Buffalo Rising Online

Sand Ring? who's idea is that. Just what Bufflo needs. With as much shoreline as this city has, Why in the world would you destroy a road to build a Sand Ring?.That is right up there next to saving part of the skyway and puting a park on it.

Great idea...just be sure to put coarse enough sand down. The winds will blow it all away if its not heavy enough and it won't natural replenish like a real beach.

yeah I also think there would be much nicer ideas for this circle. How about paving it with cobbles, make it a UB project and have students do the manual labor, and put our some tables, umbrellas and expand the cafe on the first floors to serve small food / beer. Talk about a location to grab some beer with friends. Would be great. The sand idea would just create a big mess to try and maintain over the years. wind, rain will blow the stuff all over the place.

Great idea to use the land for something other than cars. This might actually encourage those who would otherwise just drive the length and then circle back to actually GET OUT AND WALK. I think if we saw some volleyball nets they would be pretty full. An outdoor concert stage would be perfect. Imagine weekly, evening performances. Maybe the BPO one night of the week with different genre's on other nites. This area is definitely underutilized right now but could easily take off. I, for one, wouldn't be driving down Rt. 5 anymore if I could play in the sand so close to home.

i would like to see them extend the metro towards this location

There isn't any reason to need to drive out there anyhow. Just push the circle farther south of the building where people can already turn around. No loss and already exists. The circle is useless and that is why you never see a car on there anyhow.

I agree with SBROF and others. Keep the sand on the beach and use this as a destination for the non-beach crowd. Add some benches, with bushes or obsructions to shelter from the wind, put in a nice sculpture and make it a starting point for a more user friendly park that extends from the point of the marina to the HSBC Arena and metro station. The investment to expand existing resources would be less than creating something new. I would love to see this become a park destination to bring people downtown, sort of like the community parks in other cities. This is the easy part, the more distant plan should include the city rethinking the massive parking lot and creating a trail that extends to Lasalle Park, or maybe a pedestrian / bike bridge that extends between the Marina and the area adjacent to Harbor Pointe Drive. A cost effective solution to bringing people downtown. Oh, and let's add some street cart food vendors or entertainers in the summer time.

Narrow it down to a brick path and make the circle wider with more grass!

sounds good to me, that ring is useless.

I agree with others that the "sand ring" won't work. But I like the idea of closing that section off from car traffic. There is really no reason to drive down there since you can't park there now anyway.

And closing it to traffic won't cost anything more that setting up a nice-looking sign / barricade to prevent traffic. It can be done almost immediately, and figure out the details of the street pavement later. (when there is money to change it)

Funny thing about the adding a place for concerts, is that there is ALREADY a place for concerts right on the water, and you can walk to it from the Erie Basin Marina. It is called LaSalle Park and there is a huge covered stage there that I have never seen used once in 5 years. Why do we talk so much about having waterfront parks and how to use them better when we already have LaSalle Park? Why don't we put a few dollars into that? Have you been there lately? It looks like the land the city forgot. The marina looks very well kept and the park looks like a piece of crap...

Why does Tielman think he speaks for all citizens? I'm sick of seeing his face or reading about his involvment in everything. Enough already!

Removing the logs and driftwood shouldn't be too hard... but, it will come back, again, and again and again. That makes it more like ongoing maintenance, you know, like picking up the garbage? Something that I don't think Buffalo has been very successful at. Reference Broderick Park as an example.

rydog, sure the road would still be there but it would just end sooner. There is no reason to 'need' this circle since it doesn't provide any usefulness to people on it (aka you can't get to parking).

Driving along the roadway you could just go to the right of the smaller island before the tower, loop to the left and continue on your way back. The results are the same, access to the parking is the same. The difference is we have a larger, community space on the prime tip of the marina giving a larger, nicer destination for people who wish to enjoy the waterfront.