City May 8, 2009 4:57 PM

Hunt Commercial Brokers Deal For Downtown Buffalo Student Housing

Buffalonian4life 17

A downtown housing project targeting students is moving forward. Jake Schneider purchased 136 North Division Street on May 1 for $1.85 million. The deal was brokered by Hunt Commercial's Chris Malachowski.

Schneider will convert the 100-year-old Alling & Cory building into a 90-apartment/dorm complex. The Erie County Industrial Development Agency approved incentives for the $16.6 million project in April.

The 109,000 square foot building was purchased by AC Lofts LLC, headed by Schneider, a well respected architect and developer. Preliminary work on the building is underway with hopes of welcoming its first tenants in late summer 2010. The project is geared towards students who are enrolled at the downtown campus of Erie Community College and are interested in residing in close proximity to the campus (there are however no formal ties between the developers and the college).

It has long been known that ECC desired and would certainly benefit from a dorm-like building that would be accessible to its students but until now the right pieces of the puzzle could not be put together. The complex, consisting of three buildings, was built in 1905 and remained a paper company for the duration of its existence until the early 1990's. Interestingly, Mr.Schneider's recent successful housing venture at 210 Ellicott was also once a former paper distribution site, a deal also brokered by Mr. Malachowski in 2006.

Above Photo Credits: Nathan Mroz (Buffalonian4life) of BuffaloScenicPrints.com

Get connected with:

HUNT Commercial Real Estate
Contact: Chris Malachowski
Tel: 716.880.1914
Email: cmal@huntcommercial.com

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Comments

17 Comments Leave a comment

Kimon

May 8, 2009 6:26 PM

Cool! I just hope it's not too expensive.

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QueenCity

May 8, 2009 8:03 PM

Few things come to mind....
1) declare a 9 city block area as the downtown ECC City Campus bounded by Swan, Michigan and Eagle or Clinton

2) Get the darn Bus Station out from the ECC Downtown Campus.

3) You already ran the story multiple times. Its a dormatory! What else is ECC doing downtown! They need more class space and they need a parking garage too!

4) Now more than ever we should consider moving the Elm-Oak Arteriole further east so downtown has more room to expand on the eastside of main street. I propose an expanded Jefferson as a replacement connector between the I-190 and the Kensington. Plus its a perfect link between the Life Sciences Campus and the Larkin District.

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Sean Brodfuehrer

May 8, 2009 8:53 PM

one thing that we do not need around here is another elm oak corridor....

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QueenCity

May 8, 2009 10:03 PM

not another...

a replacement for...

we cant have an elm oak going thru the middle of ECC & Life Science campus

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Pegger

May 8, 2009 10:46 PM

When this topic first came up, I thought it was a terrible idea. But, there will be more life to downtown upon completion.

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sonyactivision

May 9, 2009 3:58 AM

Why not let the ECC have the bus terminal? I bet they could turn it into something just as weird...without the exhaust fumes.

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hamp

May 9, 2009 8:24 AM

Nice photos.
This will be a good addition to the area.
It's too bad the design of the Public Safety building adds nothing (and in fact detracts) from what has the potential to be a great urban/college experience.

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QueenCity

May 9, 2009 10:18 AM

If your trying to create an urban campus for a community college, with the old Post Office as the Southwest Anchor, the Alling&Cory Residential Building at the Eastern Anchor and the Public Library as the Northern Anchor...then the drawbacks are the Bus Station and the Elm/Oak.

Of which...the Bus Station needs to be the first to go!

And I would say with the UB Medical Campus moving downtown and expansion at ECC...THE PUBLIC LIBRARY SHOULD BE PRIMED FOR EXPANSION...MORE THAN EVER THIS AREA NEEDS A LIBRARY AND STUDY CUBICALS AND A BOOKSTORE.

(If there were a light rail corridor to the Airport then the Bus Station should most definitely go with the Central Terminal)

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May 9, 2009 12:01 PM

People who go to ECC live at home, that's why they go to ECC. Or am I mistaken and all those college students hanging on Chip actually moved from LI to go to ECC?

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Sally

May 9, 2009 12:40 PM

Because hey are from the area does not mean they want to live in mom's basement their entire lives. This is a great projet.

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Darien B.

September 29, 2009 3:20 PM

I know this is way late but I just heard about this today.
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I currently attend ECC City but I live in Kenmore(a few blocks from Sheridan)... it takes me nearly an hour to commute to school every day of the week.
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Oftentimes I don't feel like walking a half mile to my bus stop(especially now that it's getting cold) and then sitting on a bus for ~50 minutes and so I stay home.
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Granted this is not a good way to go through school, and my less than stellar grades illustrate this but that's besides the fact.
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I enjoy most of my classes, and I love learning new things.
It's the commute that I loathe.
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If I had a place to live near school, I can say without a doubt in my mind that I would never miss a class(barring unforeseen events, of course).

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Jas

May 9, 2009 5:27 PM

Damn, how many times are you going to run this story?

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whatever

May 9, 2009 5:54 PM

Adding to the city's surplus of residential units by creating new ones while its population keeps shrinking isn't a good use of public taxpayer money. If the private sector wants to do it, fine.

Existing landlords in Buffalo's residential neighborhoods who aren't subsidized by public funds, and who patriotically pay their full taxes, shouldn't have politically-connected competitor landlords given these kinds of financial bailout advantages by politicians and "industrial" development agencies. There's nothing industrial about this project.

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Armchair MBA

May 9, 2009 7:32 PM

Whatever> "Adding to the city's surplus of residential units by creating new ones while its population keeps shrinking isn't a good use of public taxpayer money. If the private sector wants to do it, fine."
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Amen. How many long term jobs are going to be created with that big handout? The property manager, cleaning lady, fix it man. 3 jobs for 850+k in tax breaks? Dont get me wrong I love seeing older buildings reused but money from the IDA should be used for idnustrial development.

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QueenCity

May 9, 2009 10:11 PM

unfortunately, support for urban development whether residential, commercial or industrial is the only way to outcompete sprawl.

change the so that we dont have spend a million dollars on new roads, sewars and utilities to covert green land in the suburbs/exurbs versus a million dollars to attract development in pre-existing urban areas....well I will choose the anti-sprawl latter!

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Armchair MBA

May 10, 2009 7:12 AM

Im with you on the sprawl QC. I just dont like public money intended for job growth to be used for rhabs. Again Im all in favor of these rehabs but there are other ways to encourage it.
When you combine IDA money being spent on reviving the inner city with the IDA money used to encourage sprawl in outlying areas you see our government is obnoxiously wasteful. That is one of the many ways fragmented competing govenments inflate our tax burden. Instead of thowing money at people to build or rehab in wny there should be one IDA that can operate with the best interests of the region. The result would be lower taxes and a healthier region.
As far as using public money for rehab of this building if the developer was denied IDA money they could get federal historic tax credits like many landlords have used for other loft conversions. This may not be as attractive because this money has strings attatched such as making some units low income.

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QueenCity

May 10, 2009 6:55 PM

Well see thats the thing...its the same football...and its why urban farming should be allowed and additional where city blocks are left to return to forest.

You see investment follows a few rules: SAFETY, LOW RISK FOR LOSS, HIGH RETURN

Business isnt going to invest millions where people dont want to live

Conversely people dont want to invest far from their jobs

Neither want to invest where there is a risk from loss because of empty lots, poverty, abandoned/unmaintained buildings, etc.

Urban farms put the land back to productive use where people and business purceive this as now a safe area, a low risk that could have higher profit potential for residential or commercial development.

These residential rehabs...follow the same pattern ... creativing the perception of safety, of low risk, of pedestrian friendly and of higher profit potential.

No taxpayer likes spending taxpayer, and god knows the politics and the unions always manage to produce a nice layer of fat for them to live off of as the intermediary of the good cause.

Until there are anti-sprawl laws and countywide development laws that provide incentives for areas which are already developed and dis-incentives for areas which are not...then this is all our only tool.

And right now the focus has been on downtown for the last 50 years...but the scope of downtown has changed. Now the growth of downtown is stimulating the First Ward/Erie Canal Wharf area, the Buffalo State/Richardson/Grant area, the LifeSciences/Masten/Fruit Belt area, the Larkin District and even the Central Terminal.

What needs to happen is rather simple...the light rail airport corridor needs to be built and a moratorium on tract residential development in the city in favor of infill. Whereby areas are designated for infill because of their historical nature or their existing density...and the other areas demolished and landbanked for forest or farming.

Landbanked areas will be perfect for eventual redevelopment as office parks, light industrial parks, etc.

But if you look at much of the small lower middle class housing in Buffalo that was built in the 30s, 40s and 50s...its just about as ready tobe demolished in the suburbs as much of the eastside...so this landbank, restore, demolish and rebuild scenario has to be played out countywide.

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