Buffalo Rising Online

Thanks, Steel. I'm tired of eulogizing irreplaceable buildings. Your outrage is more than merited. In a city with a gazillion "shovel ready sites," vacant buildings, Empire Zones, and other assistance, there is no reason that the business's needs AND the house's survival could not have been accomodated. This could have been a win-win.

Absolutely. Ridiculous. Waste.

Although this is sad and a waste of a building, it was never a truly memorable or remarkable place. I know that you should focus on only the best things during a eulogy, but the only remarkable thing about this building was its age. It had been abandoned and run-down years before we took interest in it. Like so many other things in Buffalo, we don't care about them until it is too late. We let the rest of Buffalo rot away, while we focus on this building, only because someone expressed interest in using the property for something other than a decaying old building. Sorry, but it is just a building, and it is replaceable, just like the building that probably stood on this plot of land before this building was constructed. So it may look like something that is typical of this day and age, and we all know that this will not meet up to the snobbish standards of the people on this board. So what, it is time to move on to more important things, like bringing economic growth to Buffalo.

economic growth like a printing shop expansion? This is pathetic.

Keller's renovation (L) and addition (R)....

al-alo....you'll need to beat me to them (think anyone will be looking at 5AM Friday?)....the building is a little older than mentioned earlier...closer to 1850. I own one up the street...and to be honest, it's a lot of work, and no one on this message board has ever stopped to lend a hand. I never expected you to. But to wimper and complain, after the fact, rings a bit hollow. While we might have hoped for a different outcome, I'm not sure I understand why we would think it was something under our control, unless your names on the deed. If it's that important to you, get in the game.

That looks like a backdrop for a South Park episode. Is that really what they showed to the preservation board? WOW! I am truly stunned.

Benfranklin,

So you are ok with your neighbor allowing his place to decay as long as his name is on the deed? You are ok with your neighbor doing anything he wants as long as his name is on the deed? There is a point at which the actions of the deed holder become detrimental to the properties of other deed holders. That is why we give our government some say over what is done with our own personal property. Allentown has been designated a historic district with special protections and tax incentives. The fact that the city has chosen not protect this special district is very sad. Perhaps you will not be so happy when the deed holders on each side of you decide that their property should be converted to parking.

What architecture firm designed the South Park/tea-towel building?

Steel

My position is that putting artificial (anything that's not based on economics) restraints on what people can do with property only makes economic progress less likely. While it's my belief he should be able to do what he wants, I personally like old buildings, and have done my part to see that at least one was saved.

As to my neighbors turning they're property into parking.... my tenants would love it. Have you parked a car on Franklin overnight since they've allowed parking on both sides of the street? The drunks coming out of Chippewa bounce off each side like they're playing with bumper cars.

This is probably the last building in this section of Allentown to meet this fate. They're are none that I can think of that haven't at least begun a conversion to apartments.

Pointing the finger is the game that too many people here often play. It is the status quo institutions and mindset that have continued to linger over the generations that is the cause of derelict buildings and anger amongst citizens. BRO is a pioneer in trying to make the community aware of what is going on around us, and I thank them for that.

Is the new building creating any permanent jobs? I understand the printing business has been there something-like 80 years.

YES!! Great news. Move on now. We can only hope and pray (I guess - or hire Lippes) for a building that is an asset to the neighborhood, both asthetically and economically.

Secure parking is needed in many Buffalo residential areas. Not always a bad idea - safe parking.

Glad Gainer and Buffalo Re-Use could get in there first also. They really are doing a great job and a public service that should have been started a long time ago.

I met with the owner a few times over the last ten years. The main concern for him, was his business. He NEVER understood, even after alot of the conversions started, what kind of rents he could have generated with apartments. If I recall, he almost held a certain disdain for the neighborhood. He didn't believe anyone would ever want to live there. In hindsight, his best financial course would have been to sell the two properties, and move to a less desireable area (he does no retail). Those interested in seeing the property remain should have been looking for additional work for the guy, contingent upon him moving. More forcefully, you find his ten best customers, and express your concern. A similar approach should have been used by City Hall when National Fuel fled for Amherst. How difficult would it have been to express to National Fuel, leave the city, and every hole you dig in the city will cost you $7500 for the permit. Or a meter tax for any utility that moves a headquarters out of the city. This is obviously all hindsight... but it's the kind of approach that needs to be taken in the future.

More forcefully, you find his ten best customers, and express your concern.

If I were one of his customers and you came to tell me to boycott this man, I'd tell you to go bark at the moon and let me get back to trying to make my business succeed. It's hard enough in this area.

Instead of trying to be bullies, what people should do about a building like that is to raise the money and BUY IT!

Then they own it and can use it however they want to. If it's such a guaranteed goldmine for rental units, then one or more parties should have been making attempts to purchase it. If nobody was contacting this man with generous purchase offers, then that speaks volumes about just how much of a sure thing it probably is. Probably not much at all.

Strange how often people imply there's some bottomless pit for high-end rental markets in this city, yet our net population keeps exiting to other states and thus the number of rental customers has been decreasing for many years. Something doesn't add up there. But who knows, maybe residential at this spot would have worked, but then the people renting in those apartments would not be renting someplace else in the city (putting those buildings the move from at risk of being topics of a future melodramatic articles from Steel).

This printing businessman is putting this spot of land to productive commercial use, generating much needed economic activity in the city. Overall a net positive, and anyone who loved that old building and didn't take action to try purchasing the buildings from him years ago - look in the mirror if you want to blame anyone. Beniszkiewicz, instead of showing him other places he could relocate to, what you would've needed to to is bring him purchase offers.

A similar approach should have been used by City Hall when National Fuel fled for Amherst. How difficult would it have been to express to National Fuel, leave the city, and every hole you dig in the city will cost you $7500 for the permit.

Probably very difficult. Sounds illegal and probably would've lasted about as long as needed for NFG to file legal papers against the city for that form of governmental hostility.

And even if the city could find some legal way to institute targeted financial punishment like that, National Fuel Gas would simply pass along the costs to its city customers. Great idea.

Or a meter tax for any utility that moves a headquarters out of the city. This is obviously all hindsight... but it's the kind of approach that needs to be taken in the future.

First of all, the meter tax you suggest would be paid by you-know-who. I wonder if ben is one of our elected officials around here. The dictatorial business-hostile mind set reminds me a lot of theirs.

News flash: NFG has thousands of customers in Amherst, Cheektowaga, Tonawanda, etc., etc., etc.

What makes the city of Buffalo so special that the HQ of NFG must forever be located in the city and not in another municipality in which thousands of its customers reside? Hmmmm???

Atwaterlouse... I posted earlier that I thought the owner should be able to do as he likes. However, questioning the rental market in that area is laughable. I own rental property within 500 yards of this building. Right now a studio apartment in that neighborhood is rented in minutes/hours after a posting to Craigs list. This building didn't need to go upscale, just use the single entrance rooms in back as small studio apartments. The rent realized on a studio is similar, on a per square foot basis, to that of a high end one or two bedroom apartment. Have you noticed a little thing called the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus? Ever think with gas approaching 3.50 a gallon, some people are looking to live a litte closer to work/restaurants/bars/friends/Thursday in the square/Sabres games/etc.etc?

As to the NFG suggestions, obviously you would not put them into effect, but use them as leverage to try and keep them in the city. Why try to keep them in the city? Isn't that one of the few jobs are elected officials have?

ben, Just because existing rentals are currently in great demand right now in that area doesn't prove as fact that the expense to convert that building to residential use would be profitable.

Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't.

But if you're convinced that it absolutely would, how much money did you offer this man to purchase his building and put your plan into action? What's that? Nothing???? How much did anyone offer him to do that? What does that tell us about how much of a sure thing people really think that is?

And about your NFG suggestions, good that you agree with me that those couldn't really be put into effect.

If that reality is so immediately obvious to you and me, how is it that it wouldn't be equally obvious to everyone involved?

Buffalo city sites were considered by NFG, but did not even make their final cut. The three finalist sites were the Amherst site that won and two sites in Erie PA (where NFG also has a huge customer base and where they were being strongly recruited to move).

Silly threats like extra fees on meters or for thousands in punitive surcharges for digging would have been simply laughed out of the room.

http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2003/02/24/story2.html?page=1

... Because the company has some 200,000 customers in northwestern Pennsylvania to go along with an estimated 150,000 acres of land controlled by an affiliated timber and forest management subsidiary, Erie, Pa., became a very real competitor for National Fuel's headquarters.

In fact two Erie office parks were among the finalists. They remain on the company's short list should the deal between National Fuel and Tops fall apart. For a region that has seen a high number of corporate defections in recent decades, losing National Fuel was being viewed in many quarters as an almost fatal blow to economic development efforts, not to mention the already fragile community psyche.

...National Fuel's corporate headquarters represents more than just the 500 or so workers who are employed in the building. It is the company's largest publicly traded entity with revenues of $2.1 billion. Once National Fuel leaves the 18-story, 180,000-square-foot Tishman Building, it will pose another economic development challenge for Buffalo.

Buffalo options were considered, but they didn't meet the company's needs for a suburban, campus-like setting. ... "It's unfortunate that National Fuel couldn't find an urban site to their liking, but that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of firms out there that wouldn't want a prestigious address in downtown Buffalo," Kucharski said.

Thanks for the bricks!

Buffalo is not NYC or Boston or Chicago.

There are tens of thousands of historic buildings in Buffalo, and as much as I love historic architecture- most of it is worn out junk that is prohibitively expensive to rennovate.

We want to encourage investment in Buffalo, and that won't happen until the free market is allowed to opperate. Buffalo will encourage investment by decreasing the strings attached to property owners, not by increasing them.

If Buffalo were Boston or Chicage or NYC then we would have the LUXURY of restricting how every property is renovated, but for now Buffalo needs outside invesment far more than it needs old dying buildings.

Robo

You logic is flawed. You assume that tearing down older buildings will generate "outside investment" when in fact most recent investment in Buffalo is because of the older buildings. You also assume that any development is good development which as anyone in Buffalo can say for sure is not true. And third Buffalo certainly will never have a chance to rank with the cities you mention if it tears down all its old buildings.

Perhaps the problem is not that Buffalo has too many old dieing buildings but that it allows owners the right to let their buildings die. There is no reason for a building to rot for decades with no penalty to the owner. There is no benefit to the community in allowing buildings to degenerate. Poor condition is the fault of the owner and no one else. Until the city holds people accountable this situation will continue and the entire community loses

"Poor condition is the fault of the owner and no one else."

Poor condition of buildings is the fault of a weak economy. If there is no economic jusitification to renovate, why should owners be forced to do so?

Old buildings have not made NYC, Chicago, and Boston great- strong economies have, and renovation of old buildings has followed.

"Your logic is flawed"

Well here is your logic:

"Buffalo certainly will never have a chance to rank with the cities you mention if it tears down all its old buildings."

Nobody is calling for destruction of all the old buildings, but Buffalo needs to pick its battles. This property in particular is bordered by a grafiti covered abandoned building- not exactly foder for economic development.

It takes a vibrant economy to bear the expense of maintaining old buildings, unfortunately this community doesn't have the resources.

Yes poor condition results when an owner does not update a building with say "a new roof" the building then becomes unmarketable. There are many well kept buildings in this neighborhood that have stable tenancy. You assumption that since this is an old inner city neighborhood therefor it can not sustain growth is highly flawed. Owners who allow buildings to decline bring down all the properties around them.

By the way this building is bordered by a parking lot and the building (in use) of its owner.

Again I say (and you ignore) Most of Buffalo's recent commercial investment has been centered on rejuvenation of old buildings many of them of the type you would have had removed. At locations where old buildings have been removed the results have almost always been nothing more than a field or parking lot. That is what is killing potential development in the city not old buildings.

This building (and the Atwater House) were part of a district. Losing one of them is like having a tooth pulled leaving an empty space. How many people would find that thought attractive? And with all the empty lots in Buffalo. Unbelievable.

This demo is not a tragic loss of history but a faux-historic design for a future building on this site would be a missed opportunity.

Cheap faux-historic facades might be a side effect of simplistic architectural dialog. My guess is that the architects respondsible for cheap faux-historic facades are responding to public opinion. They are trying to appease the preservationists and traditionalists like chris69 while accomodating the programmatic requirements and the demands of the client. The result is mediocre architecture.

The potential of modern architecture to meet our needs and enrich our lives is far greater than that of preserved historic buildings. Maintaning our older stock of buildings is good for Buffalo but gradually replacing the buildings that fail to meet our needs and wants with better buildings is better for Buffalo. The problem is that Buffalonians are not asking for better architecture. The local architectural dialog too often focuses only on a few aspects of architecture like height, setbacks, parking, tourism and decoration with an affinity for replicating historic styles.

Davvid, i couldn't agree more.

Nobody is asking for more empty lots, but newer better buildings are preferrable to old buildings that will never be renovated. All great cities (even Paris) have a great mix of the old and new.

"Old buildings are the catalyst that drives a forward-thrusting economy."

Unfortunately, 'If you build it they will come' generally doesn't work as a job generator.