3 idle commercial sites downtown to be transformed into 60 residences
By SHARON LINSTEDT
News Staff Reporter
11/29/2006
Another wave of downtown Buffalo housing is scheduled to bring more than 60 additional residences to idle commercial sites.
The former Seneca Paper Co. warehouse at 210 Ellicott St., a mansion-turned-radio station at 23 North St. and an idle restaurant/commercial building at 504 Washington St. are all planned for conversion into homes in 2007.
"If I didn't believe the downtown residential market is strong, I wouldn't have come this far," said architect and developer Jake Schneider, who purchased the vacant Seneca Paper building in 2005 with an eye on converting it into loft apartments.
"We did a market study that looked specifically at the high-end units we were considering and found there's solid demand," he said.
Schneider and his partners are concluding efforts to have the 1913 warehouse certified as a historic structure. Armed with that designation, the seven-story building - which was one of the first high-rise, concrete-frame warehouses in the United States - is positioned to garner historic tax credits.
The $5 million project will yield 20 two-bedroom apartments and 10 one-bedroom units, chock-full of upscale amenities such as soaking tubs, laundry rooms and plentiful closets. The Warehouse Loft will also feature parking for 14 vehicles on the first floor and 8,000 square feet of office space on the second.
The developer has also purchased a nearby 62-space parking lot for use by his tenants.
Asbestos-removal work is under way, with construction to follow in mid-December. The developer is working with the Community Preservation Corp. and the City of Buffalo to assemble "gap financing" to aid the primarily privately funded effort.
Just around the corner at 504 Washington, E Square Capital has begun transforming a three-story commercial site into a trio of two-family townhouses. The unusual project will create owner-occupied multilevel dwellings, each offering the option of a separate rental unit. Each townhouse will also have indoor parking for two vehicles.
"It's a different twist on what's going on downtown. It's an ownership opportunity without the legal hassle of establishing condominiums," E Square's Eran Epstein said. "We think they'll be very appealing."
The townhouses, located across the street from Epstein's Holling Place Apartments, a converted printing plant, are expected to be priced at about $300,000.
First Amherst Development, which debuted the Granite Works residential/retail complex in the 800 block of Main Street this summer, is now taking aim at 23 North. The developer bought the vacant, late-1800s mansion, which served for many years as the home of WEBR-AM and WNED-FM, for $155,000 in September.
"We're always looking for another challenge, and we made the acquisition with the intention of continuing our great success in creating great market-rate housing downtown," said Ben Obletz of First Amherst.
The North Street property's location, at the northern edge of downtown, a few blocks from the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, had a lot to do with the developer's decision. Obletz said that it is a good fit for the company's "strategic vision" for city projects.
"We don't have final plans yet, but the general concept will be to bring that great old house back to life, along with a new-construction component," he added.
It is expected that the project will include as many as 30 apartments. First Amherst has also dusted off plans for a mid-rise apartment/condominium development in the 700 block of Main. That 100-unit project is not expected to take shape until 2008.
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), but the City of Buffalo housing market is realllllly cold right now. Houses are staying on the market for many many months and people I know are losing money on their houses...I'm even a little nervous about possibly buying a recently renovated house in the west village (even with all the neat projects in the area going on).
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