National Grid Awards $250,000 Grant to BUDC for RiverBend Project

Isn't BUDC one of those balck holes that spends money on patronage jobs and never gets anything done?

Did you even read the article?

Have you driven down to the Union Ship Canal lately?
(http://www.buffalorising.com/2011/07/union-ship-canal.html)

BUDC is one of the few organizations that actually does get things done for this city. I'm pretty sure there are no 'patronage jobs' involved.

http://www.buffalorising.com/2009/06/wasteland-to-parkland-along-union-ship-canal.html

http://www.buffalorising.com/2011/07/construction-watch-buffalo-lakeside-commerce-park.html

I kind of liked this when I saw the thumbnail version of the photo. It looked like a nice mix of commercial, residential, entertainment and industrial.

Then I clicked on the hi-res version. Over 3/4 of it is a sea of parking lots! Looks like an inside-out strip mall...

I understand that we're a long way from having the automobile dominate our land-usage, but a simple ramp of even a parking deck would open up half that land for so many other possibilities.

Fail.

"emphasis on sustainable development, the efficient use of existing energy infrastructure, and the strategic deployment of renewable generation technologies"

Except it isn't a very efficient use of land. Between the building roofs, the parking lots that is a lot of Heat Island generating asphalt and impervious surfaces to increase the storm water run off of this area.

Ramps are more expensive up front for capital costs but you can see some savings in long term maintenance. That is a LOT of parking lot to plow, salt, light, clean, police etc. Two strategic ramps, could create one or two business villages and save a lot more of our land for either future development or left alone for nature. Think of a cluster of businesses surrounded by trails, woods an active river edge. Right now I am another NorthPointe, a run of the mill business park(ing) lot.

That 30 year timetable is a bigger buzzkill than buzz killington. To me, it stinks of the same rigamarole that got the pier restaurant to open its doors in a future "developed outer harbor", yet after 15+ years they were the only ones out there due to all sorts of stupid reasons.

I like the fact that there is a plan for that large piece of undeveloped waterfront property. I would like to see the plan have a much more realistic timeline for realization though. And a Bills Stadium.

Anyone have a pic of the old plant that was there?

Now seems like a good time to interject: "SAVE THE (ADJACENT) BETHLEHEM ADMIN BUILDING".

I'm not sure I understand just what this funding will be used for -- actual site prep work, or additional planning--?

As someone who had the chance to sit in on some planning meetings for Riverbend, and see various iterations of site plans and concepts, I have a lot of regard for the effort and thought put into these plans. What I like most is that elements like green infrastructure, recreational trails, shoreline restoration are going to be done upfront, not at some undetermined point in the future "if there's funding". In other words, they're integral to the project, not seen as frills or add-ons to help sell the plan to a broader constituency.

That said, I question the need for the commercial and industrial aspects of the Riverbend plan. Recently I took a run down Hopkins Street in South Buffalo, not far from Riverbend. What I saw along one side of Hopkins appears to be all the commercial and industrial one could want -- some still in full use, but much vacant or marginally used. It all has access to a major rail corridor on one side, and Hopkins Street is off Tifft, which has highway access to Rt. 5. It reminds me of a mini version of Military Road between Buffalo and the City of Tonawanda, but badly in need of some infrastructure upgrades and sprucing up (which would also benefit nearby neighborhoods in South Buffalo).

In short, I think there would be better places to make investments in commercial & industrial and the associated infrastructure -- like, where it exists now, rather than creating it de novo at Riverbend. It might be better to focus investment in beefing that up, and as for Riverbend it could be very valuable for multiple low-intensity uses such as habitat preservation and recreation (several bike trails could intersect there, for example).

The other aspect of the Riverbend plan is that it identifies a corridor for the Southtowns Connector, should that ever be revived (a big if) -- a link between Rt. 5 and the 190 that could prepare the way for the elimination of the aerial spaghetti interchange that cuts off downtown from the waterfront near Canalside. While I'm no fan of highways in cities, a tastefully designed southtowns connector through the Riverbend site, using the route shown in the plan, would impact no neighborhoods and really not much of the Riverbend site itself. It would be almost unseen and unheard, except for a bridge over South Park where there used to be a railroad overpass -- not in a residential neighborhood. If that connector were to be built, it would also greatly increase the value of the Hopkins corridor, which would then have Thruway access, as well as the industrial park already being developed on the Buffalo-Lackawanna border near the Union Ship Canal. Again, I think that makes much more sense, and is a much more "smart and sustainable" strategy, than trying to do a buildout of the Riverbend site.

If you read all this, you're a trooper!

They are reclaiming that former industrial wasteland to create an immense office and parking lot waste land!! Talk about moving this city forward. Suburban style commercial development just past the heart of down town! Hell yes.

And National Grid, if you have a quarter of a million dollars of free money to throw around there are a couple tens of thousands of people on food stamps that could use their neighborhoods to be spruced up a bit before we go developing an insane commerce park, parking mecca for the next thirty years. Thanks though.

Hopefully we will have an epic economic collapse before this albatross is hung around our necks.

As with all contaminated soil, and as the human population continues its rapid growth, of course this "badland" will need to be used, even built out just as Manhattan and the lands around it are being moved into the Hudson, and with all the same problems.

In this Buffalio shoreline case though, this project sounds like the best that can be done with the land for the future.

And of course, when completed, this project will lead to the how-to use of the worse Buffalo Bad Land that once was Bethehlem Steel.

But 30 years from now or 50 or 100, who will remember to bring their own drinking water and not tread beneath the tippy top soil--and remember to carry small dogs and children--but even 30 years from now, no one will remember about that.

Will there be parking on the streets? If not an urban planning/environmental question, simply an economics question. Why build more parking lots to maintain when the streets need to be there anyway? It looks like a good chunk of the parking lots could be erased by simply allowing parking on both sides of all of those streets. Buffalo already needs to return on-street parking to so many of its streets, should we be building new street grids without it? *Maybe it's already there, just difficult to see in the low-res rendering. If so, ignore the aforementioned!

Anyways, kudos to the BUDC for their efforts!

Found the Riverbend master plan here:

http://www.ecidany.com/documents/budc/RiverBend_MasterPlanReportDRAFT_6-21-11.pdf

A pretty good read, especially for all those other armchair planners on BR.

That would be a good place to build a new football stadium. I've heard analysts from the Sports World who have stated that in order for Buffalo to keep the Bills, Buffalo would have to build a new stadium in the near future. That site has plenty of cheap land near the water. Where better to build it? (please don't say Toronto). There's enough real estate there to build a whole stadium/training facility/ and restaurants complex, I would think.