City of Buffalo and Kaleida, Throw the Neighbors a Bone
By Roger Schroeder
The Women and Children's Hospital expansion looks to be a great step forward for Kaleida but with the new properties they are acquiring they will not be fixing some of our persistent "Elmwood Village" problems. The two significant ones are the intersection of Elmwood and Bryant and the deteriorated condition of West Utica between Elmwood and Delaware.
If Women and Children's Hospital does not want to be on Elmwood, why not put their parking lot of 19 spaces back into circulation as commercial property? (see aerial photograph.) The KFC lot and the parking lot could create exciting development potential for this corner.
The fix for West Utica is upscale residential development, possibly mixed use, with apartments for residents at the hospital. These zoning decisions do not have to cost the hospital more than a harder look at parking. And the cost to the city planners is in taking a hard look at their master plan directives.
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platt4
Did you say "city planners' and "master plan?" Surely you jest.
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Sal
Roger - thanks for bringing this topic up. It's nice to see Elmwood Village Association and others discussing some overall plan.
The deteriorated condition of West Utica will not last long once the stakeholders there know what to do with the properties. When the ground is broken for the new condos on West Utica just west of Elmwood, the address will become upscale. Personally I like the idea of building residential units with parking underneath at Kaleida's West Utica sites. It would be nice to keep the newly-acquired homes in some way.
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sbrof
there does seem to be a win win available here the problem I feel is that everyone just hasn't sat down together to flush our their needs and desires to come up with something. Kaleida does something, EV does something, residents do something else but they all need to bring some trace and their own plans and sit around a big round table and has out a win for everyone. It isn't impossible but going back and forth wont get us there.
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DanielSack
The 60 story Pan Am Building (now Met Life) was the largest commercial office building in the world when it opened on March 7, 1963 (according to WikiPedia).
The building was constructed atop the 1903 Grand Central Station complex which has five levels of rail tracks beneath it. No doubt the station architects did not build the 1903 structure to support a 60 story building!
Regardless of what we are told the existing parking garage could be increased in size by building up. It already holds 614 vehicles. WCH only needs 400 additional spaces to clear the need for their neighborhood killing surface parking lots on West Utica and on Elmwood.
Increase the size of the parking garage. Place a better looking facade on the parking garage. Many complaints solved.
Next force Kaleida to build between Hodge and Bryant. It can easily be done. Kaleida simply has to care as much about the larger community than just their own community.
As many speakers said last night: Keep Childrens Hospital on Bryant.
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sbrof
This is where the city should step in and help (via money) to build a great parking garage for their expanded need + solve a huge issue for this chunk of elmwood. Build a 700 spot garage 400 for Kalaida and 300 for the rest of Elmwood. Win-Win It also frees up ALL of that space on Utica for either Kalaida building expansion (better than Hodge for people?) or they keep hodge and this goes back to residential use.
A garage would solve everyone's concern...
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InformedOne
There is an existing ramp at Children's the problem has been how it is managed. The City, specifically BCAR's Board is made up of downtown developers, they are concerned with one thing, income generated by the collection of ramps the City owns.The ramp at Children's is occupied by employees who have purchased monthly passes, thus forcing sick families and their children to circumnavigate the neighborhood looking for on-street parking. BCAR is happy with it because it generates revenue for the underutilized ramps downtown (which just so happen to sit adjacent to their developments).
The City needs to look at these ramps specific to their highest and best use, serving patients and visitors to the facility, not just as a cash cow to suck revenue into the system with. the same scenario could very well play out with respect to the municipal ramp at High and Goodrich.
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tudorguy
While I completely agree with the suggestions above, it's sad but we have to remember that Kaleida doesn't have to "care" about the neighborhood, and the powers that be in City Hall seem to be so overwhelmed as to withdraw into inertia - therefore not having the wits to do anything other than say okay to the corporations.
I always hope and push for the best possible plan only to be constantly reminded of cold hard truths of the corporate machine and an impotent local government.
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buffaloweiner
I support everyone in the community that wants the "everyone but men's" hospital told to take a walk.....
Millard Fillmore Gates is open and available There is room in the FruitBelt
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reflip
Someone who spoke at last night's meeting mentioned that people have to go to Rochester to get "patient friendly care" for their children. I'm assuming the speaker was referring to the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Either way, someone from Kaleida should really call URMC and ask them about engaging the community in the planning process. Somehow, URMC manages to be both "patient friendly" and "open to communicating with the surrounding neighborhoods."
The meetings are not always amicable, but the two concepts are not mutually exclusive.
Women and Children's Hospital - you need to think of your neighborhood as YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
Speaking of which - Is there any incentive program for WCH employees to buy houses in the area? By lessening the need for employee parking, you free up more spaces for patients and thus mitigate the parking problem in general.
Wow, there's another idea that neighborhood groups helped URMC implement - incentivizing URMC employees to become homeowners in the surrounding neighborhoods, thereby helping URMC with their parking problem.
But then again, hey, I'm sure that URMC has nothing on WCHOB. WCHOB has probably earned the right to trample all over their neighbors and treat them with nothing but contempt, as mosquitos about the backs of our necks.
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Angus
In light of the recent Kaleida/ECMC merger, doesn't it make sense to take a step back and look at the alternatives that weren't part of the picture ten years ago, including building a brand new, state of the art Childrens' hospital on the medical campus or moving to Gates Cirlcle? Even with the construction of a new ambulatory building the other buildings are antiquated and will require costly renovations in the near future. Just throwing it out there.
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