in South Buffalo, many of which are private homes, some dating back to 1890. The McKinley district is a large, primarily residential street-car suburb in South Buffalo that contains a collection of largely intact, historically-related suburban subdevelopments, which were established in multiple waves and locations by multiple developers, with a period of significance from 1890 to 1968.
The area was mostly farmland separated from the rest of the city by the Cazenovia Creek, isolating it from the development of roads and transportation elsewhere in the city until then. After the 1890s, people were more mobile and wanted to move away from downtown. While different developers settled and planned each street or neighborhood, they did so contemporaneously, with similar building styles aimed at attracting the same middle-class and working-class residents in settlement patterns typical of twentieth-century American suburbs. Most of the construction took place between 1910 and the 1950s.
Today, the district retains a good cohesive level of integrity in its plan, form, architecture and character that reflects the evolution of suburban style development through the twentieth century. Most structures are single or multi-family houses, with historic features intact, while the district has also kept its street layout, and even includes several paved brick roads. A total of 87 streets are included.
The overall project included an extensive reconnaissance survey of all of South Buffalo, as well as multiple rounds of community outreach to homeowners and residents. The proposal for the McKinley district stemmed from this large-scale historic resource survey that kta preservation specialists completed in 2021 to study all potential historic properties in the city south of the Buffalo River. The survey was completed in two phases, and then the National Register nomination was an additional phase, at a total cost of $70,000 for the survey and application. Funding was provided by then-South District Common Councilmember Christopher Scanlon and the State Historic Preservation Office.
The National Register listing reflects a five- years-long effort completed by kta preservation specialists, hired by the City of Buffalo with project support from Chris Hawley. It was initiated by then-South District Council Member Scanlon, working alongside the New York State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO). With this National Register listing, homeowners within the district are now eligible to apply for the New York State Historic Homeowner Tax Credit, which provides up to a 20% state income tax credit on eligible rehabilitation expenses such as roof repairs, exterior restoration, windows, and life-safety systems.
The project has been featured in the Buffalo News, Buffalo-Toronto Public Media, WGRZ, and Buffalo Rising, among others.
