Cannon Building sale will erase a bit more of Horowitz

Cannon Building shown at right.

The very presence of Sandy Horowitz has been a plague on Troy for the past decade. Now, we may be seeing another bit of it chipped away.

The Rosenblum Cos. of Albany is in the process of buying Horowitz's five-story Cannon Building, which faces Monument Square, in a $2.2 million deal yet to be finalized, according to today's Times Union. Several other of his former local holdings have been purchased.

Once the deal is complete, several things will occur:

(1.) A developer with a solid track record will own a piece of downtown Troy.

(2.) A structure that is on the National Register of Historic Places will have a better chance of continuing to be in existence.

(3.) The city will be one step closer to no longer having to endure a Horowitz presence.

As I wrote in a Times Union column a few years ago, maybe it was all those dazzling movie set lights. The ones that got in Horowitz's eyes as far back as 1973 when he was a lowly assistant editor and bit-part actor (as "Bob the Henchman") on the set of "The Clones." Or in 1987 when he was producer of "Twisted Nightmare," starring such motion picture luminaries as Rhonda Gray, Cleve Hall and Brad Bartrum.

Whatever it was, it caused Horowitz to squint his eyes and focus on making Troy's redevelopment the smash hit production he never achieved in the movies. That seemed possible when he hit town on a well-publicized buying spree in 2003, buoyed by some fawning local media types who endlessly referred to him as a "Hollywood producer," and even a "Hollywood mogul," despite his resume of mediocrity.

Upgrading buildings and creating a smart mix of the right shops and residences seemed to make more sense than continuing a peripheral show biz career that resulted in such movie greats as "Merlin: The True Story of Magic," "Demon Wind," "The Carradines Together" and "A Hell Black Night."

Horowitz bought up the Hendrik Hudson Hotel, the Cannon Building, the Keenan Building and a couple of brownstones. "I was like a kid in the candy store," he said at the time. However, in very short order that candy store caused a lot of people to feel sick to their stomachs.

In 2004, not long after he made his big initial splash, the Troy water department turned off the connections to several of his buildings. The problem: He had quickly run up a hefty $15,000 in unpaid water taxes and the city was fed up with his stalling. And so it all began.

The financially overextended Horowitz, now living quietly out of the spotlight in Montana while his lawyers help him work through bankruptcy court deals in California and elsewhere, quickly showed himself to be a deadbeat, running up bills that he wouldn't, or couldn't, pay -- taxes, service bills, management services and the like.

Others were left to pick up the pieces, many people never got the money owed to them, and meaningful investment in, and redevelopment of, many prime properties in the city was blocked for years.

I hold the fervent hope that 2015 is the year Troy finally gets rid of every vestige of the Horowitz years. And, I just as fervently hope the local media and our local government have learned a lesson and will use it to examine the backgrounds, motives and actions of people taking on major redevelopment projects.

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