The Theater District is getting new restaurants, office space, apartments, hotel rooms, and some height. Ellicott Development will be submitting plans to the City in December for a mixed-use project at Pearl and W. Tupper streets that incorporates the Buffalo Christian Center. On Main Street, a restaurant is coming to 665 Main in a long-vacant commercial space.
Ellicott Development’s rumored project at the Buffalo Christian Center site is coming into focus. The Buffalo Planning Board agreed yesterday to oversee the project’s environmental review. Ellicott’s plan, to be submitted next month, calls for a new 12-story building on the site that will include a six-level, 350 car parking ramp. Business First has the early details:
Ellicott Development is proposing a multi-phased project that will be anchored by a 109-room, 12-story hotel for the Pearl Street property. Also included in the project are 28 market-rate apartments, an estimated 30,000 square feet of commercial office space and fill-in space including a restaurant. Road Less Traveled Productions, which occupies the Forbes Theater inside the building, will remain.
Ellicott Development’s Pearl Group LLC purchased the property in September 2014 for $2.525 million.
Nearby on Main Street, 665 Main is getting a ground floor tenant for the first time since the building opened 13 years ago. Peter and Jonathan Eid plan to open Mezza, a European style café in early spring after renovations are completed. This will be the second restaurant for the brothers, with the original Mezza located at 929 Elmwood Avenue.
According to Peter and Jonathan, the ability to locate along the 600 block of Buffalo played a key role in choosing the site. “Traffic on Main Street, the tenants that are currently in the building and the resurgence of Buffalo all gave us a nice little push to make the decision,” Peter stated.
Jim Geiger, associate broker for McGuire Development Company, facilitated the 2,800 sq.ft. lease. The 67,000 sq.ft. building’s three floors of office space have been full since the building opened in 2002. The building’s ground floor was long-obscured by the outbound Theater District light rail station that was removed during the Main Street re-traffic project.