Construction Watch: 640 Ellicott Street

Another great project for our slowly growing city. Keep them coming. Trico next! Just imagine the renovation at the Larking Exchange building done similarly at the Trico near downtown... Beautiful!

Its wonderful...but frankly Im more concerned with the restoration of the main TRICO BUILDING! Couldnt agree more about restoring the Trico emulating the success of the Larkin.

I wonder when the 4 story 4 bay addition will be constructed?

I also think that 4-5 stories should be the minimum for the entire Life Sciences District.

I'd like the see the Burnie apartment complex demolished and Elm/Oak restored to Virginia. Going a step further, Id like to see future development eastward towards the Kensington rather than continuing along Washington toward downtown. Basically that whole area bounded by High, Jefferson, Kensington Expressway/Goodell and Main should be designated the Life Sciences Campus for planning purposes.

If it continues to follow Main, Washington, etc...its going to act as a barrier to downtown growing eastward toward Michigan. That would be counterproductive.

(If only the funds existed to relocate some of the houses on these partial blocks within the fruit district to make a whole neighborhood in Cold Springs/Masten).

Great news and nice to hear the medical campus continuing to be a legitimate force of growth in the City. I wonder when the big boy medical/ biotech companies will decide to start investing big time down there and developing large private sector facilities? Will this happen? Why hasnt it already?

How many Larkin buildings do you think the downwtown can support? Where are all the tenants that would occupy the 600,00 sq. ft. come from,certainly not from the droves of tenants knocking on realtor's doors because there is such a lack of commercial floorspace for rent in the CBD. Save the Statler? I agree whole heartily. Save some toxic waste dump as the Trico building. What for? An expensive remediation project to save the Trico name? Hello they packed up shop and moved to Mexico and left us with a urban toxic wastedump. Knock her down and start with a clean slate...let the new industry advance!!!

is it less costly to clean up an existing building like trico....or less expensive to build on a shovel ready site, in a place that lacks proper sized roads, utilities and infrastructure???

is it more money to remove asbestos from a building (which has to be done if we knock it down anyways) or is it more money to expand existing roads to handle new traffic that otherwise didn't have it???

A restored building? What are you going to restore it to? It is currently a series of multiple buildings with uneven floor alignments of various construction. It only appears like one building because of the brick facade.As far as residential space you could never afford to remediate to that level due to heavy metal and PCB contamination that the Larkin building did not have.

I didn't say knock it down to put up a parking lot.On the contrary knock it down to facilitate a new structure to accomodate the new economy emerging on the BNMC.

How exactly would one prescribe getting natural light into the interior floorspace on a 500,000 sq. ft. steel reinforced concrete decked structure. i guess you could on the top floor and the exterior spaces on each floor but certainly not any floor space beyond 20' in or so especially considering the floor to deck limited heights and column spacings.

Really?

I am all in favor of what is happening to the four-story structure that this article is referencing at 640 Ellicott. When I say make way for the new economy, I am referring to the adjacent six-story with the fence around the sidewalk to preclude people from walking on the sidewalk.

I don't buy the cost problem. How much would it cost to build a 600,000, 6 story, 15' - 17' deck to deck building today? How much would renovations cost? I am sure there was plenty of gross nasty stuff in that building. Most of which you will have to properly and expensively abate before demolition. You can't just knoick it over and send it to a landfill if it is really as toxic as it is claimed to be.

You are left with a really expensive demolition project or a really expensive rehabilitation project. Remember finishes and the final build out of the space is irrelevant because you are going to have to do that either way. The real question is about cost difference to clean vs demolish + new rebuild the same size blg.

Lets just assume $125/per square foot for new construction...
maybe a little low considering the loading potential of this structure, which you would probably not get with new construction. You are talking about construction costs at a minimum of $75 million dollars to replace the amount of space being lost vs how much for remediation costs?

As for the light question there are plenty of things that could occupy interior spaces without the need for light. Labs, Server Space, light manufacturing (of medical equipment or drugs?), Vivarium, building services, custodial spaces etc. I don't buy the argument. At least not without hard facts about costs, contamination, replacement construction proposals etc.

I concur the parking lot across the street could receive the new economy too. Though the BNMC is planning a renovation of Ellicott Street next Spring I think and on the east side of the street calls for a 36' setback form the RoW. So connecting across that span of park and Ellicott Street is substantially more than connecting to the current 4 story $10 million dollar investment on the west side of Ellicott St.

Obviously some demolition waste needs to be classified as hazardous debris and disposed of at a higher rate than general cd. With that said, "dilution is the solution."

Whereas if the building were to be renovated for residential use all of the dilution solution goes away and a whole new remediation parameters come into play driving remediation costs way up.

Since when do labs or manufacturing not need natural light? Everyone I have been in surely encourages the sustainable use of natural light. I'll agree with the 125 pr sq. ft. shell cost. The question is what do you end up with? A building with various floor loading capabilities, floors that don't align, inconsistent column widths, and you still haven't added in the cost of decontamination.

As stated earlier, in light of limited public sector financing available to save old buildings, I would put NYS funds into the Statler and let toxic industrial hangovers fade into the black and white photos of Ulrich's.

would the new economy building really need to connect with this 4 story building? Would a tunnel also work, especially since there is going to already be major work done to Ellicott street.

I haven't been in the Trico building but would love to go check out the uneven floor plates.

Perhaps there is an opportunity here we are both overlooking. You said that the structure is actually 4 interlaced buildings (can tell by the facades on the Ellicott St Side at least) with a unified facade. Is one of these structure significantly more contaminated or uneven than the rest? Do we know how they were parceled.

I guess what I am getting at could be a compromise. Maybe we demolish one of the segments of the building that creates the most issues. It would remove a problem structure while creating light access to the interior of the floors. It would open up a courtyard \ corner for a public space that could become a unique space for an identifiable new feature. Either to the building itself or a part of the larger public realm. Mainly depending on which building was taken out. Could really be a state of the art and unique re-use of the building for the new economy and the old building.

Well light is always nice but often not necessary for certain functions. My fiance has worked in two labs here in Buffalo, neither of which had or have windows and lighting was never an area of concern for the employees.

Demolition? I disagree.

Where do you think all the demolition material will end up? In a dump somewhere.

Demolition is bad for the environment, and not sustainable. Preservation is the way to go.

How behind is this project. I hope it is a success as it is so very vital, but from an operational level the project is a mess. It would be great to get someone in there with the right background to gear it up a notch

The Trico is a beast and I think it might take more tham "$10 million" to tame it :)

Sony> Excellent observation.

Still my question with the six-story structure is where is the demand coming from that warrants 600,000 sq. ft. of space? All the tenants who could occupy it, are already in the larkin building.

Contrary to popular belief, we have a shrinking population and have a plethora of commercial real estate available.Again this is not NYC or some other population on the rise.

You can't expect that six-story structure to sit void of opportunity much longer or the d word will happen naturally.