Wassaic, NY Does Artful Grain Elevator Redo

The grain elevators and the land surrounding them would make for a great art gallery/sculpture park and its conversion would instantly change perceptions. I think it's the best use for the area and the visibility from Route 5 would serve as free publicity to those who consider Buffalo a decaying backwater.

However, grain elevators also have other uses. In 1980, grain elevators in Akron, Ohio, were converted into the Quaker Square Hilton Hotel. In Oslo, Norway, grain elevators were turned into the Grünerløkka student housing facility and it helped stabilize a neighborhood. Minneapolis is home to two conversions. One is the Calhoun Isles condominiums and the other is the Mill City Museum.

The hurdle in Buffalo is to employ architects who have vision. Unfortunately, that is all to rare in the city's development community.

I think someone should read the newsletters for the Greater Buffalo Niagara Regional Transportation C(Company, Council, Committee, whatever)...its the GBNRTC.

I get so tired of people thinking that Buffalo is so wealthy that we are going to pump money into converting Grain Silos into hotel rooms....that idea has been around since 1969....and possibly longer.

The GBNRTC recommends the creation of a Port Authority which would market the Outer Harbor, its land and its slips and its canals and the Buffalo River, its property like the silos and whats already called the Metro Gateway Port of Buffalo.

Riverwright which is involved in ethanol and biodiesel has been making great strides in marketing our grain silos to midwestern companies that have forgotten about us. The Katrina Hurricane which closed down the Mississippi Canals and shut off shipping raised the awareness and necessity of Buffalo Grain Silos, the Erie Canal and Welland Canal as alternate routes. Today every company needs to plan for risk mitigation! THAT BEING SAID...THE ENTIRE FATE OF MARKETING OUR PORTS AND GRAIN SILOS SHOULD NOT FALL ON ONE SINGLE SMALL STRUGGLING COMPANY!

I applaud the creative uses that make the area seem less blighted but there is only one grain silo worthy of any attention and money and thats the Great Northern. All but ignored and all but concluded to be demolished but it is worthy of any form of consideration into a new life because its the only silo that is truly historic!

I recommend the Mayor and the Common Council pursue the merger of Buffalo and Lackawanna. Further I recommend the Mayor and the Common Council pursue the creation of a Port Authority which would include Lackawanna...to market our waterfront for industrial, logistical and commercial purposes.

If such a Port Authority were created, then its quite possible Barilla Pasta might have chosen to locate adjacent to General Mills here in Buffalo rather than exurban Rochester!

Oh when will Buffalo rise up from the fog and see its future clearly? One has to wonder?

QueenCity says,

"Oh when will Buffalo rise up from the fog and see its future clearly? One has to wonder?"

Surely you do not feel that Buffalo's rise depends upon the creation of some newly-created, ineffectual government agency akin to the New York Port Authority. Don't we have enough of that?

It is private sector commitment with government assistance, where appropriate, that will succeed. The Avant project by Uniland is a good example.

That said, there is nothing wrong with putting otherwise eyesores to good use as art and/or advertising space.

of those silos listed the only one structurally similar to the majority of ours are the ones in quebec. i have personally seen them and its a pretty cool idea to light them up at night and have them look more than just stationary objects. the problem with ours is that they are spread out over the inner and outer harbor. honestly the best idea would have been to allow people like those attempting to buy one and use it for an ethanol plant. despite anyone's thoughts on the environment, e85, etc, at least using a few of those would allow for some maintenance and upkeep to be done on them while serving a purpose.

if not (which i suspect not) it would be best to hopefully get some historical preservation credit along with private investment (always the problem there) and increase the maintenance on the tall existing silos while perhaps gutting the smaller and surround structures to allow for re-development. if the city and regions is serious about preserving historical ideas and keeping our "grain elevator history" in tact, then we should maintain the largest structures for a type of walking tour, much like they explain in some of the panels outlying the naval museum. it basically requires the government or an umbrella organization getting land rights to go fwd with it and make a series of connecting trails for walking, biking, etc. i think they'd be a cool site to behold if they were just up kept more.

but turning them into lofts, restaurants, etc might prove very challenging for an already financially strapped city.

Controversy regarding ethanol's effectiveness as a fuel and the imbalance it causes to the food supply make it unlikely that Buffalo will see any of its grain elevators converted for such use.

Paul Buffalo, Buffalo's previous national brand was little Detroit, a rust belt failure, a year round blizzard, murder and terrorism.

Buffalo's current recognition and branding is one of a Canal City, a River City, a Lakefront City, a city of sports and activities, a city of architecture and history, a city re-inventing its industry and technology. Preservation and Reconstruction of our most important historical and architectural features add to our national and international brand which we use to market quality of life, not just for tourism but so that those industry and technology leaders, dont dismiss us ... outright!

Slater, its been 50+years and the private sector (other than riverwright hasnt marketed a gosh darn thing regarding the silos, property, ports, slips, canals, etc). Its time to consider alternatives like a Port Authority...as long as its locally controlled....we can close it...if it is just as ineffectual as the private sector! Point is...other cities have Port Authorities and their getting industry attracted to their Ports! Its time to try something.

Paul Buffalo, you know only superficial knowledge of ethanol! Ethanol gots its future as a replacement to a groundwater poison fuel additive called MTBE! Ethanol in its current manufacture will never ever be anything more than a fuel additive.

Ethanol is needed as a replacement for MTBE clean burning fuel additive for pollution control.

Now gas engines are going to higher compression (similar to diesels) and that higher compression requires higher octane supplied by ethanol.

Now...the future of ethanol is not in plant waste or food stocks but bacteria and algae. Bacteria with a mild electric current and any form of carbon waste can manufacture multi-linked carbon such as a simple sugar which with further refining can go to ethanol or butane. Algae can go down the path of ethanol or biodiesel or both.

Infact...the future is to take all carbon based waste...from sewage to residential and commercial and industrial garbage and use bacteria, enzymes and algae to reconfigure it back into raw material.

How does that relate to Grain Silos! Well...SIMPLY PUT IF THEIR NOT MARKETED THEN NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS TO THE ECONOMY OR TECHNOLOGY OR COMMODITIES...THEY WILL NEVER FIND A USE!

THOSE GRAIN SILOS HAVE A USE AND THEY ARE AN ASSET! THATS WHAT MARKETING IS FOR...TO MAKE PEOPLE AWARE OF AN ASSET AND ITS VALUE!

Paul Buffalo, the Silos in Buffalo are not being marketed, neither is the River, the City Ship Canal, the Union Ship Canal, the Bethlehem Ship Canal, or any of the outer harbor slips and neither is the Erie Canal.

As I said, High Grain and commodity speculation created a need for our Silos, renewable fuels such as ethanol created a need for our silos, even natural disasters such as Katrina closing the entire Port of New Orleans ending all commodity traffic for over a month created demand for our silos (all of which I said in a previous posting).

No they may not have a longterm purpose in ethanol but that is not to say that there arent other purposes today and in the future.

The point is that there are many more uses than the 3 above which I mentioned if the silos were marketed nationally and internationally.

Why Buffalo isnt even part of the North American Grain Exporting Association which we should be since we have an enormous unused supply of elevators and we still do take in quite a fair amount of grain for storage and use.

End point: Their not marketed and they need to be marketed!

Keep 'em and fill them with grain or knock 'em down so Kelly Island can become a cool urban development. There is little interest or marketability for grain elevators as housing, hotels or art galleries. Buffalo isn't the only city with such unused behemoths and I would wager that few other communities see any such repurposing as viable or even desirable. I get the whole thing about preserving them as totems of an industrial past but there may be an even better future without them.

Does anyone who is an advocate of demolishing the grain elevators know how much it will cost to bring just one of them down? In 1981, the city paid over $1.5M to demo the Purina Mills on Elk and Smith. The lot is still vacant so no one is coming to develop the site. But just maybe if we can spend $100M and knock them all down, well just maybe, the developers will come in droves.

For those looking for a clue, try Emscher Park in Germany. We will never erase our past, but we can use what we have and reinvent it for the better.

I've never heard a Greek or an Italian complain about all the old and ruined structures in their cities and countryside. If one looks for a reason to complain, they will easily find it. If one looks for a solution, they may have to work for it, but it will come.

"...we've reported on the reuse of grain silo's in Quebec, Portland..."
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SILOS. SILOS. SILOS.

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