The to-be renovated Sattler Theater at 512-16 Broadway could soon be surrounded by an "urban village." In March, the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency designated Temple Community Development Corporation (TCDC), a subsidiary of Pentecostal Temple COGIC, developer for the former Buffalo Forge site which the City expects to purchase shortly.
With approximately 14 acres, TCDC will be working on one of the largest development-ready sites in the city. In 2006, Howden Buffalo applied for and received permission to demolish the factory covering a full city block along Broadway, Sycamore, Spring and Mortimer streets due to unsafe conditions and structural problems.
The development corporation is not ready to talk about specific uses for the property before meeting with community residents. Those meetings are expected to occur in May and June.
“We’re still in the early states of planning, parceling out the land,” says Yvette Suarez, project manager with the Temple Community Development Corporation.
Suarez says their tentative plans will “transform an urban brownfield into a mixed-use urban village.”
“This community economic development project will add value to the multi-million dollar developments currently emerging on Jefferson Avenue,” says Suarez.
Several significant projects have been recently completed, are underway or planned on surround blocks.
The Willert Park neighborhood has seen several hundred infill homes built since the early 1980’s. Belmont Shelter recently completed nineteen subsidized homes north of Sycamore Street on Davis, Camp and Kane streets. Belmont is constructing thirteen homes on Hickory Street and will be seeking Planning Board approval on Tuesday to construct fourteen additional subsidized homes on Kane, Mortimer, Walnut, Spring and Camp.
Adjacent to the Forge property, crews are busy constructing 21 market-rate and four affordable homes in the Sycamore Village development. Homes there are priced from $175,000-$190,000. Homes at Sycamore Village are being built surrounding a landscaped commons area and many feature alley-loaded garages.
To the south, the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority is undertaking a multi-million redevelopment of the A.D. Price housing development. The project will see the rehabilitation of 170 rental units at the corner of Spring and Peckham streets. Subsequent phases will demolish nine existing, three-story garden style apartment buildings and add 20 new for-sale homes and 77 new rental units as well as a community center, pocket park, rehabilitation of Willert Park, and infrastructure improvements.
Temple Community Development Corporation will have one year to come up with a plan for the Forge site and purchase the property from the City. TCDC has agreed to reimburse the City $295,000, the acquisition cost of the property.
Holden Buffalo remediated the plant site before and after demolition. But according to the development agreement, TCDC is “responsible for performing any soil borings and soil investigations…for the purpose of determining, to developer’s satisfaction, the suitability of the site for its intended use.”
Pentecostal Temple is one of a growing number of churches participating in economic and community revitalization efforts to resurrect inner-city neighborhoods.
Get connected: Yvette Suarez, TCDC, 716.852.5502
