Buffalo Rising Online

Over half the building sold in three weeks? That's great news for Buffalo. Now if someone could just build a condo building downtown where the spaces went for $110,000-$175,000.

Okay, I'll get it out of the way.

"OMG WHO IN BUFFALO CAN AFFORD TO PAY THAT MUCH FOR A CONDO?" "Why aren't they building any new affordable housing? Buffalo us one of the poorest cities in the US, but there isn't enough housing available for low-income families. There should be some subsidized units in this building." "They should have built it on the East Side, where it's really needed."

/sarcasm

By the way, BR, single line breaks don't work in the message editor.

Dan, I'm surprised you were able to get that outta the way so fast! I was reading this story thinking if Dan was gonna chime in on this topic with all the "who can afford this" "build it on the east side" etc...quotes. Then I refresh the page and sure enough you had already! haha. But like you said in some other post, if you have a married couple that are both professionals making $60k + each then a $300k condo/townhouse would be within reach.

I think we would all like to see that perry. Isnt that the price range that that group from miami builds in? the guys who are considering buffalo for a condo tower? i hope they see this article! any idea where these people are comming from? other parts of the city or other condo's? suburbs or perhaps out of town?

and people say the city tower wont get built! I say... put the city tower up for sale now and it would sell out!

yes, there is room for the liberty, layatte, greystone and touraine to all be converted to downtown housing.

so how long do we have to wait for Waterfront Tower #2 and Waterfront Tower#3?

one last thing...if these towers dont have access to Niagara Street then how exactly is Niagara Street and the West Village going to benefit?

Isn't Buffalo THE SECOND POOREST CITY IN THE NATION? according to the todays Buffalo News....Hmmmm, so yeah, who is moving into these expensive spaces?

Well then I guess we'll just have to get more people with higher income in the city then!

^^ yeah dude so we should definitely not build them for the affluent part of the population. we should all be living in decrepit, rundown houses in the fruit belt.

F@%k the naysayers!!!!! These babys are selling!!!!!!!

Once again the Buffalo News did a fine job of framing that headline to salt the fears and prejudices of non-city dwellers. You have to look at the context of those numbers. Buffalo was in the "big city" category, and most big cities have alarmingly high rates of poverty. Rochester is not in the big city ctaegory and so was excluded, but their poverty rate is a percent or so higher than Buffalo's, I believe.

But more important, the headline and its reductive message does not provide an accurate view of the complex demographics in Buffalo or any other city. Shouting out that Buffalo is the second poorest city in the country falsely suggests that nearly everyone is poor in Buffalo. That's decidedly not true--unfortunately, there are wide extremes of poverty and wealth in Buffalo, as there are in almost every large city. But that's not to ignore a serious problem that is virtually the same in Buffalo, Miami, Cleveland or a dozen other cities: a large class of economically stressed families that have not been folded into a rapidly shifting and mercurial economy. It needs attention, but the Buffalo News headlines and their shallow writing do not spell out the complexity of the problem; they distort people's perceptions of the city and hinder thoughtful work on how to address this situation.

sally - Ellicott Development "might even have a deposit or two"? Are we reading the same article?

Don't feel special, Buffalo. The description of Buffalo in the News today is applicable a hundred times over across the nation. A reflection of the inevitable progression of the U.S. to the equivalent-- as far as its urban situation goes-- of a third-world country. As a matter of fact, the governments and social structures of many so-called "third-world" countries put us to shame when it comes to acknowledging through policy and values that a real nation is a commonwealth.

I never thought I would live to see this America. Going down the tubes. Very fast.

The New York State Attorney General approved this condo project a few weeks ago. Otherwise the units would not be able to be marketed legally with pricing information. Also, deposits are not allowed to be held in escrow until the project was given the okay. That is why it has taken so long for the pricing info to come out. Also, why would BRO post this story otherwise with pricing that is not accurate since it is not allowed to be released.

Buffedout... "perhaps" if more affluent landed in the fruit belt things would change... and then more gansters and thugs would head to first ringers... Kenmore.. Cheektowaga.. etc... and everything would be perfect and there would be no crime either.. Oo how lovely.. you're an idiot....

and this ridicolous Buffalo News article...don't even get me started...thank you pgf1948 for realizing that this is life in big cities.. its not just Buffalo People.....

News for you... Chicagos got a poor part of town... Atlanta... Nyc.... etc... they've got got their ghettos and the poor to fill them... but statistically.. they've got enough high wage earners living within the city limits to manipulate these studies to their favor... and we all know that the poor are the healthy majority across the country.

Building units like this can only help Buffalo standings in these studies by changin the statistics and putting more high wage earners within the city limits... and not in O.P, Amherst, EAst Amherst, Snyder, etc.

I've often wondered how the east side ways down studies like this... or how we'd improve and drop 20 spots if we were an official metropolitian area...

Erie County is in the top 5% of the wealthiest counties in America. Maybe *that* should be a Buffalo News headline!

Poor Buffalonians... only a median income of $27,000 a year in a city with one of the lowest costs of living! How do we get by? ;)

chrish - by what criteria do you make this statement and what is a reference to it please?

Erie County is in the top 5% of the wealthiest counties in America. Maybe *that* should be a Buffalo News headline!

I'm going to have to go along with ericoak and hospitable on this one; the buffalo news is bias against the city it serves and buffalo needs to be incorperated into a metropolitan area like so many other cities.

stats like the news article do fail to see the big picture. Erie county might not be the richest place around but there are plenty of jobs, plenty of spending power and plenty of base industries to sustain a healthy economy. The problem is the way people choose to spend their money and where they spend their money. We build huge megamalls and strip plaza's all of which siphon most of the money spent in them OUT of the region. When you buy products from Cali - China - from shop based in NYS or Atlanta you are throwing our money away.

Maybe if we made a solid effort as a region to actually support ourselves we would have more wealth to distribute to our poorer neighbors and friends. We would create more jobs for more local people. But that will never happen. Just like we can't get past illogical things like racism; we certainly can't spend an extra dollar by NOT going to Walmart and their like.

but skarnath... we should always just let any business do whatever it wants to do, no matter what the cost to the city, the future or our vision... yay developers, yay politicians ::cough:: brown :cough:: with no spine.

business and developers are not as needy as they put on, they are in the business to see what they can get away with, and the truth is they can get away with pretty much anything they want in this town. Before anyone starts praising him and a forward thinking individual, remember he was the owner that let the greystone and the webster building fall apart...

How on earth did we get lumped into the "big city" category? We're small-to-mid sized at BEST. And so what if the Buffalo News proclaims us the 2nd poorest city?! Does that mean we shouldn't have some higher end housing available? Ugh!

All you have to do is take a walk along Main Street (especially on the weekends) to see just how poor the city really is. From empty store fronts, to the eerriee quiet in the heart of a city, the only people you come across are HOMELESS asking for change and/or food. The people who don't ask for anything are wearing very out dated clothes (most likely got at a Salvation Army or other charity group- Or at least I would hope that's why they are dressed like that). NO COPS. Even when I had an incident at Main & Chippewa Street (in the daytime) The police NEVER SHOWED UP. When I called the headquarters to make a complaint, I was told "The city can't offord enough officers to answer all calls right away"....So basically,,, if you're being followed, mugged, or god forbid shot in the city of Buffalo, you should Defend yourself and not even bother to call 911 as they "might not show up". Yeah, this makes me want to move back. And now it's made news that it is the 2Nd most Poorest city in the nation. Why would anyone want to move to a poor area? No wonder the cost of living is so cheap...IT'S POOR! -Oh yeah, back to my point, not only take a walk around town to see just how run down and poor it looks, just talk to anyone there (especially ones who attend or attended a Buffalo public school) and just try to hold a NORMAL CONVERSATION with them and see how far you go. It's like the views of many locals are f*&&#ed up. I found myself just walking away, thinking "Um, what!" and laugh at how dumb some of these people are.

hrbuffnstuff, teachers cannot do that. If a teacher gets to close to a student it could open up all sorts of problems to which teachers are not protected. When was the last time you saw a public school defend or take the side of a teacher. The kid could be smoking crack during the lesson and its the teacher that gets blamed. A teacher shows special attention and the next thing you know that teacher is accused of sexual harrassment. Discipline a student and you wind up with a lawsuit.

Conversely, parochial, private and charter schools dont have as much of a problem. They dont have a problem disciplining a child or their parents or getting authorities involved. I have known problem children to have their tuition raised mid-semester because of the extra attention that student requires. The school may just keep the teacher and expel the student.

Instead of giving students gold stars, stickers and all that special attention....which is the typical liberal feel good blabber. Teach kids the value of hard work without praise which is what they will get in the real world. Teach kids to be serious about education and work....and teachers wont have to spend so much time injecting professionality into the atmosphere instead of adolescent daycare.

and if you have to expel a student even for a day, dont let them stay home but have a judge or a social worker force expelled students into jail or juvenile detention camp.

flyguy- I'll add to that and say that you don't have to go to college to learn a trade that will pay more than minimum wage. It takes some hard work and determination, and most of all initiative.

Life is not fair. We are guaranteed to try to find a cave to sleep in and some food to forage for. That's it. We all start off on other income levels. But we all have a free state education up until high school to make something of ourselves. The only thing stopping an individual is that individual. I've had friends who paid their way through his last two years of private HIGH SCHOOL while working at McDonalds when his dad decided to no longer want to pay. We only limit ourselves. To tell kids any different only makes them worse off. Hey! Let's teach everyone to place the blame elsewhere for not obtaining our goals and then wonder why no one meets them! Great idea.

I grew up on the east side. (I still walk the streets at least once a month and talk to residents). I could have jumped in with the cool kids. Most of them were white and guess what, they are still nothing today due to their own choices. I chose a different path, the "uncool" path. The easy path is to buckle under peer pressure and embrace the notion that the system is going to ensure I fail anyways. Bulls**t. Its just an excuse not to put the effort in. Everyone does it, black, white, etc. My sisters are at least 13 yrs younger than me and raised in a dual parent family in the burbs. They have no notion of what hard work is and their slothiness is maddening. I'll take my single three job working mom on the east side upbringing any day. I could have used it as an excuse, I choose not to. Every one has that choice. My mom could have not worked at all but was hell bent on no public assistance. Nothing fancy: waitress/bartender/etc. Some more of that attitude would go a long way to curing the "ills" around here. Self responsibility will over come any social program. There are enough programs already.

As for the "ills". It shouldn't be rocket science that when you house all your poor inside some invisible gov't boundary that the "area" is going to be damn poor. Buffalo is a metropolitan area and comparing to other metro areas is the only fair comparison. Otherwise its just a novelty statistic. Amherst is a part of "Buffalo". Suck it up and deal with it. Pitching your tent 5-10 miles away and acting like you are part of some self sufficient wonderland is pure delusion. Though if it helps you get by, more power to you. But that mentality holds the whole area back from being everything it could be.

How all of this comes out of this article, I don't understand. Posters routinely high jack threads with totally irrelevant points except to rain on somebody else's parade. This project is raising the median salary. Embrace it. To bad though on the running Genesee St down there, or lack there of. Seems like a no brainer to me. It’s still a maze to get down there. Even from a public safety standpoint, you'd expect the city to put at least 2 more entry points down there.

WARNING !! VERY OT!!1 http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/fishing/news/story?id=2997642

great story about the waterfront and Bob Rich and Buffalo.

I think, the reason no one ever talks about this problem is the fact most are too poor to travel outside of Buffalo to see how REAL CITIES LOOK. It seems many in the Buffalo area are so closed off to the rest of world, they never travel, and only believe what they hear and think Buffalo is "The Norm" and/or that Buffalo is sooooo great, because sites this like this one say it is.....But, that's only my thought on this, LeftCoast.

The big question is "who is buying those townhouses with the extremely puny little windows.

If your down and out.....Move to Buffalo.....land of the poor and cheap housing.

RickyRick hit the nail on the head.... I just got back from Kansas City, Mo to visit my sister (She moved because she could not find a well-paying job here), I thought that I was going to see a city that is blue collar like Buffalo... I have to admit I was surprised. About the same size not sq miles, in terms of pop. (we are shrinking, they are growing) but it had many trendy upscale stores, very little graffiti, and a real cosmopolitan feel. I was amazed on a Monday all the restaurants were open with lines. They had a beautiful downtown train station, (kind of like ours but theirs was actually a train station), and they had multiple construction cranes going to town developing their inner core.

Just seems like I am not sure if people really see have bad we have it.

With money, lower taxes and better politicians, it is amazing how things can change

If you watch the videos "Downtown Detroit" and "Downtown Buffalo" on www.YouTube.com , you WILL see a comparison. EMPTY Streets, NO LIFE, Run Down Buildings......hey, wait a minute, are'nt both Detroit and Buffalo the TOP 2 Poorest Ciites in the Nation? At least Buffalo can be compared to another city....(although, not in a good way)

Look if it wasnt for financial services NYC and the entire state of NY would be the equivalent of Buffalo & Detroit.

flyguy....lets just take a minute....for some logic

$27,000 per year....$2, 076 per month is $520 per week or $12 per hour

that allows you to qualify for a $100,000 mortgage and at $520 per week in a city where you could find a nice apartment for $500-$600-$700 a month....

no its not going to put you in a waterfront condo but it would put you in a decent home on Tonawanda, Kenmore, West Seneca, Cheektowaga, Depew as well as South Buffalo, North Buffalo and the decent parts of the Westside and Eastside.

The sad fact is...that if people moved they would have more opportunities for themselves and their children than $27,000 ....without having to send their kids to failed public schools where their children are warehoused for teachers unions experimenting with how to do more with less (meaning how teachers unions can pocket more while doing less for kids).

Also, Ive been in walmart and Ive seen their security cameras and their security guards and their employees in plain clothes working and walking around and hanging outside the store. I have also seen the sherriffs and the police outside of walmart arresting someone almost everyday I have been there, same for target and Best Buy....so Id say go ahead and put a walmart on the eastside....

People stay in Buffalo for a simple reason...they love each other....all the transients have left....and the people that remain..do so for generations of friends and family..and while we lack opportunity in Buffalo...we lack little else. We have practically every major national franchise...and what we dont have in Buffalo we have in Niagara Falls, Ontario....Ellicottville....Alleghany.....Fort Erie....Darien Lake.....

Though...it would be nice is a $27,000 family could see Niagara Falls for a $2 light rail fair....or the botanical gardens or Darien Lake .... or skiing in Ellicottville or a $2 ferry ride to Fort Erie beaches. People underestimate just how much little things make a difference.....

In my opinion the single biggest issue facing Buffalo is education. Our inner city high schools rank with the worst in the nation. It is not only embarrassing, it is deplorable, and it is incumbent upon all of us to educate our children to a level where they can function in society, our school system prepares our youth for poverty, not employment. If our educational system were vastly improved we would find that people would move back in to the city. It needs to start in the city and it needs to start with us, our politicians have proven that they are grossly overpaid and incredibly unprepared for a job which requires intelligence and foresight. We all should be ashamed for letting things get to this point.