While on a recent trip to Rochester for some work projects, I had some time to kill between meetings and took a stroll down a few blocks of Monroe Avenue. The street reminded me of a mash up between Hertel Avenue and the possible future of Grant Street. There's a nice array of different architectural styles, it's relatively walkable, and a lot of the newer infill is urban-friendly. That means it's "built to the curb", has parking to the side or the rear, and prioritizes the pedestrian over the automobile.
Monroe Avenue is a great street for Buffalo to take some cues from as commercial corridors like Connecticut Street, Jefferson & Bailey Avenues, and Grant Street begin to come back. For example, there were several corporate chains that occupied buildings on Monroe, but on a few of them were in new builds. A historic Italian villa style home is now a small Starbucks, Subway has taken up half of a typical early 20th century commercial block, Rent-A-Center occupies an Italianate commercial building with a mid-century storefront remodeling, and Pizza Hut made its home in an old standalone storefront building.
Although the new Rite-Aid wasn't very architecturally exciting, the parking was at the back, pedestrian access from the sidewalk was great, and the storefront windows are not obscured by shelving or signs. The building maintains the same streetwall that other buildings on the block have and the scale is appropriate given its context. The main mass of the building (right of the entry) even tries to have some historic references with the projecting parapet, simple cornice, and fenestration pattern; they actually tried, which is something Buffalo rarely gets with new builds.
Monroe Avenue is a good example of reusing the existing historic assets and adding new buildings that work at the pedestrian level. Next time you're in Rochester take a walk down Monroe and if you can't wait, Google Streetview will have to do. The good stretch of Monroe lasts about nine blocks between the 490 Highway and Meigs Street, northwest of Meigs things start to look more suburban and less pedestrian friendly.
This is the type of thing that the Green Code can offer the people of Buffalo once finalized and implemented. We can finally have commercial corridors that represent walkable and sustainable communities. We'll have buildings built to the curb to engage pedestrians, parking will be hidden to the back or sides, and existing historic buildings will continue to play host to new uses. The end result is a community we can all be proud of and that effectively mixes historic buildings and new infill to create unique and interesting neighborhoods.
Trying to make me homesick, colleague--?
I agree with your title -- there are always things other cities & neighborhoods can learn from each other -- but the funny thing is that Monroe Ave has in fact tried to learn from Buffalo! I was involved in some community planning in that part of the city, and served a stint as an officer of the Neighbors-Building-Neighborhoods (program from which Buffalo's Good Neighbors Planning Alliance is derived) planning sector encompassing Monroe Ave. 5 years or so ago we had Justin Azzarella from EVA visit Monroe Ave and talk with us. The idea was to make Monroe Ave into something more akin to the Elmwood Village for Rochester. While it will never play that role precisely (in Rochester, it shares that function with Park Ave a block away), several good things have happened in recent years on Monroe as a result of planning and community effort, including:
* the effort to preserve the Monroe Theater
* forcing the Rite Aid pictured here to be built in an urban-friendly manner (believe-it-or-not, it's an Ellicott Development Rite Aid)
* establishment of a farmers' market (in the parking lot of the well-attended parish church on Monroe)
* securing funds through a state legislator to widen sidewalks and establish bumpouts on a key section of the street.
Monroe Ave has overcome many hurdles, and has more to go. But it has a solid upward trajectory, and is a good place to visit when in Rochester. Anyone with even a passing interest in planning and community development will find Monroe Ave fascinating. Explore it on foot, but also try to see it in its entirety from DT to the Town of Brighton line (or even beyond).
Enjoy!
That makes a lot of sense. It looks like the student has become the master or getting there at least. I took a long look at the Monroe theater and couldn't quite figure it out. Did the demolish the auditorium or is it just a really small space?
Unfortunately there was some demolition there, with facade preservation. That building spent just too much time in the clutches of the pornographer who treated it and the community with wanton disregard.
A lot of that unfolded after I moved to Buffalo, and unfortunately the best source of information on the project, City Newspaper, lost all of their archived content in a server crash last year :( But this article has some background:
http://rochesterhomepage.net/fulltext?nxd_id=218857