West Village Momentum Continues

Great looking building. Too bad the UCC church across the street is a blank slate monolith.

I would hope the units would include at least one bathroom... ;-) The West Village has tons of potential, so much more than even Allentown, more city/urban feel to it.

yes yes yes!!! This is a great building and I am really excited to finally see plans for its rebirth! In my head this was one of those keystone buildings for the west village and melding the edge of it with downtown!

1400? blah. i don't intend for this to sound like whining, because i understand DT housing costs are completely reasonable for buff compared to other cities. but the choices centered around DT are limited to those looking to pay a mortgage payment worth of rent. i think oak school, is, ellicott... are the only places you can get under 900. oh and holling and maybe a couple at elk terminal. because of this i'm forced to look outside of DT even though i'm in the minority, growing but still minority, of young adults that want to live in DT.

maybe i'm wrong? can anyone enlighten me?

I think this a wonderful addition to the continuing trend of downtown renovations, particularly in the West Village. I recently moved downtown into the Whitney. This is just around the corner from the Lake Hotel. There are quite a few beautiful buildings, but this one is QUITE and eye sore. Every time I drive past it, I wish that someone would fix it up. It is great that Kissling stepped up!

Look what a bunch of my neighbors started years ago! I remember when three of them met with David Knoll the former owner to demand that somehting be done with this property. The president of the block club has always told us that pressure takes time and to be patient. That patience is paying off.

So does this mean we can't have a shovel ready site here?

. . . and I thought the mid day shooting less than two weeks ago on Whitney Place was a momentum killer

Beautiful building, and with only 8 apts. planned, they should be huge!

Several years ago, the News ran a story about a father and son team from Brooklyn that Masiello had shown this building to. The story included some pictures of the interior and the interior looked pretty trashed. Anyone know what the current interior looks like?

thanks whatev and pitbulls. i guess i'm just getting search overload. I'll have to expand my search. it'll be easier to do the searching once i move back.

I don't think it was Kissling and son. They were already established. This was someone new, more of a tire-kicker. My question though was about the interior. The pictures in the News story showed a real mess and I got the distinct impression that the building was not secure. That was over 4 years ago and I thought the building was heading for the demo by neglect scenario. My question about the interior relates more to whether it's going to be gutted and built out rather than having anything existent being remodeled.

In ref. to a statement here: Statistics that do not get into the media are that the worse vehicle accidents are on rural, semi-rural and suburban roads, yet people living in the city pay the hightest auto insurance rates--at least that is true in Buffalo.
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Children living in houses along rural, semi-rural and semi-urban roads are the most often killed or injured versus Children in the city. The elements of surprise and highter speeds are the cause.
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In areas inside the city and connected suburbs, kids are in evidence and going over the speed limit means going over a much lower set speed limit...
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Long, long before so many urban houses were used for drugs and other seriously illegal agenda, old, vacant and/or abandoned barns, falling down houses and other vacant buildings in rural and semi-rural areas were and still are the storage places of choice as illegal and criminal storage units!
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Seldom-driven rural roads are the easiest places to hide; hide not only what a resident might be using a big, old barn for, but also, it feels safest to live in places where there are visible neighbors who will call the police about anything suspicious...

My goodness! I guess I didn't realize Buffalo was such a cocoon of safety and security!

My recollection - building is relatively small, with no on-site parking. With only 8 units, it's almost impossible to make money. That's why it sat vacant so long. Kissling apparently feels the downtown rental market is now strong enough to support $1400/mo. rents. I wouldn't be surprised if they are planning on historic rehab credits, but that would only produce approx. $200,000 in equity. Hard to find investors for such small amounts. And with per unit development costs of $137,500 (much less than what is spent on "affordable" housing units), it is going to be difficult to put in the high end finishes that tenants paying that much rent will be expecting.

This is an experienced developer, and development team, so they'll pull it off, but it will be difficult, with razor thin margin for error. And there is still huge market risk.

I live nearby and received a public hearing notice regarding the renovations on this building so I assume they must be ready to go pending this hearing. This will certainly help change the image of the outskirts of the west village. Also, are the rents listed in the article for the Allentown lofts or this building? It's a little misleading to me.

What's clean and what's safe, especially for kids, is too difficult to separate anymore.
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*When were pesticides/fungicides and other 'cides first introduced into the soil in any area that was once farm country?
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I'm not sure, but is it true that farm kids have the highest instance of Leukemia? And wouldn't ALL kids be growing up on former farmland?
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Remember the dawning of the Industrial Age and the dirty, really smelly air and soil in most of our lifetimes? Just where 9outside all city limits) DID the wealthy giants of the Industrial Age bury ALL their carp? What gets in the soil stays in the soil--forever.
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After hundreds of years, who can tell what is UNDER the soil we ALL live on EVERYWHERE? And I am ONLY speaking of pesticides.
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The early settlers first set up their families nearest the lakes. Then they spread out on farms. Later, as the human population grew, it became essential to save the farm produce from bugs.
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*So then, as those farmlands spread, where would the lines of demarcation began for land where 'cides were first used?
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All sub-urban land was once farmland.
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But all that doesn't really matter because since the intro of pesticides, much more carp was introduced into the soil.
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But then, there is no way we could have the human population that exists worldwide now without the kind of "help" that also helps kill us!!!