Buffalo Rising Online

This retail growth can only be good for downtown Buffalo. Now all those Canadians crossing over the Peace Bridge, and other people visiting the Buffalo area or just passing through on the I-190, will have a reason to stop downtown on their way out to the suburbs for shopping. And although I generally do not believe in silver-bullet solutions, or catalysts, I do think the more activity on the waterfront the better.

Oh Bass Pro please...I'm begging you....go away....go back to Columbia, Indiana or wherever you're based and please don't return.

People should have been leery right off the bat when this ridiculous brainchild came from Bob Rich.

Well......Bass Pro aint my first choice.

But.....i want to see something happen...and this qualifies as something.

I think development follows development......someone has to jump into the pool first. Benderson is a great developer for this job.....if anyone can bring in some more retailers....they can!

I just hope the city makes sure that what gets built on the waterfront, looks like it belongs on the waterfront.

I agree 100% what Scooter said. While the stakes are way higher down on the waterfront, something has to get the ball rolling down there.

Well, I've always been against Bass Pro as the wrong type of development for the Inner Harbor. But now, if its actually a done deal, and the store will actually be built, lets forget about the arguments over whether its a good idea and make sure it gets done right. The priority should be on designing a store and site plan to make this development a lynchpin to support and encourage growth throughout the rest of the harbor. If it can be shown that this store can be a major part of creating a bustling waterfront, then I can get behind it in full force.

I sincerely hope that others who oppose the project side with TownLine, whether you like it or not, this will be a big investment in the city.

We will never be able to develop something that 100% of us agree upon.

That said....Bass Pro can be a nice fit on the water front.

Providing that they are an active participant - I hope to see fishing tournament sponsored by Bass Pro....lake tours....some one can follow suit and rent out fishing boats.....this can actually create a lot of action on the waterfront.

Some of these local fishing tourney's actaully bring in 100's or more people into to town for a weekend. The larger pro tourney's bring in 1,000's

This could work out nicely.....and again....it's only a piece of the puzzle. not our entire waterfront development plan.

I hope this moves forward, any progress on development down there is a positive IMO.

I think the BassPro in Islamorada is a great example of how a project like this can be integrated into the surroundings. The store in Islamorada has a full service marina and works with a number of local guides for chartered fishing trips. There's no reason they couldn't attract local guides to do the same. You can come in by bot or walk in from the boardwalk attached to the restaurant next door.

I think for a number of people that enjoy fishing and the outdoors this will be great. I stopped by the store in Auburn on several occasion to get items that I can't otherwise find locally. I could certainly have purchased them online, but when it comes to items like clothing, etc. It's nice being able to try them on, our otherwise touch and feel a product before purchasing it.

Havn't we heard things like this before? So much for taking the millions of dollars and giving it to small businesses.

I sincerely hope that Buffalo Falling only makes these posts in order to sap the life from the rest of us and is actually an eternal optimist laughing as he/she (probably he) is posting, because the alternative is appalling. How is Buffalo falling. In order to fall you have to have been up first and we hit bottom some time ago. There is actually transparency with websites like this and government has to work hard to be corrupt now because even an SUV accident gets plastered all over the news. Even if we are not satisfied with every decision that is made in this city, at least decisions are actually being made. I would have prefered to not see Bass Pro in this location, but this will spur confidence from other smaller business and money was included to demolish the WMA. How is this not a positive. This WILL get done and when it does I vote to banish BF to a different city, preferably Baltimore where he and Willis can play video games together and talk about how much fun they had while they were at Dave and Buster's and TGIF.

BASS ACKWARDS!

For those of you who think that growth was just going to come from within, you need to deal with reality that if we were a town that could grow from within it would've happened already. To make a sports analogy, sometimes you pay extra for a big time free agent to make the rest of the team better. This is why we paid for BP to come here. This should help spur new interest and send a message to the region that something WILL happen on our waterfront. Everyone became frustrated with the time it took to complete the deal, but regardless, its coming, so cut the negativity and focus on other ways to help build off of the momentum. It will be interesting to see what doors this will open up....

Took us awhile Buffalo, but we're making progress...

I have to admit that I'm surprised that Bass Pro is a reality. I'm afraid that Buffalo's Old Time Religion, skeptical cynicism, got to me on this one. It's still has the feel of a one-shot to me. I'd feel a lot better overall if the supposed development divas of Quinn, Rosenow, et al would use Bass Pro/Erie Canal Harbor and the accursed Casino as bookends with some synergistic development in between like a state of the art convention center, a children's museum, the bicycle museum that's been discussed, the conversion of the D&L terminal into a city marketplace on the order of Boston and Seattle's and also bringing in some other retailers that are not currently in WNY, Southern Ontario or even upstate New York or western Pennsylvania. Providence, RI brought Nordstrom's to New England with a store in close proximity to that city's redeveloped train station (and they did it with politicians similar to Buffalo's). My point is, "let's give a lot of people a lot of reasons to come to Buffalo's waterfront. The thought of looking at our waterfront in 5 years and seeing only Bass Pro, the HSBC Arena and the Buffalo Creek Casino standing in a sea of parking lots is almost too much to bear.

Lanny's got it right. You have to spend some money to create interest and development where there is none. While I despise the tedium of BF's negativity, he gets it a little bit right: There is very little to show for years of wasted promises on the waterfront. There's no reason why we can't keep the valuable vestiges of our heyday, but incorporate new life & money from the outside. That's the whole reason 'something' is better than 'nothing' and that is Bass Pro right now. DMD has it right too: fishing and boating is big business and there is no reason why tournaments and their spin offs can't be a piece of the puzzle. That's all Bass Pro is folks--just a piece of the puzzle like the new Waterfront Village condos, or Shanghai's, or yes, the casino. If Buffalo can create reasons for people to live, work, shop and spend money while having some fun with friends or family---hey, they will ! Bass Pro is here, so get over it. Let's embrace this thing and ensure the public has input to its design and the overall Canal district. If there is a positive in waiting so long, at least we can avoid the mistakes of other waterfront projects like the Milwaukee Art Center (need to drive and park to get there), the New Orleans Aquarium (no interaction to the long river side of the bldg.), the Cleveland Flats (awful mix of schlock), and to some extent, the Baltimore Harbor (with its predominance of concrete plazas).

BF, If this was your only negative post I could agree with you, but you smear your negativity on every story that is printed on this website with a fanatacism that rivals only Rosie O'Donnell. Instead of being the quintessential loud mouth with shallow words and silent actions, why don't you actually take up a cause if you are so disgruntled. You degrade Rep. Higgins, but the man obviously cares about this city and has gotten more done than most have even talked about. Lack of progress is an excuse for skepticism, not blatant pessimism.

If it actually gets built like it looks, there are definitely worse things to happen to the waterfront. At least the construction of the building is outside of BP's hands...

As for BuffaloFalling, there is a sad truth to his statements that if you polled or talked to most people in this region you will find that they are closer to his attitude than not. Remember most people gave up on Buffalo in the 1960's when they all left to live in the suburbs. Very few have looked back since and only circulated and spawned these ideas that Buffalo is always going to be bad. I feel this is a changing attitude but it is something that we need to confront head on. It reminds me about the Buffalo Joe pieces that Don Esmonde from the Buffalo News would write. They are near perfect reflections on the attitudes of the region. What we need to do as people who do think Buffalo is rising and moving in the right direction is to take their arguments and be able to counter them by celebrate our successes and making sure things do happen and change.

You know it is one thing to support the city and hope for the best when it comes to helping out smaller, more neighborhood businesses open. It is completely another to throw out laughable pie in the sky projects and hope that maybe, just maybe they might draw enough locals to justify the taxpayer expenditure, for a year or two anyway.. This is how we got Main Place Mall, The convention center, a streetcar line that should have been built underground in the downtown area and many other fiascos that have helped shape the typical Buffalonians cynicism.

No, this whole Bass Pro thing stinks.