What is ECC Thinking?

Maybe UB could abandon its soviet-style gulag in Amherst for Downtown and ECC could take it over so Erie County officials can finally consumate their dysfunctional marriage with suburban voters.

And yet another example of how there is no coordinated network of communication between government, educational institutions and business.

Everyone and everything in Buffalo operates with blinders on paying attention to its own issues without regard that partnerships could mitigate risk, reduce costs, propagate jobs and small business, etc producing a high quality result.

Nope. UB will not talk to Buffalo State and Buffalo State will not talk to ECC.

I hope that everyone will call their elected representatives in their local municipal government and demand that any new buildings be within the 12 block ECC downtown Campus bounded by Clinton, Michigan, Swan and Ellicott.

There is enormous value and potential in cooperative education and internships (3-6 months) for students in desperate need of work/study opportunities to pay for their education if ECC Programs are located downtown blocks away from the life sciences district.

This is more insanity from incompetent political appointments at ECC of the vein that gave us the do nothing Muriel Howard over at Buffalo State.

Is Buffalo capable of learning even the simplest of things?

ECC could make a fortune selling the Amherst Campus to a business developer wishing to build a series of 5 story office buildings.

And any Erie County Supervisor, Legislator would get a nice political campaign donation in the process.

Though, hey I like the north campus and the south campus. However, I say at the very least there should be a moratorium on growing the suburban campus's until the downtown campus has been fully achieved.

I also see that the GCC and NCC campus should be included in some sort of super-regional community college coordination which makes the South Campus somewhat critical because of the large gap in distance to the next community college campus in the Southtowns/Southern Tier.

A super-regional approach again...more communication, more coordinate would allow more specialization. Fewer generic vanilla programs means fewer students competing for the same jobs with the same degrees and the same companies willing to train and being forced to remain unemployed or leave. More specialization means students arrive with less need of training and with specific knowledge that places them in a niche with less competition. Our region might as well pay for the bus passes of every student leaving because their policies make it practically impossible for them to stay. Of course then they wonder why?

One last point...THE PUBLIC LIBRARY ON CLINTON

Imagine the possibilities of sharing a medical, pharmaceutical, Dental, FDA, GMP, Clinical Trials Library between UB, Kaleida, Roswell and ECC.

Imagine the possibilities of sharing a downtown college bookstore?

Study cubicles for students
Conference Rooms for downtown business
Mobile Offices for downtown professionals

Add the space of a bookstore and a medical library to the public library and you could add 2x, 3x, 4x the space of the existing library.

Something that wont happen if ECC puts their program in Amherst.

Maybe they are thinking that 70% of Erie County residents live outside of the city and about 25% of Erie County lives closer to the Amherst campus than the downtown ECC campus.

Or maybe they are thinking that ECC is a commuter school and they are simply trying to service the majority of the commuters who enroll at ECC.

I am a fan of having ECC 100% downtown but that is just based on building cool stuff and not what the majority of ECC students want or need.

I am all for trying to do what is necessary to bring back Buffalo but this is ERIE COUNTY community college not Buffalo City Community College.

Once people deal with the fact that Amherst is well Amherst and stop crying in their cheerios about it..maybe then they can focus on city centric opportunities like Buffalo State instead of crying about UB in Amherst or ECC downtown.

It's too bad that Giambra was done in by his "red and green" budgets.Before his demise, he had enough power and influence to make the ECC consolidation happen Downtown. I can remember cynically laughing as the ECC North president used the "Downtown safety card", Buffalo's own version of the race card, in his opposition to the merger. Giambra's self-inflicted wounds doomed any serious consolidation consideration. As white flight emptied out Buffalo in the 60's and 70's, Amherst benefited by getting a large chunk of Buffalo's middle class tax base and UB. Then Amherst used its IDA to create taxpayer subsidized office parks to offer lower sq. foot rental prices and, of course, free parking to lure away Downtown Buffalo office tenants. The fact that the ECC trustees would want to put a facility like this out in Amherst rather than Downtown despite all the good reasons mentioned in this article shows that, at least for the ECC trustees and campus presidents, the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus might as well be in Cleveland.

Awesome building. But those pictures make it look like a fortress on the edge of the world. Also reminds me of that Burt Reynolds/Goldie Hawn movie "Best Friends" when they come to Buffalo in the absolute dead of Winter and make the city look like a snowy ghost town.

Regional institutions like ECC are responsible for providing services to the entire region, not just the City of Buffalo. Let's embrace the new programs and opportunities that this development creates for students in Western New York, instead of seeing it as a loss for the City. We need to be a little less insecure about our future and who we are as a city. I think this is one of the things that truly holds us back.

Joel Giambra- pro urban development.

Chris Collins - pro suburban development.

This makes no sense when the state and region are trying to stop sprawl.

You want to be sustainble? Reuse empty buildings that are downtown. Don't spend the few dollars the state has to subsidize new construction that will only add to suburban sprawl.

This does'nt make any sense. This is only adding to Suburban sprawl. Having one downtown campus where everything is withen distance including a public library, cafe's, restaurant, Metro Bus and Rail, only makes sense to me. Not everyone in Erie County owns a car and has a way to get to the Amherst location. But, with most to all bus lines ending and starting downtown, would'nt this make more common sense to get ALL residents easy access to it's school?

"In 2004, then County Executive Joel Giambra's unveiled a vision to consolidate two suburban campuses into a single downtown campus...The proposal drew opposition from students and suburban legislators."

What is ECC thinking? Well, for one, they appear to be thinking about what's best for their students and what their students want. Listen to the people who actually use your services? Now that's just crazy.

amidst all of this - the county continues to neglect the city (and the students from the city who need a place to study). all of the f%&*)ing suburban brats (like collins' and quinn's kids) can drive their cars downtown for class. but instead, now the disadvantaged become even more impaired with having to take the bus out to clarence and hamburg to be ostrosized

good job quinn/collins - i am glad that you never forget yourselves when spending millions of our dollars

I think it would be cool if they build the new campus under Lake Erie near the Buffalo china lighthouse. How cool would it be to go to school under water.

Travelrrr>"This is not about city vs suburb"

Not to you, but in some comments anti-suburb attitudes are very clear.

Travelrrr>"but about the logic of grouping health education and services together"

Symbolism aside, I don't know if there would be important reasons for teaching ECC heath courses at a location physically close to a hospital or research facilities. There might be some benefit to it occasionally, but I don't know if a BNMC location would help many ECC students much. If ECC puts the building near its downtown campus at the old post office, that's over a mile from BNMC (not grouped together). If they built it at BNMC itself, it wouldn't be near where the students take other (non-health) ECC courses.

hamp>"Reuse empty buildings that are downtown."

Building new vs. using an older building sounds like a separate issue from location. There might be older buildings on ECC/North they could upgrade for this instead of building new. But maybe a new building makes sense for modern labs and other aspects of what they teach.

A benefit of having it downtown instead of ECC/North would be closer proximity to students from southtown burbs as well as the city. Is there a vacant parcel it could go on close to the ECC downtown campus? If not, maybe that's a good reason to put it on ECC/North. However, why not at least consider building it on part of this site?
http://www.buffalorising.com/2010/06/city-aims-for-mixed-use-project-on-ellicott-lot.html
The rest of the site could be used for a big parking garage, ideally private, but students and staff could use it too.

Mr. Whatever-The location of this facility as part of the City's Ellicott lot proposal/plan is an excellent idea.

Can Buffalo Rising put up a poll on how many people will be calling the city and county to oppose ECC Health Sciences in Amherst?

Whatever, there a great many reasons why ECC should put Healthsciences downtown. May I remind you that Sheehan Hospital is within walking distance. May I remind you of the possibilities for internships and cooperative education opportunities to pay for college. May I remind you of the potential to share medical libraries and book stores by being in close proximity to UB, Kaleida, Roswell, Sheehan, as well as the new nursing home to be constructed...etc etc etc

I met a senior member of SUNY at a 4th of July party this afternoon. We started talking about Buff State, UB, and ECC, and how they relate to Buffalo's future. I asked her about this move during that conversation.

She told me that the state will most likely not fund any new property purchase that is not already in the works. They will, however, pay for expansion of existing buildings or new builds on existing property. In her opinion the decision to build at ECC North on Main Street probably comes more from necessity than desire.

She also mentioned that there may be a conflict and overlap in programming between ECC, UB, and Empire State Colleges. Having all three within a few blocks of each other will not fly with SUNY. Chances are that one or two of the programs would be scrapped in favor of the third. Keeping the programs spread out tends to increase the need of the program, increases the student base, and preserves funding.

I thought I would share that with all of you.

With all of the abandoned spaces in this city, why would one want to build a new building?

This is bad news any way you look at it. Either the new Health Sciences Building will be duplicating programs already available downtown (bad use of tax dollars), or they'll force everyone studying the health sciences at ECC to have to trek out to North Campus.

How will that trek work, if you use transit, like many college-age--? If you live in the city, anywhere near Metro Rail, you can take a one-hour trip -- that's the minimum time, ONE WAY -- by Metro bus & rail. And then back again. If you live anywhere else, factor in the time of taking a connecting bus. And once you're on North Campus, you're effectively trapped: for food, either bring your own or use whatever vending services are provided at whatever they charge -- for studying, you're limited to whatever facilities they provide. The configuration doesn't even lend itself to a spillover effect like a cafe or coffee shop nearby -- something much more likely downtown.

Very few suburbanites will live near the ONE bus route -- and very few will live within walking distance of ECC North Campus -- meaning all suburbanites will have to drive a car, in order to study health sciences at ECC. I'm not aware that ECC has any dedicated shuttle buses between downtown, north, and south campuses (if so, they duplicate NFTA services, and students would perhaps be better served by being given a free monthly pass to ride existing routes).

So: building the Health Sciences Building on ECC North Campus doesn't even really benefit suburban students (most of whom are underserved by transit routes and would have to drive regardless of which campus the program is on). So exactly who does this benefit--?

The downtown safety card has been played before, as far back as the effort to have a downtown campus at the old federal building -- Joan Bozer and the late Minnie Gillette had to fight that mindset. Downtown safety (reality or perception) isn't enhanced by people running away, but when they come together downtown and build critical mass. Queen City Hub, anyone--?

This plan is pro-sprawl, anti-urbanist, and flies in the face of the recent smart-growth legislation passed at the state level. It's worthy of being vigorously opposed -- in a knock-down, drag-out, for-all-the-marbles fight, if necessary. If ECC North Campus is getting long in the tooth, as the Buffalo News article suggests, then let a suburban developer take it (as one of the other commenters suggests), and focus the redevelopment dollars downtown -- where they will most effectively benefit the entire county and region.

How is this considered sprawl??

The building will be built on previously disturbed land, on school property, in an area that doesn't require construction of new infrastructure, doesn't expand into greenfields, etc..

I think you guys need to figure out what sprawl really means before loosely throwing this fashionable term around.

Since it seems you have all managed to waste your 4th of July holiday in the most American of ways, b!tching over the internet, I'm coming a bit late to this slapfight with a little history.

This is Main St., rt. 5. This was the road that ran from Batavia, thru Williamsville (the mill town), to Buffalo. Before that? It was part of the Great Iroquois Trail. It linked the Seneca's territory from the Finger Lakes to the Great Lakes. Before there was even a Buffalo for Steel to move away from, this path existed. Before Joseph Ellicott, before the Erie Canal, before the Atwater moved into the Atwater House, this road was traveled.

This is less sprawl than anything built in South or North Buffalo. This is less sprawl than all of Kensington or Bailey. This is in-fill.

Now, can we get some rendering?

the definition of sprawl is simple: it is sprawl if most people cannot get there without using a car.