Looking for an impressive restoration project? Check out the southeast corner of Main and Utica streets. The two-story commercial building at 1373-81 Main Street has been turned into a small business incubator along with retail space by the Bethesda Community Development Corporation, an affiliate of the Bethesda World Harvest International Church.
Bethesda purchased the 17,200 sq.ft. building in 2007. The church is located in the renovated circa-1914 Regent Theater next door to the incubator building. Financing for the project was obtained from a number of sources including $162,000 in New York State Aid Incentives for Municipalities funding and a recently awarded Restore New York grant. Tommaso Briatico designed the makeover.
Midtown Main Street has been on a bit of a roll lately, 25 years after light rail promised big things for the corridor. There are multiple development opportunities on Main Street and surrounding blocks with solid institutional anchors including the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus on the south and Canisius College to the north. Slowly, the pieces are starting to come together.
Images courtesy of David Torke at Fix Buffalo.
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Looks much less like doo-doo. A few dozen more renos like this on Main St could help make it not look like Everywhere-Detroit.