Buffalo Rising Online

Will the alley remain there for Thursday in the Square patrons will full bladders heading over to Chippewa?

Any renderings yet? I guess from the article I'll have to wait till tomorrow.

Great news!

Well well well... if traffic ever comes back to main street we should see announcements like this once a week. Rocco and Carl...excellent work this month!!

I always thought a new build residential tower would be a perfect fit for this site. It IS in the middle of downtown where high rise buildings belong. But this is good news compared to no news.

I wonder what the renderings are going to look like and which buildings are going to get renovations and which ones wont. I worked on a small plan for this block a while back, describing how one could combine these buildings into a single development project to lower the costs, I wonder if it was used to inspire Rocco and his team. This block really does need the investment and will fill in Main Street quite nicely from Theatre to Lafayette Square.

How Exciting! :)

Wait for it people, renderings are coming. Hopefully you will be impressed and excited about this project as we all are in helping in it's creation.

But....

Wherever will I go for my Main Street fashion and travel needs? Plus, I do dig the 2-story Burger King that lived there. I call dibs on one of the fryers....

Seriously.. It's good to see the re-birth spreading in that general direction.

Nice news. This location, not slivers of land in historic circles, is where Buffalo truly needs development. This project does much more for the city than the the Gates Circle condo, despite all the bloated hype and gush about it.

The Bensen building in the middle has character but I'm not ready to lay down in the street and block the bull dozers from the old Berger King or the other one-story, even if it is the only operating retail on the block.

Speaking of that one-story next to Benson, I think I remember a story about how that building used to have more floors but when a neighbor was doing demolition they dropped a piece of their building on top of that one. Does anybody remember hearing that story? I think it belonged to Jacobi the haberdasher who owned Jacobi's men's shop.

I wish they would tackle those two buildings that had their roofs fall in. One of which is on Main Street next to Red Jacket....and the other is the Greystone.

Was the Century the same as the Great Lakes Paramount? The Great Lakes Paramount was considered the finest of all the Great Lakes Cities. If anyone has interior pictures....I think alot of people would love to see them.

other than that....it really depends on how tall its going to be and what the architectural style. If its to short, then its not going to provide much balance on Main Street.....and if its to bland...then its going to look like little more than filler.

The old "Burger King" is not part of the project. Addresses included in the project are:

(1) 501 Main Street -Old Stewart & Benson buildiing (501 Main Street), Renovated completely. (2) 505 Main Street - Now JP Fashion - Utilization of Masonry walls and complete renovation, also the site of the old Waldorf Lunch...long gone now but was once beautifully detailed 3 story building once. (3) 513 Main Street - Century Theater Propoerty which includes the infamous "alley" and parking lot area behind at Washington. - All New Construction including the new parking ramp structure along Washington and E. Mohawk. (4) 515 Main Street - Old Terra Cotta Building - Now Fashion Corner - Complete Revitalization/Restoration of the old Intricate Terra Cotta down to the Street Level, bringing the old back to life. (Much like the Webb is being done now) (5) Two other Washington Properties each of which will be fully renovated along with the New Parking Structure.

This project will be something long awaited by this neighborhood.

Great Work!

People bring jobs, jobs bring people, which bring more jobs and therefore more people.

Anti-development liberals bring bad ideas and big mouths.

That is all.

I think the crappy Burger King is staying. Nobody ever wants to demolish those kinds of buildings. Just the good ones

Bizjournal is reporting that Iskalo is interested in the Burger King property and approached the City for a mix-used project. Also per Bizjournal, Rocco's proposed Century City project will have all its buildings unified at third floor levels.

There were some slightly disparaging remarks above about the use of tax credits, etc. by Rocco. Why would the City/State not want to induce development by any means possible to leverage the downtown area? And wouldn't any developer be crazy for not taking advantage of what's on the table? Jeez. (Issa and the Statler don't count because it sounds like he is personally wealthy and highly connected to buckets of international monies.)

MichaelB, Appreciate your well-connected facts to this project.

This section of Main defintely needs a facelift. However I'd like to see a modern residential tower(gates cirle type) along this section of Main. This is after all supposed to be a city...with tall buildings!

Spaulding 97: $15 M is probably a high budget for Termini! The man uses the cheapest materials possible. That poor kid died during construction during the renovation of his new project on Pearl Street. Granted thats the construction company he hired and not a direct result of his stinginess. From my own OPINION, and looking at the Ellicott Lofts to rent and being able to hear a conversation in the apartment next door at a normal decibel level, there was no way I was going to live in one of his places. I am not down playing the fact that he is putting money into DT, but it would appear to me that $1,000-$1500 rents are starting to Cap. I am unsure of how many more our city can support, hopefully the $15M will be enough to do a decent conversion to Apartments while still being able to offer some lower priced units.

Side note, I believe this is directly across the street from Get Dressed DT, and the building that is being turned into a single family residence with the Law Office downstairs. Overall, this block may soon be pretty good.

RonR, That's assuming that the people who buy at Gates Circle will ONLY buy at that location and nowhere else in the city. That's very unlikely. Those people's taxes will go the city in one place or another. And the Gates Circle building will add nothing to an already established neighborhood (and will actually make more awkward an already a fairly desecrated circle). This new project downtown has far more impact on the perception of downtown and its physical appearance. And have the taxes from the luxury high rises from the 20s such as the Campanile and 800 West Ferry and the Park Lane been such a boon for the city? They haven't. Nor will this new building at Gates Circle; it will do nothing for the city as a whole because it's completely unneeded. It's not a major building by design standars; it's not original; it's not in a suitable setting. It's a conventional well-to-do high rise squuezed into a space that was never intended for such volume. But it's going up, and I'm resigned to that.

But Termini's project downtown? Now that's something to be excited about. I just wish the developers at Gates Circle had some vision and imagination for downtown, but hey, that's business.

DOC you are so ignorant, like you know the man. But anyways THANK YOU Rocco for this development. I was looking at some of my pictures of main st last night and my roommate and I were discussing how embarrassing the JP Fashion building is. The old Burger King isn’t so far behind in terms of ugliness so I hope we hear a proposal for that soon. The Stewart Benson building is really cool; I hope they just dress it up a little bit. I am so glad this is happening. So they are all going to be 3 stories? I'm not too concerned about having a tower here, let’s concentrate on density first. Is there a timeline and are the renderings coming out tomorrow?

WOW! Great news to hear and surprising too. I thought these buildings were gonna sit in their current state for awhile THANK GOD!!!! for Rocco Termini and developers like him who are little by little transforming our dead downtown into a vibrant 24hr community. One major thing id like to see happen that will undoubtedly aid the success of this development is the reconnection of Mohawk and Gennesee Streets to the citys ellicott radial street plan. The Hyatt is undergoing or about to undergo a massive renovation project. If our elected city leaders were doing there job they'd realize that the potential is there for undoing these past mistakes of allowing the hotels atrium to STILL block off Genesee street. Mohawk street on the other hand is blocked by the convention center and a parking lot leased to Carl Paladino for Belesario parking. I wonder if Carl would be willing to work with Rocco in relocating his tenant parking over to the new ramp across the street. The citys master plan emphasizes our great streets and reconnecting them. Our streets made our downtown great and created the synergy needed for great urban areas. The idea is not such a far flung one, the convention center is outdated and should probably be relocated anyway, the Hyatt could easily reconfigure there lobby in a way as to allow the reopening of genesee and the scary alley like street park that is east mohawk and the drab belesario lot could creat a direct link to Deleware ave and all the exciting development going on there. I know this post was a little long and dragged on a bit but i just dont understand why no one brings this topic up. Imagine the newly reopened genesee street streetscape with a newly renovated Statler, YMCA buillding, and Hyatt all standing seemlessly along genesee street ...

Denizen is making sense here, and he does it without know-it-all contempt

RPreskop: As far as the beauty of Toronto--I suggest you go live there and tell me how beautiful and livable that downtown feels to you year after year. Bay St, Yonge St., hideous lower Spadina; this is appalling stuff. If you think those budget boilerplate lego-towers are more interesting, human and beautiful than the Plaza Mayor in Madrid or the Place Des Vosges in Paris, or make for a better street life, than you might want to take a trip.

And Doc, come to my house for a glass of sherry. Then decide if my "huff" is about a suppressed desire for a glass-plated living room. I'd be happy to give you a tour.

Rpreskop.. its that same thinking that got us the lovely Main Place Mall and Tower... we all know how much of a success that was.

Denzien's got it on this one...fill in the sore spots before we think about tearing down smaller scale buildings like this... Buffalo will never be downtown Manhattan... and if you want a skyscraper you'll have to be a good boy and wait 5-10 years... when the Federal Court House, Buffalo City Tower.. and Gates Circle are done.

OMG, J.P Fashions is a locally grown non-chain! The developers should be ashamed by trying build this concrete monolith in its place! Save J.P. Fashions!

Sulley - call TIm Tielman - he will save it

RonR - Don't forhget on a clear day you might see the falls.

^^ Perhaps Toronto is busy at all times and has the big ritzy, glass towers you talk about because Toronto is the NYC of Canada with over 5 MILLION residents. Learn how to put things into perspective, 300K is not close to being comparable to 5Million.

A new low of argument on BRO.

Richmond's tallest building is 450 feet. 25th tallest is just under 200 ft. Buffalo's tallest is 529 ft, 25th tallest is around 170. not a big diffence if you ask me.

Grow up, Preskop! If you think Richmond has a

"More impressive skyline and a more developed downtown"

than Buffalo, then you know nothing at all. Richmond, lovely city that it still is, is a mere shadow of its former self. Its downtown has lost every major department store. The city would cease to exist were it not the capital city of Virginia.

I am amazed at your continuing ...