WCPerspective: February 2012 Archives

Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott of Boston, MA, one of the country's top pediatric healthcare architects, has been selected for the physician-led plan to construct a new Women & Children's Hospital of Buffalo on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC).  The building is expected to be up to 10-stories tall and 400,000 sq.ft.  It will be located on approximately 2.3 acres of the approximately 3.7 acre block surrounded by Ellicott, High, Main, and Goodrich streets. The remainder of the block will be used for the Medical Office Building ("MOB") previously

Empire State Development (ESD), USA Niagara Development Corporation (USAN) and the City of Niagara Falls today announced that The Hamister Group, Inc. was selected as the preferred developer in response to the request for proposals (RFP) for development of a key City-owned site located at 310 Rainbow Boulevard in downtown Niagara Falls.  Hamister is planning a mix of retail, hotel and residential space.

The site is located at the northwest corner of Rainbow Boulevard and Old Falls Street,

Planners looking for a way to rebuild a downtown neighborhood have a good model in Portland, Oregon.  Portland's Pearl District used to be an area of decrepit warehouses and parking lots.  Today, the Pearl District is the city's arts district and a coveted residential location, an award-winning leader in urban renewal.  It is also home to two full-service grocery stores.

Portland has created the model for downtown neighborhood development. Over the last twenty years, this community adjacent to downtown Portland has been transformed.  What had been an industrial

Work continues on the $23 million Educational Opportunity Center (EOC) on Ellicott Street just south of Goodell.  The four-story building is connected to the Downtown Gateway complex, the former M. Wile factory. 

The new EOC building will replace its current location at 465 Washington Street and allow the EOC to significantly expand its services, which include programming in remedial and academic preparation, as well as specific job training programs in allied health, life sciences, information technology and environmental industries. 

It's a common refrain on Buffalo Rising: "Let's get a supermarket downtown."  Commenters have suggested a grocery store for Main Place Mall, M&T Bank parking lots, the upper level of the DL&W Terminal, the AM&As Department Store and elsewhere.  Wishful thinking.  While developers have added 700 residential units downtown over the past decade, and more are planned, it's not enough to warrant a new grocery store. 

There isn't an agreed upon number of residential

Build it and they will come.  For downtown residential, that has certainly been the case.  Since First Amherst Development's Lofts @ Elk Terminal opened in 2002, over 700 units have been brought online stretching from the Cobblestone District to the Medical Campus.  Downtown residential was only a planner's dream before then.  For the longest time, residential use wasn't a viable option for downtown building owners.

Early residential projects such as Ansonia Centre, the Roosevelt and St. Mary's Square all got off the drawing board due in part because of subsidies from

The new Courtyard by Marriott in the Donovan Building may get a new neighbor to the south.  Mayor Byron Brown announced that proposals will soon be sought for the Inner Harbor's Webster Block.  The Brown administration plans to issue a request for proposals (RFP) from developers interested in developing the key parcel later this month.  The 1.9 acre parcel, currently a parking lot, is bound by Main, Perry, Scott and Washington streets, two blocks south of HSBC Center and

Benderson Development is putting a 96-room Courtyard by Marriott in the Donovan Building at 125 Main Street.  The hotel is taking three floors in the eight-story, 160,000 sq.ft. building that Benderson is redeveloping.  Law firm Phillips Lytle has signed on for the building's top four floors.

Business First has the story:

The hotel will anchor the building's second, third and fourth floors while

The architectural firm responsible for Baltimore's Inner Harbor will design Buffalo's Choice Neighborhood plan Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority officials said Monday. 

The $624,000 contract will result in a dramatic remaking and revitalization of the Commodore Perry public housing neighborhood by Philadelphia-based Wallace, Roberts & Todd (WRT).  The BMHA Perry Choice neighborhood is bounded by South Park on the south, Smith Street to the east, Sycamore to the north and Michigan Avenue to the

Exterior work is essentially complete on the $291 million Gates Vascular Institute located adjacent to Buffalo General Hospital on the Medical Campus.  The 10-story building will bring together Kaleida Health physicians and UB researchers in a collaborative effort to deliver state-of-the-art clinical care and produce major breakthroughs on the causes and treatment of vascular disease.  Cannon Design is project architect.

The building will house five floors of Kaleida Health's $173 million merger of its cardiac, stroke and vascular operations, plus a new and expanded emergency

Ellicott Development is adding two residential units to the upper floors of 522 Main Street, the former Gamler's Jewelers store.  Gamler's, which had occupied the building since 1927, relocated to Amherst in 1995 citing declining sales as the reason for the move.  The Amherst store lasted just two years.  Ellicott Development acquired the three-story building in 2001.

522 Main is located between the former L.L. Berger's Department store, reborn as The Belesario, and the Hyatt.  Ellicott completed