Downtown projects are a catalyst for Buffalo
Experts say boom fosters investment
By Sharon Linstedt NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 10/14/07 7:39 AM
The construction crane might soon stand with the chicken wing and snow as a defining Buffalo symbol.
And forget ice boom, think building boom.
Based on a growing stack of blueprints, building permits and construction documents, downtown Buffalo is poised to see more than $1.2 billion in new buildings, plus at least another $250 million in freshly renovated structures within the next five years.
“There’s no question we’re at a tipping point where good things are happening,” said developer Carl J. Montante Sr., chairman of Uniland Development Co. “I love what I’m seeing in the city.” In the past 10 days alone:
• The Seneca Nation of Indians unveiled plans for a $333 million casino/hotel complex in the Cobblestone District.
• Bass Pro Stores signaled intent to build a massive Outdoor World store on the site of Memorial Auditorium and anchor the $275 million Canal Side redevelopment project.
• Ground was broken for the $123 million federal courthouse project in Niagara Square.
That hat trick of high-profile projects is expected to debut nearly simultaneously in 2010.
“We’ve turned the corner, and now we’re prepared to step around the block,” Mayor Byron W. Brown said.
By his tally, the mayor said, total upcoming investment citywide will exceed $4 billion — if every currently proposed city project goes from blueprints to ribbon-cutting.
“Even with the challenges we still face, the new word on Buffalo is that it’s a city on the rise, a city on the upswing,” Brown said.
Buffalo Niagara Partnership President Andrew J. Rudnick shares that view, noting that the overall economic climate is more favorable than it has been during his 20 years here.
“I think there’s probably more investment happening now than in the entire past 20 years. It seems our time is now,” Rudnick said.
Tangible evidence
It’s no secret that Buffalo, particularly its downtown, has lagged behind many similarsized metropolitan areas in terms of new capital investment and growth. Empty storefronts still dominate the heart of Main Street, and streets are nearly empty when the 9-to-5 crowd goes home and on weekends when there’s no hockey game or concert at HSBC Arena.
But a confluence of factors — improvement in the overall economic climate, availability of private and public funds and project ideas — has finally lured hard hats and cranes from the suburbs back to the urban core.
Tangible evidence of the trend ranges from the justopened, $110 million Health- Now headquarters on West Genesee Street, to the $9.2 million renovation of the derelict Webb building into Webb Lofts on Pearl Street, to the burgeoning Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, where more than $500 million has been invested since 2000 to create the new treatment, research, business incubator and educational campus.
Hundreds of millions of dollars also have been spent recently on such diverse projects as creation of the Erie Canal Harbor Historic District and conversion of former industrial and government buildings to Artspace Lofts, New Era Cap Co.’s world headquarters and the Larkin at Exchange office complex.
And there are now some 700 new apartments in the heart of downtown that didn’t exist five years ago.
No longer a ‘lost cause’
As recently as a decade ago, the urban core was considered a “lost cause,” said Realty USA’s
George W. Hamberger, a commercial real estate broker who has focused his efforts on downtown Buffalo for nearly two decades.
“It was rare to find anybody willing to take a risk downtown. If you got an out-of-town call, they wanted to buy cheap and get out fast,” Hamberger said. “And the locals spent their money in the suburbs.”
The agent spent years in a futile search for buyers for the faded Statler Towers on Niagara Square and the boarded up AM&A’s flagship store on Main Street. He closed deals for both in 2006, with new owners planning multimillion-dollar overhauls.
"I’m popping my Lipitor pills every day to make sure I’m around to see all this stuff happen. It’s beyond anything I could have imagined, even five years ago,” Hamberger said.
Bashar Issa, a British developer who spotted Hamberger’s Statler Towers ad on the Internet, is now poised to play a leading role in the future of downtown Buffalo. He has begun what is expected to be a $130 million reinvention of the hotelturned- office building, that will include a boutique hotel, residences, offices and a jazz club.
Issa has also unveiled plans for a 40-story mixed-use tower at the corner of South Elmwood Avenue and West Mohawk Street — the tallest, and at $361 million, the most expensive single structure ever proposed in Buffalo.
Diminishing risk
To date, Issa has spent some $15 million on the Statler, Hamberger said, with 135 hotel rooms expected to open next summer. Planning for City Tower is also progressing, with
preliminary agreements for an office tenant and a major hotel chain to occupy more than onethird of the 1.2 million-squarefoot structure.
“The more new projects are announced, the easier it will be for me to sign tenants,” he said. “Like the saying goes ‘A rising tide lifts all boats.’ ”
Montante, who in August opened a new $10 million office building at 285 Delaware Ave., is also counting on the momentum to continue. His downtown project list includes the $64 million conversion of the Dulski Federal Office Building to offices, hotel and residences, as well as development of a $55 million luxury condominium tower on the Park Lane restaurant site along Gates Circle.
“It’s like the stock market. You tend to go out and buy stock when you see other people jumping in and there’s a feeling of exuberance,” Montante said. “There’s still a higher level of risk to invest in the city, compared to the suburbs, but the degree of risk is diminishing, and now there’s more people doing it.”
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