Ellicott Development's Baker Shoe Conversion up for Review

Dude certainly can not be upstaged by Termini...

Nice! This is certainly good news! The City needs to ensure that downtown will be a safe place for pedestrians and residents and I think downtown can really take off! I hope for the best with yet another downtown project! Ellicott Development has been very active as of recent. I realize its not residential but any news on the Court Street Building?

I think he is trying to compete with Rocco. But all in all, if he CAN get these projects done, it will be great for Downtown!

i used to wonder who was letting such a cool building rot, now i know. at least he is doing the right thing. finally.

I think Canal Side has stirred all kinds of great things :)

Anyone else notice just how many former places of employment are being converted to places to live? A warehouse here, a department store there, a factory the next street over....

Don't get me wrong...this development is great! But it would be really exciting to see the construction of a new office tower to be filled with a company from outside of the region.

I am glad that we are seeing more and more projects with grade level commercial. We need to see more mixed use projects and with the number of residential conversions, the demand for retail will follow.

Funny how no one ever says "I don't know how we will support all these suburban subdivisions without new jobs and companies in the area"

Perception is just as bad as reality and thats the way it is. A badly perceived space will keep many away. Some of it is the ghost town effect but it would be nice if people perceived public safety rather than the opposite. All i'm saying is it would be nice to see more police walking the streets down there. I've seen all out domestics near Lafayette Square on Main Street in the past. Loud screaming curse laden domestic disputes around 5-6pm down there while I worked down there on the Square. Probably could have heard that crap going on for a few blocks because it was so loud and totally oblivious to everyone else around down there. these kind of incidents get in the way of peacefulness and quality of life. Its a joy to get hustled for money down there as well. Yeah yeah thats every city I know but still its a quality of life issue.

I'm really excited about this. The Lafayette, the AM&A's warehouses, the Greystone. That puts us close to another 200 units downtown within a year or so. Not to mention one under utilized and two long time boarded up buildings with some life back into them. Some big wins for downtown

Maybe things have changed in the past 3 years. New York City, well, Manhattan at least benefits from many eyes on the street and many residents. I also saw plenty of policing presence. I agree that eyes on the street help and that certainly is the case from say 8-5pm or if there is a special event going on. My experience in an office that closed at 5:30pm when most of downtown went empty was one where the eyes on the street had gone away and I just didnt see the police presence during those hours. The police were out during the busy hours down there but I just didnt see it after hours. The stretch between the Hyatt and Main Place mall was always an awkward place to be but that was just my experience. I just think of it like a retail operation. Downtown would benefit most from positive perception and positive word of mouth. Units would fill up and people would not eventually regret their decision to move there. For me I loved working downtown but there were times I just wasnt comfortable down there. One person with a negative experience is going to tell a whole heck of a lot more people of their negative experience than those who are content. This results in reduced demand and downtown doesnt need that. I would like to think of this downtown revitalization as a long term thing not just a pioneering effort that will fail because all the necessary parts arent there to ensure it doesn't fail. Its discouraging for me when I hear of policing resources being ridiculously exagerated to monitor a few college parties near Canisius when people get to hear all out domestic disputes going on in the middle of Main Street near a metro rail station, people get shot, mugged, robbed, raped, graffiti-ed, broken into, hustled, offered to buy drugs on the corner of Franklin and Chippewa, etc. And no not all these issues are downtown issues but some of them are and frankly there are neighborhoods not all that far out of downtown where many of these issues are pretty common. Sorry, like it or not but these issues are not as prevalent in the burbs and right now I think the City would benefit most from a population influx from the suburban areas because right now I dont think people are flocking in from out of state. Certainly this city and region isnt growing right now as has been the case for many years now. The burbs need the city to succeed and the city needs the burbs like it or not.

As 14201 and 14213 empty out, the former residents don't seem to be moving Downtown. I do wonder where they've been going.

looks like their knocking out the bricked in windows...well thats a good first step.

I cant place the bland building next to it but it would be nice to do something to its facade so that it doesnt bring down the whole block with unattractive dead space