Buffalo City Tower: Follow-up
I would not usually write a follow-up so soon for a current story, but due to the large discussion on how Buffalo City Tower may relate to the pedestrian, I felt one was needed. Cannon Design has only presented two street level renderings to date, one from Niagara Street and one from South Elmwood behind City Hall. Neither image has shown much detail of the base of City Tower, other than to show that it will be largely transparent. At the Planning Board meeting on Tuesday morning, they presented a brochure, which included conceptual floor plans. I was going to include these plans with the article but the clarity of the images was questioned, so above is a modified version of the ground floor conceptual plan with the lobbies and retail spaces highlighted.
Each use of the Buffalo City Tower has its own entrance lobby. The office component of the Tower has its entrance on West Mohawk Street and is flanked on both sides with retail spaces. On the South Elmwood side of the Tower there is a hotel drop-off with the entrance lobby for the hotel, as well as retail on the corner of Elmwood and Mohawk, and an entrance lobby for the condo portion of the development. The hotel drop-off is set into the building and would allow cars and taxis dropping off hotel guests covered access the hotel entrance lobby.
The entrance to the parking component of the project is on the far right. The sidewalk along South Elmwood is covered, and thus sheltered from the elements, by the ‘thin veil’ of the sunscreen, which extends from the west façade. As shown in the diagram, there are three main entrances to the tower, with smaller entrances likely to the retail spaces. The two street-facing sides would be clad in clear glass, except at the loading dock area on Mohawk.
Without the advantage of having a close-up street-level rendering, I hope this mark-up can help to visualize the Buffalo City Tower at street-level and to assuage concerns as to how easy or difficult it will be to find the entrances to the building. Hopefully, more detailed conceptual drawings of the street-level will be provided at the Planning Board meeting on January 16th.
Multiple entrances! Good sign! It is a city planning cliche, but the more doorknobs you have on a street, the more activity you have. More entrances to more shops, services, and amenities, more life.
This is something that has been done in other cities for years. Glad to see someone (from out of town) is working with a local development team to make it happen here.
Please support this project! Don't scare this one away too!
Thanks for the update. Looks like we might all have to find another reason to bitch about this project. Any studies on how many birds will fly into it? Does it block anyone's airflow? Antiquated deed restrictions?
Seriously though, very impressive. Hopefully it works out. And if not at the very least it's nice to see that somebody 'gets it'. It is a great project.
Awesome - now let's see it get off the paper and into the sky
Welf tries to make cynics and naysayers of the rest of us - but I dare say it is him/her who shuold bear that title.
There are good projects and bad projects, urban appropriate and pedestrian friendly and Not. The community largely accepts the good ones and rejects the bad ones - as they should. we do not need to be so despaerate that we accept anything and become walden ave or North Buffalo (hertel/elmwood commercial strip).
Times may be bad (and arguably getting better), but it will surely only get worse if we accept anything just because some developer wants to build it with lots of public subsidy so they can make money in the short term. Good projects, and indeed many of the good recent ones, made their way with little public subsidy and even had good urban design.
oh, I should add that the Tower project seems, so far, to be one of the good ones.
GoCityGo,
I agree with you, just being a smart ass. I think this is a wonderful project. I know some people believe it's too tall, or too modern, or too good to be true. I think we should wait untill it is more than a conceptual design before we nit-pick it. I find it entertaining that the last article sparked a debate about the ground floor which no one had any insight about. And another article was required to defend the design even though it is still in the preliminary stages.
Welf...
Too funny! Don't forget the one about this building becoming a homeless shelter or a flophouse for vagrants if those condos don't sell or the hotel fails. That was one of the ridiculous arguments brought up to help kill the Elmwood hotel project.
Oh wait, never mind..there WERE no objections. It was those pesky deed restrictions!!!
Memo to The Stip... once again excellent excellent reporting. BRO's main man on the City Hall beat! Thanks for the insightful and thorough articles and updates on this and other issues.
Is it true that the residents of Granger Place are starting a petition to block this project?
OMG, if these old bitty bible beaten hillbilly mother fu*&@#$ stop this from happening, I'm so leaving this area. How many great ideas have to be shut down in this town? Seems like half of us actually want to live in a "City" and the half wants to see this town rot and die by leaving everything as is and not move forward at all.
This is definately the best project planned for downtown this decade. Finally a new skyscraper addition to Buffalo's stagnant skyline. A very aesthetically beautiful skyscraper and a massive improvement over the ugly asphalt surface parking lot that currently ruins the site. Lets stop talking and planning and get down to the serious business of implementing this outstanding quality skyscraper project. As for these narrow-minded, backward opponents who might be offended by this excellent idea, lets just shut down and crush their idiotic opposition before they can even start opposing this project. I do not see any legitimate reason for historic preservationists to oppose this project unless an asphalt surface parking lot is now considered a historic landmark. As for these people who do not like high-rise buildings, Buffalo is a major city not little house on the prairie and their opposition is not only ignorant it is also moot because there have been high-rise buildings in this city since the early 1900s. If you dont like high-rise buildings then there are communities like Lewiston, Sanborn, Pendleton, East Amherst, Clarence, Lancaster, Marilla, East Aurora, Orchard Park and several other low-rise outer ring suburban and exurban locations that would be 100% appropriate for these high-rise opponents to reside.
Welf: "Any studies on how many birds will fly into it? Does it block anyone's airflow? Antiquated deed restrictions?" That was a great quote!!
The people opposed should be killed. Just to put it kindly. ;)
What about wind? Will this building make Elmwood Ave. more windy? ......LOL. Just giving a heads up to the future questions some of these HICKS will be asking soon.
Robert Preskop and others:
I don't think anyone here said they don't want a modern high rise building.
Radial Plan: was making a joke about the people of Granger Place trying to block this project. Because they just helped kill the EV hotel project.
So far everyone seems to be in favor of this one.
DCU,
I hope you are 100% right and I hope for solid citizen support for this beautiful, outstanding mixed use skyscraper project. It is long overdue.
Many of the above comments attack anyone opposed to this building, even though nobody appears to be opposed to it. THAT is the "typical Buffalo negativity" which so many deplore.
Current research says that happiness is about 80% genetic; I think Western New York needs to refill its gene pool from outside the area.
I know for a fact, Mayor Brown is very excited about this project and is determined to see that it happens as for as city governments point of view goes. Let's face it, It would be quite convenient to point to a big bright new flashy tower as a success story right around re-election time.
EVRsnt,
My comment, and I think a few other comments were just a little humor based on previous projects that had seemingly ridiculous opposition. I guess that's the problem with reading text, you can't hear the sarcasm. It's great to see that there is such support for this project from all angles - hopefully from aspiring future tenants too.
I really think this building is going to happen and I cannot wait...I think its going to be a marker in our cities history as the end of our nightmares.
This signature building is going to get built along with the courthouse and the statler sending a national message across the nation that Buffalo is a safe and inexpensive place to invest (to which other developers will follow bringing with them major proposals and employers)
....ahh if only we had the light rail connection to the airport then we could make a real impression to those national and international business developers.
lou,
I hope that you are 100% correct about this new mixed use skyscraper getting built along with the Statler Towers renovations and the new federal courthouse. Like you, I can hardly wait to see these three outstanding projects get implemented. I agree with you 100% about a light rail extension to the airport. It is long overdue. However, lets not stop there, our airport needs to be expanded and upgraded into a true "international airport" with runways big enough for 747 jumbo jets to land which would mean direct overseas flights into and out of Buffalo. No more flying out of Buffalo only to have to stop and change planes in Boston, New York, or Chicago before flying overseas to Europe or Asia. Just think of the massive, positive impact this could have on our area economy.
This project will most certainly go down in history as the catylyst to a major re-birth of a city that has lived in obscurity longer than it has deserved. Let's not drop the ball on this one or regrets will be numorous.