504 Washington- Condos for Downtown
Eran Epstein has tweaked plans for his project at 504 Washington Street. The number of units in the three-story building has been cut in half to three, but they will be larger and offer greater flexibility to potential buyers. The townhouses will be 5,000 sq.ft. each and allow buyers to occupy the entire space or break it into two units to create an income-producing rental.
Buyers will be able to custom design their interiors. Units will feature spiral staircases, overlooks, skylights, and two indoor parking spots for each unit. Prices are expected to fall into the high $200's to low $300's range according to the developer. These will be the first for-sale condominiums offered downtown since City Centre at 600 Main Street opened ten years ago.
The Buffalo Planning Board approved the project February 28th. Work could begin this spring and be completed by late fall or early winter. Silvestri Architects is the designer.
Epstein's E Square Capital also converted the former Holling Press complex into the 82-unit Holling Place Apartments located across the street at 501 Washington. He is also converting the former YWCA on North Street and a commercial building near the Broadway Market into senior citizen apartments and has several multi-family residential properties throughout the city.
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Just did my math, thats about $60 a sq. foot, WOW! In my other city {Atlanta] it runs about $300 a sq. foot, and that is for a new build loft [which as we all know are not really lofts in the true sence of the word} and other city's it goes up from there, I hope this momentum downtown keeps steaming ahead.
This is such a re-birth for Buffalo, so well deserved, I know ex-pats who now live in other city's who just can not grasp the fact that all this is happening, and so fast.
When I look in the real estate section now, compared to 3 years ago when I first started researching my move here, it is very evident that the window of opportunity for an in-expensive purchase in the delaware/allentown area is evaporating quickly, and the fact that it is moving into the actual downtown region boggles my mind.
Last night [in a hurrican daze] I actually heard someone say that he could not believe that he no longer could afford a house in buffalo!
{of course he meant right in the heart of these districts} which is great, becouse that means the transformation will and has to shift and vein out to the surrounding areas where there is still affordable housing, alibit rundown, at this rate i can almost actually believe {don't forget I am still in a hurrican daze} that in my lifetime Grant street will be the new strip!
You're absolutely right martin kemp.....It does boggle the mind that all this new developement is happening so fast. As an ex-pat with plans to become a re-pat very soon. For me personally all this momentum could'nt have come at a better time than this....BRAVO BUFFALO WAY TO GO.....
Martin - Grant Street really is the International Market Place of Buffalo. If you can't find it on Grant St. there is always someone who knows someone who has a cousin who can get it for you.
new housing Downtown really is pretty encouraging for Buffalo
If only the job situation was changing for the positive as fast as these new real estate developments have been hitting the market.
Buffalo needs more major employers and more large and medium sized growing employers. If this city and county dont start putting as much energy into jobs as they are putting into real estate development....whose going to be paying the rents....for these buildings.
This rapid housing development in Buffalo is great for the core of downtown. I believe that the more peopl we get in the core, the retail business will follow especially in the 500 block of main street.
As we read above, Epstein is renovating 504 Washington, but what about the 7-story building next door and the single 2-story building on the left? I was wondering if anything was going to happen with them.
What a neat project! And an unusual approach in treating the conversion as three row houses.
Martin Kemp is right: if this much renovated space can be had for around $300,000, they are bargains by big-city standards. And he is also right, d__n it!, that the days of inexpensive real estate finds in the central areas of the city may be over. But, selfishly, I hope not quite yet.
I imagine for those of us not too far away from the years of increasing decrepitude that customization could include an elevator?
BIGBOY, I enjoy Grant already, buy most of my italian groceries there! But would love to see that area the way it was...remember when the italian festival was in that area? Seemed so much more like a neigborhood gathering.....unlike the circus on hertal { which I enjoy before ya'll start ripping me apart, just not the same}
Martin,
the italian festival was on Conneticut st. not Grant. But you are right that grant street used to be a very vibrant strip and of course it would be wonderful to see it become one again.
Michael - I know that the two story building next door has been purchased by my client who also owns the Beuhl Building (36 Broadway / 285 Ellicott). Once the Beuhl project is complete, he is moving on to gutting and restoring that building. Stay tuned........
Thanks ddoerr...I think redeveloping this area of Washington street will help re-energize the eastern half of the 500 block of Main. Hopefully with all of these residents in that particular area, that surface lot at Mohawk and Washington will be developed to create a great city block in downtown!!
thanks brian, knew it was somewhere around there, I remember, living on bidwell and walking to the festival