50 Court Street Opposed, Delayed
Construction on the glass-clad Court Street Tower was scheduled to start this spring. Designed by Kideney Architects, it would have 335,000 sq.ft. of space including ground floor retail and two levels of underground parking. A surface parking lot located between Pearl and Franklin Streets currently occupies the site. According to published reports, the developers have been negotiating with four tenants, including three law firms, to occupy significant portions of the building and a bank and securities firm to occupy the ground level. Two previous suits by Main Place Liberty Group were tossed by the courts but a notice of appeal was recently filed. The Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency granted a one-year extension for Ellicott and McGuire to commence work. Get Connected: Ellicott Development: (716) 854-0060
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WilliamZabkaAllStars
"Negatively impact existing downtown office buildings"... that's their complaint?!?
Hello, its called COMPETITION. Welcome to America. If you're worried about losing tenants, get proactive. Renovate parts of your building. Offer better amenities. Get off your lazy asses and go recruit some tenants.
This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
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jerkface
what a bunch of assholes...
I hope that the developers stick to it. It is a great project.
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Zombo
It has been one of the few proposed developments that actually looks like it should be there. Good luck to Ellicott and McGuire and shame on Main Place Liberty Group, just because you can not bring yourselves up, don't bring the rest of us down.
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paragon
Pat Hotung is so bad for this community. He's a poor looser. A poor pathetic little man of a looser. Carl Paladino beat him on this development parcel and he is mad. Boo Hoo Pat. If I was Carl I would have punched your pathetic little face in long ago. Here we go, another great project in jepardy because of some jerk.
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parkview
This looks like an outstanding project, competition is a good thing and the lawsuit sounds ridiculous.
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Jefferson
Let's hope the appeal gets tossed out too and really soon.
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sbrof
ugh...
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milkyway4679
Shame on them...another group trying to prevent the development of Buffalo. MPLG needs to grow up, and learn how to deal with competition.
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SLEEPL8
How is this possible? If two previous suits have been thrown out how many times can they appeal and continue to delay the project? Is the idea that the new building will "negatively impact existing downtown office buildings" ligitimate grounds for a lawsuit? Is it possible to win a suit against your competition for taking away your business? Can Tops sue Wegmans or HSBC sue M&T and prevent them from building new locations? If there is this oppostion to 50 Court St then what will the Main Place Liberty Group do when Bashar Issa begins to build the Buffalo City Tower?
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GiovanniD81
This all because the Main Place Liberty Group WANTS to convert the ENTIRE Main Place Mall into an office building. One needs to look inside right now and see the white walls going up on the first floor now. The MPLG does not care about retail and is why they do not market the mall at all. As soon as they push the last retailer out, it will be converted into an office complex. Which is most likely the reason they don't want the competition of this brand new building on Court St.
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Andrew
This is going over a parking lot. (Excellent) This is a great looking mid-rise building and the judge threw out the first two cases against this project so hopefully he will throw out this bull shit appeal that’s going on. There is an article in business first of buffalo that says "(liberty group) had eyed one of the same parcels for a parking garage to better serve its own tenants." Like buffalo needs more friggen parking. I was in Toronto for the Sabres game the other night and every single surface parking lot I saw downtown had a fence around it, a bulldozer in the middle, and a picture of the building that was going up. I really hope this goes through. An article in the buffnews said construction on the courthouse will start before Labor Day. The Courthouse, Statler, this project, and eventually the Buffalo City Tower will all be going on at the same time. GREAT FOR BUFFALO
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urbanboarder
I totally agree with all of the comments thus far. The Main Place Mall is a disgrace and aside from the barely decent food court that they have, you would think they might want to try a major facade improvement along Main Street to get attract some of the foot traffic in. Its such a shame that that beautiful block was demolished for this sorry piece of failed development. I am surprised an appeal is even allowed based on the mere grounds of the damn thing.
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StreetcarSuburbanite
Hotung should be tossed into the mighty Niagara
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SteveP
Is there anything we can do as residents of Buffalo to support this building? I think these lawsuits are absolutely terrible for the city. I really do hope this case is tossed out immediately. I would hate to see this city lose a building because it "negatively impacts existing downtown office buildings." Someone should call the owner of Main Place and tell him that his mall sucks and to stop fighting this issue.
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SteveP
I put the story on digg.com so please digg this story so more people around the world can see how absurd the main place liberty group it.
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UrbanBody
Ditto and kudos to all above that have expressed outrage at MPLG. You are all kinder than I feel right now. Extra stars to SteveP for posting to digg.com.
In general, I'm no fan of Paladino's designs but develop he does so I sure hope he sues the %^$& out of MPLG "after" he gets the shovel in the ground for 50 Court St.
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CKBuffalo
Paladino's development will happen. This lawsuit is just a way for Hotung to get under Paladino's skin. If Hotung wanted to fill his building, he might try asking for reasonable rents and update the building. Hotung took a huge gamble trying to lure dot com companied to his building and failed. Now he is acting like a little baby and whining instead of fixing the problem.
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Olcott_Beach
I suspect that the construction of 50 Court Street would force surrounding commercial building owners to finally upgrade their sites into more acceptable 21st century Class A office space. Since the world is run by myopic-accountants all they can see is no immediate return on their dollars spent on improving their facilities.
Long-term planning is not an American concept, especially in the business world. Plus, the owners normally have no vested interest (i.e. don't even reside in the local area). I found this to be true at both manufacturing sites that I was once employed with; Tam Ceramics and SGL Carbon. Both sites were old, contaminated and the "accountants" always told me that they could no longer "depreciate" the buildings; as if that made the lack of funding for building improvements understandable.
I would, literally, fight with the plant manager over repairing roofs and replacing sheathing on buildings; one of which was covering 200 feet of copper bus that serviced our graphite furnacing operations. The holes in the corrugated roof were large enough to stick your head through but yet I was thwarted at every attempt I made to improve the facility.
This is also the same man who illegally dredge 150 feet of Pikes Creek (laden with heavy metals) and when I asked if he had received approval, he actually told me that he was given permission by the EPA!
This clown is still employed with the SGL Carbon Corporation!!!
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Medina_Sandstone
This thread would not be complete without someone pinning the blame on those pointy-headed devils on Granger Place. Come on, BRO regulars, I'm counting on you.
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hashma
In my opinion this case will be thrown out immediately. As many of you have said, the nature of American and British capitalism is competition. If we begin banning firms from competing with one another, then we're back to Colbert's mercantilism. Second, as many of you have mentioned, this will only encourage ( rather force) the other downtown property owners around this area to upgrade their buildings.
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STEEL
Do they sell hemp hats in the Main Place Mall?
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chris69
I think Paladino SHOULD be using his time and these lawsuits to add another 5 stories to his building....making it 15 stories or even 20 stories with underground parking.
Why get mad? What better way to thumb your nose at his competitors who want to thwart his business of adding another building to our downtown than by building an even bigger building, creating an even bigger competitive threat and forcing his competitors to spend even more money to upgrade and invest in their buildings.
Would it be so hard for the LibertyTower to be converted to apartments and small offices (mixed use)?
Would it be so hard to demolish part of the Main Place Mall and reopen part of the street grid that was closed off when it was built, as well as, constructing a more street friendly facade....and maybe putting a running track and restaurant on the 3rd floor roof? Heck, if part of the Main Place Mall was demolished another tower could be built with underground parking....and 2nd floor connecting bridges....
I am in absolute agreement, the last thing downtown Buffalo needs is yet another parking garage.....we do need more underground parking but we do not need more surface parking or parking garages.
We need jobs downtown.. We need employers downtown We need density and street friendly buildings with retail and other services at street level.
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BPD187
Oh, Steel, they don't sell any type of clothing at the Main Place Mall anymore. It only offers junk stores (cheap greeting cards, soda, lotto and fast food). It's not even worth venturing into anymore. I can't believe after all these years of creating surface lots and downtown dying all around them, some still think we need MORE parking. And, no wonder Main Place Liberty Group can't attract new tenents, it's so lifeless around it's building. They dont need more parking, they need a makeover, It's Main Street exterior looks vacant with no window displays, no sinage, just garbage and blank walls. Who would want to move into such a dump? And, I always thought the main attraction to luring office tenents was the fact it had a Mall connected? Hmmm, if you continue to allow that so called Mall to rot away to nothing, hell, you don't even market the Mall to retailers, no wonder they don't come to you, no one even knows you exists. When advertising as office with shopping mall connected, PLEASE HAVE A MALL to sell as well. Where are these office workers suppost to shop after they move in? And why would they even want to promote it when its not worth going to?
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Olcott_Beach
I definitely advocate the thought (concept) of demolishing the Main Place Mall and incorporating the site back into the original street grid as Ellicott had originally planned.
The tenants can be secretly relocated to the Vernors’ Building since both buildings have the same forlorn, forgotten, abandoned look and no one will be the wiser….
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Martin
PATHETIC. I can not believe I moved to a city where development such as this project and the Elmwood Hotel is opposed. What good are all the new condo's and apartments if there is no new office space to entice new prespective employers to move from other city's and help the population to grow and let the city progress? I really do not think any new firms are beating down the bush to relocate to outdated 30-40 year old office buildings in a deserted run down city. The fact that the courts even consider a case like this...well ...ughhhhhh
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sbrof
I have a feeling it is just a scare tactic of sorts but the longer he allows the mall to rot the closer we are to getting it removed. So I am all for Hotung to continue his high rents and bad service... just stop getting in the way of the rest of downtown's development.
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MJWorthington
Even if he wants to convert most of the mall to office, I would figure that a new (false) period facade along Main St. with individual entrences for the stores inside and out would be a novel and nice compromise and encourage development with the residences going in nearby.
The "mall" and the "convention center" have ot be two of the most retarded designs.
Filling in 50 court and the new court house would really fill in the court st - niagara square corridor with a mixture of old and new.....
Only the never used entrence of the convention center on court would remain undeveloped.
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RPreskop
Pat Hotung is obviously the most incompetant, pathetic property owner in Downtown Buffalo. His Main Place- Liberty Group has no legitimate right filing a lawsuit stopping the planned office tower at Pearl and Court Streets. This is just another major reason why so many businesses and developers avoid Buffalo. Paladino is the rightful owner of the empty Court-Pearl property and he has every right in the world to develop a new building on this prime site. Pat Hotung obviously needs to get his head out of his ass and face the true fact that downtown does not need more parking, it needs more buildings with business activity. I second the great idea that Paladino should add another five to ten floors to his planned Court-Pearl office tower and toughen the competition for the incompetant Main Place- Liberty Group which could force them to look at improving and upgrading their properties rather than pushing for more unneeded parking lots. I would love to see Paladino buy the beautiful, historic Liberty Building and continue to invest and upgrade this historic skyscraper landmark which is something dumb ass Pat Hotung has failed to do the past few years.
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TBone
Chris, There will never be another 5 stories on this building- the building code is much more stringent for a 15 story building than for an 11 story building, it makes it very difficult to make it work economically.
It is also why Paladino's new waterfront condo tower will be topped off at 11 stories.
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