Ciminelli Real Estate Corporation's planned medical office building at 1001 Main Street is possibly gaining hotel rooms. The developer is considering adding an extended stay or all-suites hotel component and four additional floors to the project.
Original designs (entry image) called for an $80 million, seven-story, 350,000 square foot building, the largest privately-developed building in the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. The proposed 92-room hotel would result in an 11-story building with 540,000 sq.ft. of space.
Kideney Architects is designing the building. It will front the east side of Main Street from High to Goodrich streets adjacent to the planned Women and Children's Hospital and across from the proposed UB Medical School.
"We are on the agenda for the Planning Board at month's end [August 21]," says Timothy Vaeth, Vice President of Development at Ciminelli. "We have submitted a plan for the site which incorporates both the original medical uses that everyone is familiar with, and have added a hotel component to the top floors of the building. We continue to evaluate the potential of the hotel and its economic feasibility."
Women and Children's Hospital outpatient surgery center will occupy 85,000 sq.ft. UBMD, a physicians group associated with the University at Buffalo, is take 60,000 sq.ft. of space. Ground floor retail space is planned.
"There will be two levels of parking below grade and six levels of medical and clinical space," says Vaeth. "The building itself has evolved some and now has more metal panel on the exterior than the original version which had more glass. This is a result of interior programming which warrants less glazing and more private interior space. We have also added a green roof to the project."
"We are registered with USGBC [United States Green Building Council] and we will be pursuing LEED Gold for the project," says Vaeth. "Another new item is that we definitely will be making connections to the new UB Medical School which is going to be directly south of us on Main Street, as well as a connection to the UB RIA building which is directly north of us on Main and is already built."
Remediation work on the cleared site is expected to begin next month. Vaeth says a decision on the hotel will be made within the next two weeks. The building is expected to be open in 2015.
Get Connected: Ciminelli Real Estate Corporation, 716.631.8000
Main STreet at this point really needs some street life. Let's hope that this mixed use buildings will not have the loading dock on Main, but instead will promote some urbanity.