"should we pay the price" ohh come on. How many cars would this really generate and would it really be noticeable, i doubt it.

It is actually going to be a smaller building than what is there now pretty much the same height and width but yet renovations are implausible.. I find it hard to believe that demolishing one box to build another is cheaper than renovating one.. This isn't some architectural wonder where extra care or attention is needed.. It sounds like they want to demolish the building for the purpose of putting in the extra driveway.

can understand the concern of residents, but would the locals rather have an empty & rundown building/lot 24/7 -- or an empty and relatively nice-looking and quiet & safe building 12 hours a day...

The proposed driveway won't do any harm to worsen N Bflo being a "great place to raise a family" as Ms. Luciano says she's fighting for.

The good it would do looks considerable. If the only driveway is to Hertel, departing customers wanting to head east on Hertel toward Parkside or Main after leaving the store would face a usually next-to-impossible left turn (see satellite photo above). Lot of potential for traffic backups or accidents when people try that. Most would usually do a westward right turn on Hertel then drive extra distance (more fuel and carbons, etc.) and then make essentially two left turns somewhere to go east. And if the only driveway is to Hertel then customers arriving from the Delaware/Elmwood west direction would cause a lot of traffic backup while waiting for a break in westward traffic for a left turn into the lot.

By also having the Sterling driveway, eastward departing customers can just turn left on Hertel at the signal. And customers arriving from west can turn left at the intersection using turning lane on Hertel. Isn't that much better all around? More efficient, safer, and so close to the Hertel intersection that any extra traffic in residential parts of Sterling would be negligible.

Sorry double click, double post. Agree with others who've said that would be good to fix. Most blogs these days seem to detect that and add only one copy of a comment.

mjman4 - What exactly is pedestrian hostile? Looks like they'll build right to the street with (presumably) see-thru windows, doesn't it? Yeah, curb cuts and a parking lot but thats a necessity.

This building is not designed for the pedestrian for which will be 90% of its business!!!!!

And not that it matters, but I really doubt anywhere near 90% of their busines is walk-up. I'd guess well less than half.

There is a commercial driveway one block over for the much larger public parking lot. Why don't they ask the neighbors on that street how that driveway impedes their way of life.

I'm sure the 10 customers per day this family video will attract is really going to cause some traffic problems on Sterling. There is a light at the corner anyways!

Also of note, while I understand the cost savings regarding building new as oppossed to refurbishing an older building, are there not significant environmental concerns to the amount of waste that would occur if everytime a new building went up they would tear down the old one? Maybe they will be able to utilize BuffaloReuse to tear down Martinos.

The curb cut on Sterling had always been there. it just hasn't been used much. Go there today and you will see that the curb cut already exists. This is a vast improvement...Martino's had a tremendous amount of enviro abatement, inside and out, anyone who has ever stepped foot in the bldg knows the conditions were horrible.

This project spent a FULL YEAR in the city and neighborhood groups hands. Approval wasn't easy. Let me say that again. It took a FULL YEAR for all our layers of government to sign off on this little tiny 5,000 sq ft retail bldg.

For someone to come out now and complain......come one, were you sleeping the past 12 months?

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Ms Luciano you have to admire her determination and fighting for what she believes in. I think that's more then what our elected officials can claim!

Placing parking area driveways for corner lots on local streets rather than arterial streets -- in plannerese, access only onto the street with the lowest functional classification fronting a corner lot -- is considered a good access management practice in transportation planning.

"Limit Direct Access to Major Roadways: Roadways that serve higher volumes of regional through traffic need more access control to preserve their traffic function. Frequent and direct property access is more compatible with the function of local and collector roadways" -- Utah Department of Transportation,

"Local and lower-volume routes provide access to homes and businesses while higher-volume arterial routes like interstates and major highways are needed to serve longer, higher-speed travel. The more traffic on a roadway, the more essential access management becomes. Properly managed access provides access to homes and businesses while still improving roadway safety and traffic operations and protecting the taxpayers’ investment in roadways." -- Missouri Department of Transportation

"Encourage direct access via collector and local service streets rather than on the main road for as many driveways as possible." -- Missouri Department of Transportation

How much money can you make selling and renting videos? They have to be in for $1,000,000 on this property. I don't get it.

Placing parking area driveways for corner lots on local streets rather than arterial streets -- in plannerese, access only onto the street with the lowest functional classification fronting a corner lot -- is considered a good access management practice in transportation planning.

closing bold.

I also received the notice from the city which had absoultley no relevant information on it. I don't live on Sterling and have no opinion on the driveway issue, but I am very disappointed in the design of the building. Are there no guidlines for new structures in the Hertel corridor that they should be in context with the rest of the buildings? Is there any possiblity of the planning board reversing the approval? How do I add me name to the petition?

mjman4 - Ok I see your point and won't disagree with your taste. But why do you say the ugliness is "pedestrian hostile"? It will look like a Ponderosa to people walking, driving, biking, whatever. The ugly Walgreens a few blocks away was allowed, and the BK, etc. Maybe if there's some constructive reasonable suggestions from residents about appreance, the city could push FV for changes.

Maybe FV expects and wants more customer flow than Martinos did.

...To make the argument that this driveway won't increase traffic implies that it won't be used much, right? Then why include it? The current building functions with the parking lot only exiting on Hertel, why can't Family Video? ...

FV's type of business is much higher volume and lower price than appliances. It might've been smart for Martinos to have had this driveway if their building allowed access from the back, but it didn't. As Dan points out it's considered good practice. It won't be a video store forever. Broadband advances will continue to make those fewer. Whatever kind of store it is in the future, it should benefit from more efficient customer access provided by the driveway. If this driveway reduces traffic backups on Hertel (compared to if all FV customer flow is limited to Hertel coming and going), that might also benefit other businesses on Hertel.

Living very near one of the few economically healthy commercial streets in Buffalo will present this kind of issue sometimes.

...We love living in the city, and so close to Hertel but living near Hertel and living almost next to a parking lot and commercial driveway is completely different! We (my family) did not invest so much money into our house and this neighborhood to look out our window or down the street to see a cookie cutter building surrounded by parking spaces on each side. ...

When the hardware store on Hertel closed a few months ago, didn't they also cite lack of good parking lot access as a problem?

If Hertel's success continues, anyone considering buying a house very near to it should _expect_ potential impacts from business activity. Owners of homes very near Grant Street probably wish for this kind of problem compared to the alternative they're experiencing all these years with no growth in sight.

al-alo - I didn't say "just because", but I thought that was something to consider. About the windows, I wonder if the drawing is accurate. That's a fair question. As I said, if there's specific reasonable requests about appearance I have no problem with raising those. From the article above, FV already has made a lot of requested changes, so it sounds like they want to be good neighbors.

sterling - We'll agree to disagree. Maybe I sound rude because I don't live there.

To answer your question: I doubt Shadow Lounge and La Marina traffic compares to what FV will have if successful. People go to SL and LM a couple hours at a time. Lower volume than a video store. Also maybe quite some customers SL and LM park elsewhere too, but most FV customers will use that lot. I've no idea about Nova Photo traffic amount.

Beyond the driveway, I'll leave it at this and let others have the last words:

By Buffalo standards (Sally), it's a dynamic business district. It doesn't sound to me reasonable to try blocking a legitimate use. That's why I commented.

I probably wont shop at FV. But FV thinks there's customers here who want to. They want to invest here, pay taxes here, create jobs here, offer products here. Many complain all those don't happen enough in the city of Buffalo. Jobs the store would create are few and not great, but there's demand for them. They'll probably have more payroll than many Elmwood botiques do. They built to the sidewalk as urbanists want. They're not a corner deli, not a loud bar, not a KFC, not a Tim Hortons with busy drive-thru. One of your previous comments opposes FV for reasons other than driveway, for reasoning that might apply to other businesses too if FV is blocked:

"We (my family) did not invest so much money into our house and this neighborhood to look out our window or down the street to see a cookie cutter building surrounded by parking spaces on each side"

.

That sounds motivated by more than a driveway. Best to just let this go ahead with the driveway. Buffalo should be welcoming to businesses, not difficult. And again as Dan said encouraging side driveway traffic is something urbanists usually argue for, not against.

The building is awful-plain and simple. It is a cookie-cutter building designed for suburban strip malls. Hertel Ave needs to do better than this (by Hertel Ave I mean the business association there, Hertel-North Buffalo Business Association (HNBBA)). Too many people think that since this is Buffalo, we should feel blessed if anyone decides to build something or open something new. If Family Video bought the location, they must want to have a store there for business reasons. HNBBA (and probably frequenters of Hertel Ave) would prefer to have a successful business at that location as well. So, there is give and take. But, the HNBBA (or the city, or someone) must require that the building fit in with the urban landscape, not a suburban strip mall. It should be on the street (parking in the back, but maybe side is OK), entrance in the front on the street, and a face on the Sterling side that is not a barren wasteland that is asking for trash and graffiti.

Someone really needs to prevent new businesses from turning their backs on the street in what are currently successful commercial districts. As soon as Hertel (or any street) is thought of as just a means to get people to a parking lot, its identity is lost. It becomes no different than Niagara Falls Blvd or Transit or Sheridan, or Delaware (northern part, but also now most of it in the city) or Maple Post Parkway outside of Columbus, Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, Charlotte, etc. Basically it becomes everywhere and nowhere.

I have nothing against Family Video, but it is hard to believe that the Family Video company can get loans/investments to finance its expansion. The business model of renting DVDs from a storefront just seems to me to be bound for obsolescence. Through the mail is great (Netflix) and downloading is only going to get better (and faster). But, again, the most important issue is the building. We can do better

The curb cut is the least of the problems with this thing. Oh my god! This will be good fodder for my "What were they thinking" series.

Exactly REFLIP. Hertel is close to a 100 yr old urban, commercial street. There is no place for a single use, single floor, disposable building. This store will not be here forever, or very long for that matter in this day and age of digital media, so the Planning Board should be asking, "what type of building would best fit the street in 10-20-40 years from now."

The North Park hamlet within Hertel is just starting to gain an identity for itself and needs new build development that is multi-use like the LuModern building. The design could have at least been more contemporary, urban, commercial district neutral, like the Lex Coop. Or god forbid, they could have faked it a bit better like the faux 2 floor Bank of America on Elmwood. I just hope it's real brick and not red cinderblock, like what the renderings looks like.

Oh, and SIMCOE, you must be about highschool aged, so we forgive you for your ignorance, since you aren't old enough to remember... but Hertel IS Elmwood 10-15 years ago. Going through changes, fledgeling, reinventing itself. Hertel is dirty? You may not remember, that little pocket park in front of Globe where you drink your Spot used to be filled with graffiti and urine... just down the block from the once boarding houses that now hold DeLish... or the auto repair garage that is now Cecelia’s... or the abandoned bank that became the Coop.

Elmwood is doing well for itself and we celebrate that. It is not the gold standard by any means. Plenty of us have actually left Elmwood and now reside in Hertel/North Park to be a part of this neighborhoods rebirth. We want to contribute to something not just leech from a given neighborhood. Learn the neighborhoods histories before you pass judgement.

Buffalodrift - HNBBA signed off on this project. I've said this before....these businesses and developers don't really dictate what gets built. The city and the neighborhood groups are the one's that made FV add awnings, the peaks, ect. FV wanted the building to front the length of Hertel with parking in the rear, which would have given this property one curb cut. FACT!!!

Lets not bash a business that want to open in WNY. Lets push gov't and our neighborhood groups to adopt different or better building design codes. Lets not take one project at a time. Different rules and standards were applied to BOA on elmwood or all the new Benderson retail or FV on Hertel or the new Dunkin's on Main.

I live in the Elmwood/Allen area.....to say it's better then Hertel is just highschoolish.

Hertel is solid, what a great neighborhood. Great people. Great businesses.

In two years when it is bankrupt, put in a drive in - Call it Tim Hortons

One good thing, at least from my Wellington Road house, I can get my movies and my drink on before walking home.

FYI - The Shadow Lounge that shares that parking lot with the new Family Video, is a great bar....Kind of old school Hertel

BuffaloDrift> I have nothing against Family Video, but it is hard to believe that the Family Video company can get loans/investments to finance its expansion. The business model of renting DVDs from a storefront just seems to me to be bound for obsolescence. Through the mail is great (Netflix) and downloading is only going to get better (and faster). But, again, the most important issue is the building. We can do better

Off-topic, I know, but I wondered the same thing.

The late, lamented, well-regarded and North Buffalo-based Video Factory chain was sold to Blockbuster Video in 1996 because its owner saw the writing on the wall. Market saturation and the rise of pay-per-view meant that the growth of the video rental industry was probably approaching its peak, and that it was a good time to sell while he was still way ahead. The Albany-based Movies Plus chain, which started to enter the Buffalo market only a couple of years earlier, didn't last. Many Hollywood Video stores are closing throughout the country. I too wonder what the deal is with Family Video, and how that can expand -- with new build construction, too -- given the current video rental climate.

(FWIW, Video Factory lives on as Plaza Group, which IMHO remains a great asset to the city and region. They're one of the good guys.)

RisingDamp666> Hertel vs. Elmwood: This can only be resolved with gunfire in the streets. Lock n' load, pretensious little hipsters.

Ever see those storefronts on Hertel that are mostly covered up, with several middle-aged Italian men milling about? The businesses that continue year after year despite odd hours and few customers?

Hertel would win, no doubt. :D

Won't the pull thru be used for a "drive up drop off"?

Also bigger windows on the side would look nice..... Kind of looks like a jail on the side

THANK GAWD they don't seem to have plans to put their signature GLASS BLOCK Obelisk at this location. Sweet mother is that thing hideous. But I have a bad feeling it will end up on the parking lot side. Please don't put one here... please....

http://img.groundspeak.com/waymarking/884254b3-aa6e-49d0-b4f9-31f7b377d1d7.jpg

I hope you will at least be able to get cotton candy or a candy apple here, or your shirts laundered and starched. Or a gallon of milk. Or some booze. Or a nice recliner. Or a blow-out sale on flooring. Or a shredder/.chipper. Or a deal on discount window coverings.

The residents of Sterling, at the very least, should be able to get some relief from the parking issues by requiring the video store to open the parking to the public after store hours. It is ironic, however, that as we celebrate the success of Hertel Ave, we hear complaints about parking on the side streets. Unfortunately, the rising popularity of Hertel as a retail/restaurant destination is a double edged sword. It will increase the property values of North Buffalo, but it also means parking problems, traffic congestion, etc.