Construction Watch: Buff State's New Dorm Complex

Im greatful that something is finally getting built at Buffalo State. This, the new academic buildings and the football stadium are all going to have a major impact on Grant Street. Unfortunately Buffalo State said they need 2000 dorm rooms not 500 so a smart Buffalo State would immediately announce the construction of the next dorm building. It is critical that Buffalo State expand its programs and partner with UB on technology more.

Judging from the amount of empty space remaining on the city block it may be possible to still erect a building built to the sidewalk at some point in the future.

From the point of view of Grant businesses, having an extra 500+ students living on Grant will make more restaurants, bars and retail that find Elmwood to expensive much more viable.

I still say that non-academic buildings like the Buffalo State (Borders or B&N) bookstore should move to Grant Street retail district.

(I heard from the Richardson that Buffalo State will be converting some of the rooms to class rooms...anyone know when that will happen?)

I'll go ahead and save some people's time. Building design is ugly. Curb. Green. Meatballs.

Buffalo State needs 2000+ bed dorm rooms.

Why only building 500 bed dorm building? Why not build fully what they need?

Why are they wasting so much land on 500 bed dorm rooms? They still need 4-5 more such dorm buildings according to their previous published needs.

A few old dorms are now offices - South Wing in Twin Rise, Bishop Hall, and Chase Hall.

Porter Hall was pretty beaten in the 1980s when I lived there, and I'm told it's almost unchanged from 25 years ago. I'm still friends with many of my fellow former Porter Hall residents. I also lived in Newman, and liked it quite a lot, despite having an RD from Hell.

I always thought the Richardson Complex would be a great dorm or student apartment complex, its high ceilings being a natural for lofts. It could also be a good classroom building.

A lot of space on campus could be freed up if structured parking was used. Unfortunately, with land being cheap on the West Side, it's more financially feasible to just tear down more houses for asphalt. Secured parking for dorm residents would be a plus; there were a lot of car break-ins when I was there.

That building is so blah but it is what it is.

And why not build more than 500 if they are short on dorms?

I visited some friends years ago at the exisiting dorms there and they were awful. Not sure how they are now but they are so bad compared to what UB, Canisius, etc have.

I took a few classes at Buffalo State. UGH!

My GOD, it was absolutely horrible. The place was like a big high school. Some of the faculty are decent, but, really. People actually LEARN stuff there?

Unless there is much more to this project than I'm reading here, $379,000 per dorm room is extremely expensive.
But why not, it's only taxpayer money.
(maybe the folks speaking against the public money allocated for Canalside will chime in here...)
No matter who's money is used here (ultimately the students expense, maybe, but likely from taxes), the cost is very high for this type of project with this much repetition.
The project should be 23 mil for the vertical construction.

Anyway, it sounds like it was greatly needed, and hope it works out well for the students.

sorry to offend Cannon employees but that company is responsible for too many dismal structures in WNY. Being a state agency I'm sure Buff Tech's primary requirement was CHEAP, still this federal penitentiary is uninspiring. I hope they plan on having full time "cops" walking the beat on every floor.

Pretty dissapointing...It "walls off" the rest of the campus from Grant St. Cannon uses its size to muscle around smaller local firms and take these projects, primarliy to subsidize their "Yadzani Design Studio" and China projects. Pretty dissapointing all the way around.

I like the half-built appearance of the building in the photo. The blazing green color adds a visual stimulus to the typical boring Cannon design. It's too bad they have to finish construction.

Cannon Design does some "good" work, but unfortunately this can not be classified as one of those projects. Just be happy that Buffalo has a home grown, competitive, and expanding company.

This design pretty much matches the stuff they built in the 50's 60's on campus. They must be trying to be sensitive to the historical context

its amazing how they can keep building middle of the road structures on their campus and not a dime goes into the richardson complex

what a cool campus that could have been if it was done right..then again...

this is Buffalo - what else should we expect?

not concerned,this is a dorm building at buff state, its not going to be a masterpiece. I for one am happy they made it modestly tall, should be a nice refresher for grant street and tie together the campus with the new stadium location

Give it time. Buffalo State is investing over $350 million into the campus over the next 5 years. Check out the link: http://wwwu.buffalostate.edu/tour/construction/

It is the biggest SUNY college in the system and one of the most popular too.

It's a dorm building, get over it and be happy that the school is expanding into that area of town and will bring people and money to Grant. you already lost a hotel or two, waterfront retail and a casino along with countless other projects I'm sure. Never saw so much bitching about every last thing in my life. Sometimes I think Buffalo deserves everything it gets...or does not, however one chooses to look at it.

yes but its no where near what is needed and its nowhere near the proper context.

Parking is horrendous at Buffalo State, that should be a priority

By their own calculations they need 2000 dorm beds not 500, so thats insufficent and half arsed.

Space for Academic buildings is wasted on non-academic space. Build the Football Stadium and move the Baseball fields, track etc to the other side of Grant Street.

Buffalo State Bookstore, Bursurs Office should be on Grant...

Integrate classrooms into the Richardson...as they committed

Follow UB by partnering in application technologies to UB's research and design technologies

Emulate UBs small business incubators for its degree programs

Buffalo State could be an anchor for both Elmwood and Grant, as well as, job creation for the westside and black rock.

Look at what the Larkin Warehouse did for the Larkin District and what UB did for Amherst. Do not underestimate how Buffalo State fails to measure up to its potential.

(Yes building ugly, yes should be built to sidewalk, yes to small, ... yes yes tes...the question is how do we get local institutions to step up and take the mantle that they have a community responsibility as leaders, as movers, as influencers, as educators...etc