A 'town square' for the Larkin District is shaping up.  Construction is taking place on every corner of the Swan/Seneca/Emslie street intersection.  Larkin Development Group has three projects underway and recently completed two residential units at its Schaefer Building.

The circa-1930 Larkin Gas Station is under renovation.  Long hidden behind white panels, the refurbished brick building

By Michael Hargrave:
Homefront, Inc., a community development agency located on 780 Fillmore, is part way through a large community rebuilding effort on the city's West Side. For the time being, the agency is focusing on 19th Street, very close to several other projects by organizations such as People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH) and a few private investors. 
What the organization is doing is far more ambitious than cleaning up a vacant home or two. They've gone and purchased

Hamister Group is utilizing historic preservation tax credits to put a mix of hotel, residential and office uses into the Tishman Building on Lafayette Square.  To be listed on the National Register, a property must be at least fifty years old and meet at least one of the four criteria for evaluation established by the U.S. Department of Interior, National Park Service.  Hamister's Tishman makeover, designed by Camina

Mark Croce has a message to those questioning his handling of the Statler and Curtiss buildings.  But we can't publish that here.  There's also another message, 'be patient.'

Croce's planned high-end boutique hotel in the Curtiss Building at the corner of W. Huron and Franklin streets is back on track. He says he has held off on moving forward with the project because his focus has been on stabilizing and bringing the Statler back to life.

Out of his own pocket, Croce moved forward with demolition of the former Continental nightclub and interior demolition and asbestos

Nick Sinatra is making a big splash in the local real estate market.  After starting Sinatra & Company Realty in Chicago, the Tonawanda native has been on a buying spree of late in both Buffalo and first-ring suburbs.  Working with a team of investors, Sinatra is buying distressed or undervalued properties that he can upgrade and reposition.  He expects to double his local holdings this year and redevelopment plans now being finalized promise to transform a prime midtown corner.

The 30-year old Sinatra, whose family owns

A Nottingham mansion we wrote about over 2 years ago remains on the market. Then, the asking price was $2.15M. Today, it can be yours for $1.8M. The new listing agent is Ellen Daly at Hunt Real Estate. 

** Originally published on January 19th, 2010
We've covered some Buffalo mansion listings in the past, but today's listing may be the most remarkable. 

When I lived on North Pearl Street in Allentown, just over a decade ago, there were a lot of rooming houses and it was very apparent how they were adversely affecting the neighborhood. I remember clearly that this part of Allentown was in transition, and many of my neighbors were fed up with the conditions of the rooming houses as well as the illegal activities that were being conducted from within. The last time I visited my old neighborhood I was happy to see that most of the old problematic houses had been converted into singles and doubles. It's unimaginable just how disruptive one poorly run

Redevelopment plans for the Tishman Building will bring 24/7 life to a strategic downtown corner. The 20-story building has struggled to attract office tenants since National Fuel moved out in 2003. The building's 9,000 sq.ft. floors, prime location, and sweeping views are ideal for the uses Hamister Group has in mind for the property. 

Carmina Wood Morris has designed the $35 million project that calls for a Hilton Garden Inn on the first 14 floors, three floors of apartments and three floors of office

A development group has purchased the Erie Freight House at 9 Ohio Street.  The new owners, FFZ Holdings of Buffalo and Savarino Companies as 441 Ohio Street LLC, do not have definite plans for the property but expect to begin to shore up the decaying structure in a few weeks.  441 Ohio Street LLC purchased the property for $200,000 on March 12 from Great Lakes Paper Fibres.   FFZ Holdings of Buffalo and Savarino Companies are also working together to redevelop

The former Cloister at Delaware and Virginia street is coming down.  A mixed-use project is slated to take its place.  Plans call for a 20,000 sq.ft. office building fronting Delaware Avenue and three, three-story townhouses along Virginia Street.  Developer Scott Croce says the project will cost $3 million to construct.  He intends to relocate his practice to the medical building's first floor.  Space on the second and third floors will be leased to other medical offices. 
The contemporary design was revised once but faced tough sailing

The Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places has announced the listing of the fromer Pitt Petri Building, recently renamed the Huyler Building, at 378 Delaware Avenue. The nomination for listing was prepared by Jennifer Walkowski, Architectural Historian at Clinton Brown Company Architecture.

The National Register of Historic Places is the county's official list of our nation's most important buildings that are worthy of preservation.

Designed in 1926 for the nationally-prominent Huyler's

The skyline view entering downtown from the Kensington Expressway is in for a transformation.  The Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus is indeed planning to demolish all or a portion of the six-story former Trico building located at the corner of Goodell and Ellicott streets.  While the worst-case scenario from a hardline preservationist point of view is complete removal, BNMC officials have agreed to continue to meet with the local preservation community to explore reuse of at least portions of the complex.

"We are committed to continue to work with the preservation roundtable to

The Benchmark Group is pursuing an infill project at its surface parking lot located between Globe Market and 7-11.  According to the Zoning Board of Appeals agenda for March 28, a three-story mixed-use building is planned that would include three to four storefronts, 24 upper floor apartments, and accessory parking.  Amherst-based Benchmark owns a number of area commercial and residential properties including the Stuyvesant Plaza on Elmwood at North and the retail building housing Spot Coffee and Blockbuster Video across

A former hospital turned apartment building will have a new use later this summer: a school.  West Buffalo Charter School (WBCS) has finally found a school site in the former Lafayette Hospital at 113 Lafayette Avenue, corner of Barton Street.  WBCS is expecting to welcome its first students in the fall.

"We are so excited to have a building and begin preparing for our opening in August," says Andrea Todoro, School Leader.

WBCS is leasing the entire building from Ellicott Development Group with long-term plans to purchase it from the developer.  Ellicott Development

Tuesday's planned meeting to discuss the future of the Trico building has been postponed.  From Preservation Buffalo Niagara:

Preservation Buffalo Niagara met with the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and, in the interest of greater participation, the public information session scheduled for Tuesday, March 13, will be postponed. We have chosen to postpone in the desire to include the BNMC and other interested parties in the discussion.  PBN continues to advocate for the development of a reuse study.   A new date for the public information session

A long-vacant building surrounded by recent and proposed development is up for sale.  The former Ellicott Paint Co. location at 112 Genesee Street, across from Genesee Gateway and between Ellicott and Oak Streets, is listed with Coldwell Banker with a $199,000 asking price.  The two building, four-story property has 9,038 sq.ft. of investment-ready space. 

To continue our focus on Trinity Place at the southern edge of Allentown I want to call attention to a couple of buildings (lead image) with tremendous potential on this charming street that currently act only as a lead weights to improvement.  I have long anguished over the condition and long decline of these two which sit on the southwest corner of Trinity at Elmwood.  They have sported a pair of for 'for sale' signs for several months or more now.   The building directly on

The Genesee Block has been transformed into a welcoming gateway at the base of the Kensington.  Fred LoFaso of Sienna Realty is planning a similar transformative project at the I-190/Niagara Street exit. 

In 2007, LoFaso purchased the Turner Bros. building at 295-305 Niagara Street (originally built as a sarsaparilla, gingers and bitters manufacturer in 1853) and the adjoining taller building to the north built as a storage facility in 1920. The two buildings boast 55,000 sq.ft. of space. While the taller of the buildings would remain as storage over the years, the Turner Bros.

Since moving to Buffalo three years ago, I've watched with great interest the astonishing development of the Buffalo-Niagara Medical Campus.  I've watched the stunning Gates Vascular Institute  rise from an empty lot to rival the new federal courthouse as the most talked about pieces of modern architecture in Buffalo.  I've toured the iconic Hauptman-Woodward

Two model homes flanking the entrance to the Colvin Estates subdivision in North Buffalo are nearly finished.  A former railroad right-of-way is being transformed into 127 new homes.  Twenty-four lots are available in the project's first phase.  The development is located off of Colvin Avenue between Taunton Place and St. Lawrence Avenue.

Burke Homes is offering both one and two-story homes ranging from 1,235 to 2,126 square feet.  The Craftsman style homes, designed by Dean Sutton Architects,