Construction Watch: AM&A's Warehouse Lofts

More good news for the downtown fabric! Thanks for the images as well! On another note there's just something SOOOOOO wrong when collections agencies are a growth industry.

Too bad they are tearing down a perfectly good building to make surface parking

Wow thats a whole block full of projects downtown! Cool! Fill in that gap between the Lafayette Hotel and the project here and you have another complete street wall!

Nice!!! Main St. as we all envisioned it is on the way... although I'd like to see a picture of the Eagle warehouse they plan on demolishing...

*Downtown, not Main St.

Sorry I probably should know this but what building is between the Hotel Lafayette and AM&A's department store?

The whole thing is a great project. I like that they are keeping the AM&A's sign. For the main AM&A's store, I would love if they implemented the same facade on Main st as the one on Washington st. That would be a really nice treat

I hate to see buildings torn down but if that's the price we pay for a development like this it is a small price. Especially given that this property was unwanted for so long and if it stayed that way the whole block would have to come down eventually. I love that they kept the sign too, nice touch.

While I love all of these projects, I am curious as to why the Lafayette Hotel is being converted to 115 loft apartments and AM&A's Department Store is being converted to a 117 room hotel. One would think the Lafayette would have the bones for a hotel...since it was a hotel and AM&A's would have the bones for lofts because of the structure.

Does this have anything to do with the location of AM&A's being on Main?

Really, it is because the LH is "historic" and AMA's is not. You can't gut the f*&k out of a historic building and modernize it which is why they mostly rot away.

Well, AM&A's is so much larger that you would'nt want it to be completly residential or completly office space. PLUS, I believe it's the location as well. It's right on the Metro Rail, across from a mall (hopefully that'll get renovated with stores soon), and the Lafayette would be a cool address to live in. It reminds me of an old hotel in Downtown Cleveland that was transformed into luxury apartments. I don't remember the name of it, but remember seeing an ad for it about ten years ago and the illustration of the building reminded me of the Hotel Lafayette.

It would be a pretty sweet deal to stumble home to the Lofts at Lafayette after the square on a Thursday eve. Of course if they moved it to the waterfront, which they shouldnt because its at great spot now, you could stumble home to the new Marine Drive Condominiums.

Somehow I find raw ceilings and exposed duct work common in Lofts revolting.

The apartments in the LaFayette should have crown moldings, chair moldings and baseboards, properly framed windows and proper bedroom, living room, kitchen areas.

The building is a cadillac...and its rooms should carry that value...because few modern buildings could offer what the Lafayette can offer.

I still miss the original store when it was THE place to shop. It had that certain aroma that could only be found in downtown retail stores. If they could rediscover that ambience, I would take a loft there!

I see all of the comments about "surface parking". Do you want to walk two blocks in downtown at night to and from your car? How many of you making these comments about adjacent parking LIVE downtown? or even work downtown because you have to walk to your car?

Adjacent parking is a great advantage to renters and the fact that the building owns the parking lot is an even greater advantage to the building owner and the tenant alike since the building owner has control over the parking they are providing. When a building owner is providing parking that is controlled by another entity, parking ramps, etc. the building owner is at the mercy of the entity and the service and security that they provide. This could jeopardize their relationship with the tenant.

GREAT JOB Rocco - he has turned around several building, learned from some other situations and is moving forward to turn around other building in the City. The fact that he is keeping the A M & A's logo on the building speaks volumns to his interest in the Buffalo's past and conseravtion for Buffalo's future.

I'm glad that Rocco Termini is advancing these projects, but i wish we had other developers doing similar re-use projects as well. We have some developers in the area much larger and quite frankly, better than Termini who are sitting on their hands, and i'm not sure why. With the Medical Campus growing by leaps and bounds, isn't it time that some of the biggies jump in and start advancing new loft housing projects in the downtown core? There's money to be made. If one walks around the downtown core for just a few hours, one can easily find 10 buildings which would be prime candidates for re-use. Why not leave a legacy by re-doing a classic building or two? It only takes two or three more developers to start cranking these out. In the meantime, Rocco Termini is the only game in downtown development. There should be more options.

This is nice but I agree that the surfice parking ruins the plan. Why not leave the facade up, still have parking on the surface and have a green roof on the top in which the people next door have access to it. That would be a home run. Surface parking is like having empty lots on residential streets. It just creates a void and makes if feel disconnected.