http://www.buffalonews.com/145/story/445212.html
New dreams on Elm Street
Business owner mulls plans for site
By Matt Glynn NEWS BUSINESS REPORTER
Updated: 09/22/08 7:22 AM
Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News Barrett E. Price plans to renovate part of this building at 173 Elm St. for offices for his steel fabrication shop, Bear Metal Works. A previously planned museum for children failed to take root at the site.
From the roof of a vacant Elm Street building, Barrett E. Price pointed out downtown properties reborn as apartments or offices.
This was more than idle skyline gazing for Price. He has a similar conversion planned for 173 Elm St., where Mudpies, an organization that provides educational programs for kids, had envisioned a children’s museum.
Price recently acquired the 13,000-square-foot, four-story property for $205,000, according to county records. He plans to move in the offices for his steel fabrication shop, Bear Metal Works, but he is still contemplating ideas for the rest of the building. It could become apartments or condominiums or a mixture of office and living space, he said.
“I’m open to opportunities,” Price said.
Bear Metal’s production will remain tucked away on Milton Street, off Seneca Street. He wanted to bring the small company’s main offices closer to downtown resources such as banks.
Price said the growth of his company, which last year generated $1 million in sales for the first time, has given him the opportunity to buy the Elm Street property to rejuvenate it.
“People like me have to invest in downtown,” he said.
While Price imagines the potential for 173 Elm, Mudpies has let go of its dream for the building. The organization bought the property near William Street intending to create a permanent home for its traveling educational programs.
“We felt it would have been an important and positive institution for the city of Buffalo,” particularly for low-income children, said Marilyn Sozanski, Mudpies’ board president.
But Mudpies couldn’t secure the public funding necessary to make the project a reality. And revitalization of the Michigan Avenue corridor, which runs behind the building, hasn’t taken root as hoped, Sozanski said.
While Mudpies won’t open a museum at the site, Sozanski said she was pleased Price is bringing his own plans to the property.
“We’re so happy because he’s going to do a great job restoring it,” Sozanski said.
City records show 173 Elm St. dates to 1900. The Mudpies Children’s Museum Foundation acquired the building nine years ago for $164,000.
The property is along a highly visible corridor motorists use to get from downtown to the Kensington Expressway, and has on--site parking in the back.
Over on Milton Street, Price is upgrading Bear Metal’s facilities. Last year, he upgraded the shop. This year, he is remodeling its office space and putting in showers, a break room, a conference room and engineering office. In the reception area, a rectangular space in a wall awaits his aquarium.
Out on the shop floor, sparks fly as the company’s robotic welder steadily does its work. Price nicknamed it Wile E. Coyote, for the cartoon character that never speaks, never complains and never quits chasing the Roadrunner.
Price said he has found qualified welders scarce in Western New York, compared with the days when area steel mills were running and the talent pool was plentiful. The robot, he said, can do the work of three welders and has ramped up his company’s production capacity.
Price’s vision for 173 Elm is still taking shape, but
he credits developers such as Bernie Obletz and Rocco Termini with renewing interest in downtown’s potential for investors.
“They’re the groundbreakers that took the risk when nobody wanted to,” Price said.
The business owner hopes his project will one day inspire others to do their own downtown projects.
“We can’t die as a city, we have to grow,” Price said. “And to grow, we have to fix up the infrastructure.”
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Absolutley. Things have never looked better in my neighborhood. I never remember streetlife being this vibrant on Elmwood, it has a definite big-city vibe. I'm wondering when there will be enough momentum to start infilling some of the gaps between commercial nodes.
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