The City has selected Sabres' owner Terry Pegula's proposal for the Webster Block at the foot of Main Street. According to The Buffalo News, Pegula beat out a proposal from Ellicott Development and Castle Mosey for the 1.7 acre site, located directly across from First Niagara Center and Canalside.
Pegula's $123 million Harbor Center proposal calls for a 200-room, full-service hotel to be built by Benderson Development, retail and restaurant space, a 965-car parking ramp, and a two-rink hockey facility that will be available for public use, skate clubs, hockey tournaments and other events.
Ellicott Development and Castle Mosey proposed a $64 million project consisting of a 140-room hotel, 42 apartments, 110,250 sq.ft. of office space, 8,600 sq.ft. of retail space and parking for 1,089 cars.
Construction on Harbor Center is expected to begin by March and the complex would open in stages with the garage, retail and ice facility opening by September 2014 and the hotel in June 2015.
Great news. This is the more unique use of the site with the potential to draw folks. Paladino's proposal was completely unimaginative. I think this could really set downtown buffalo up as a great draw for major amateur and international hockey tournaments. Great for branding. Paladino's had a bit of a better presence at the street - I hope that Pegula's architects will be open to some urban design input.
Does anyone know if it is planned for Canisius to use this facility as their home rink?
I like either plan as long as the outside of these buildings and bottom few floors are asthetically pleasing and inviting especially the two longer sides facing HSBC atrium and the inner harbor....Makes these levels places for people to sit, people watch, eat, drink and have outdoor amentities....Its crucial........and make sure the parking ramp is underground or completely guarded by these areas.....Please...and start now.....I feel like the Donovan building is just sitting there lately....
I am not sure how much 'imagination' went into hockey rinks to be able to suggest that the other proposal lacks imagination.
I am sure the history that Carl has, in addition to, the realities of the Buffalo market in relation to office space need played more of a factor that originality of the selected design.
This will be a nice addition to CanalSide and the best part of it for me is the 1,000 space parking lot that will be open to the public. Here is to hoping that removes some need for surface lots. That said, there are multiple locations around the arena that would have worked for a hockey complex.
As an aside...50 Court Street is still up in the air even after being scaled back from 335,000 sq.ft. to 241,372 sq.ft. Simple math puts that difference about the same as the 110,250 sq.ft. that Ellicott wanted on the Webster block.
Seeing as the winning plan does not include any office space, one would hope that 50 Court would be scaled back up to the original scale.
Also - people please save your ignorant comments about stalled Ellicott projects on existing structures like the Creamery. New build construction is not the same as redevelopment.