Submitted Photo The Franklin Pierce House is located at 21 Pearl St., Forestville.

FORESTVILLE — Building off state Gov. Kathy Hochul’s recent announcement regarding a house making the state and national registers, Nancy Adams-Fry and the rest of Imagine Forestville have bigger plans for the former village. One of the sites nominated by Hochul is the old Franklin Pierce House on 21 Pearl St,, but for Imagine Forestville, that is only the beginning of their plans.

“What Imagine Forestville wants to do is establish a historic district,” said Adams-Fry.

“That includes 22 houses stretching from the heart of Center Street and ending at 1 Pearl Street, including both sides of Center.”

Adams-Fry, who lives at the house on 21 Pearl St., said they have the first house in Hanover to go on the historical register, but they certainly don’t want it to be the last. As they did with their house, Adams-Fry is going to try and work with the other homeowners to submit their houses as well, as there are advantages that come with having such a house.

“There’s a whole advantage for a private person or private owner to get something on the register,” she said. “You can get tax credit for the work you do that helps the property stay healthy and strong and those tax credits can make a big difference.”

The project will likely take some time to complete however, as currently, Adams-Fry said they’re trying to establish who the original owners of some of the homes are, which requires a long search for the titles. According to Adams-Fry, that may take a little bit of time.

“The easiest way to do that is with a long title search,” said Adams-Fry. “Many people haven’t kept them and that’ll be a bit of a problem. It’s going to be a fair amount of hard research and we have consultants who are really great and have worked a lot in Buffalo and Jamestown.”

Adams-Fry said that the recommendation of their consultants is why they’re looking at this part of Forestville so closely, and their consultants also believe that part of the reason the City of Buffalo has turned around in recent years is because of similar historic preservation work.

“Forestville has a lot of old places that are managed by landlords and if they could see their way to the value of investing in them, it would benefit all of Forestville because people would see it as a desirable place to live,” she said. “And tenants would benefit from money invested in the property that’s being lived in.”

But while this district is the first Imagine Forestville is looking at, Adams-Fry said it isn’t the last area in Forestville. She also noted Lodi Street, which has several Greek-style houses that were heavily involved with providing money for the Underground Railroad, and noted that many places in Forestville have rather historic ties.

“We see this as the first historic district,” said Adams-Fry. “Most houses in Forestville are historic in their own right, and this is just one place to start. There are so many properties that are really beautiful and historic and we want people to feel proud of the community. It’s been a tight nit community since it was established.”

As Imagine Forestville works to prepare the nominations for the other buildings in the district, Adams-Fry said they’ll be reaching out to all the owners, hoping they see this as an opportunity.