Buffalo Rising Online

Right on queenseyes. I've always wondered the same thing, why not have activities on Main during the warm weekends? Host local artists (music and art) with tables, performance space like you said on those empty spaces, have the stores and restaurants open (also can the ONLY Lunch hour places be EXTENDED even on weekdays?) It is sad to walk around downtown, especially on a Sunday and find that everything is closed and the streets all desereted, it's like living the movies (I am Legend, or Dawn of the Dead) and feeling like when u actually do see a living soul it's almost scary. With the waterfront development and more people living down here and with more hotel rooms coming, it's time for the current business owners to consider opening up for us, we can't always make time during the weekday (come on, that's when we're all working), the malls are always packed on weekends, I'm sure downtown can be too if we had more things to offer than our great architecture.

It will be nice to finally drive down Main Street and see potential places to shop and eat.

Main Street re-vamping starts this July, LarkinLot, should be exciting to see the end results of this.

This would make too much sense for political leaders who have never left the area.

Water fountains cost money to run and this city is broke.

Moreover, most people do not go to Main St. becuase it is very hard to get to. you must park your car a block down and walk to nothing. Main St is not accesible. We can thank the Jimmy Griffin administration for this ingenious design. One bad decision after another

No one will ever shop or conduct business on Main until they can conveniently access it!

How about a flea market on Main, concerts are always good, taste of Buffalo is huge - set up tents once a week, say a Friday, to taste different food. Beer tasting, wine tasting, Art exhibits. This is not hard.

In the winter, put up some more winter lights, build another ice skating rink, build ice sculptures.

Little creativity will go a long way. these are all economical alternatives.

I couldn't agree with any of you more regarding the lack of activity on Main Street. It is an absolute atrocity. I do however believe that the steps Chippewa has made over the last two years or so in terms of sustaining weekend daytime, non drunken collar-popped frat boy crowd businesses should serve as a major step in the right direction for Main Street, once it's open to traffic. Activity at Spot, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Tim Hortons, Papaya, Salsarita and even Badabing all point toward a more business-friendly downtown. Save for the few vacancies closest to Elmwood, Chippewa is virtually completely occupied. It would be nice to see activity, if nothing else, take off between Chippewa and the Sidway building. Obviously there have been a few new businesses open up in this precise district recently, so should the city kick Main Street's revamping into high-gear, activity on the city's once prowd street should follow. The problem with Buffalo's current situation is the sprawl factor. It's too random. It would be a rare pleasure to see business districts successfully run directly into each other. It seems like the recent housing development in this area, coupled with this section of Main Street set to open should help actually make this a reality, for once.

Granted the Brown administration isn't known for doing....well....anything!...but bringing Main Street downtown would be worth the effort. Buffalo Place is doing its part, so its about time a coordinated effort on all fronts gets underway. Its our region's front yard damn it!

Right now Main St. is a shame and a complete embarrassment.....

I always thought a well done Italian restaurant would be perfect in one of those 3-4 story buildings in that horrid stretch of buildings across from the Hyatt. Sort of out of the Stillwater mold.

Why would the Mayor do anything about Main St. Its only his job.

How about creating a free tax zone on Main for businesses/retailers? It has been executed sucessfully in Cleveland and Pittsburg....why not here?

With such a void and need for retail on Main St.. Discounts of some kind would be great to lure business there. Free rent for the first ____ and see the interest rise.

Good thoughts Newell and driz716 --- my thoughts exactly. Attract major retailers to downtown (anywhere) besides the Galleria Mall, for that matter. In addition to major retailers, major corporations!!!

I can totally picture an H&M taking some space up in the former AM&A's Building with a cool coffee shop next to it and other Major Retailers filling up the Mall. But it's true, with Benderson trying to lure big retail/restaurants to the Canal District, WHY has'nt anyone been trying to lure these people to the general downtown core?

When I last visited Clevelands Tower City Mall (Downtown) it was very hustle and buslte and I don't recall many vacant spaces either, and this was only 2 years ago. However the other downtown mall, which I believe is also callled Main Place in Cleveland was as vacant as our Main Place, but the stores were all national and the empty spaces were attracted with vintaqe photos of Cleveland covering the empty windows and the over all place was bright, clean looking and safe. Far cry from our downtown mall that always seems dim, dead, and depressing.

What kind of activity do people expect to do downtown?

shop -retailers have relocated elsewhere (for a variety of reasons-I don't see a silver bullet fix) work - most of the offices downtown are open Mon-Fri play - with a Metro Rail station and convenient parking near the baseball park, you won't see baseball fans working their way up Main. Main isn't really on the way to the waterfront or the canal district, either. live - yes, there are a few residences on Main. party - yes, there are some bars, but the cool people won't be out on Main before dark, will they?

We have a limited number of people out doing things in Buffalo, and apparently the number of people is smaller than the amount of space we want to fill up.

I guess what I'm saying is that, while it looks like we have the start of a renaissance on Main, it will take a little longer for it to look as good as Elmwood, be as busy as Hertel, or have the character of so many other busy neighborhoods. I think the thing that the busy neighborhoods have in common is a large number of people living within walking or bicycling distance.

Sally, maby the office vacancy is higher at the Tower City Mall, but the place was still PACKED, food court and stores and I was there on a Saturday. The whole place was as busy as our Gallery Mall, so do not see how they are worse than Main Place, BUT, they also have a Main Place Mall downtown that is alot smaller and has a hight vacany, however, like I said in the above post, they keep the place clean, bright, and interested to walk through with cool photos and other forms of art through out the building, I believe that one is also connected to an office complex and may be busier during the weekday, but Tower City was Very Packed on that Saturday I was there and it was'nt even a holiday.

activitiy comes from people. People come from residential units. businesses will follow and have been following the growth of residential. Downtown is a big place and needs a lot of people and their incomes to bring it back to life. It is happening but the best way to bring life back into downtown in a meaningful way is to remove and reduce the barriers to renovating buildings for units, improving safety concerns whether real or not and figuring out a development scheme that would allow people to own a piece of the pie.

things like the skate park and Thursday In The Square are great and would help any new fledgling business along but there needs to be a base of money and income. waves of investment are not good because you are constantly in the black or red and the reason why businesses close at 5pm now. There just are not enough people downtown yet to keep them all open all the time.

I agree. Plant the seeds with residential. Get a wide range of income levels and provid eincentives to create hidden parking. The more people, money, etc in the area the bigger draw it will be for buisnesses and outside shoppers coming into the area.

We shouldn't be in the business of paying for business (I almost sound like a republican here) but it is true. The job of the city is NOT economic development. That is nothing more than pandering to an uniformed public with false promises that the government can give you a job. What the government should be doing is really working on the infrastructure to prove to others that if they invest the city will be there to make sure it gears work.

Get the roads, get the mass transit, get the bike lanes, get the property out of the city's hands, get the unions to feel proud of their jobs, get the recycling up. Make people feel like their taxes are working for them. Otherwise we only feel like the only people really benefiting from our dollars spent are those with government jobs or contracts.

Lack of retail downtown isn't a 'problem' that the government should try to 'solve'. People naturally have chosen to do most of their shopping in Buffalo elsewhere.

The block in N Buffalo at Delaware and Great Arrow for example. The Marshalls plaza has around 10 healthy businesses, and across the street there's about 6 more. All happened without special unfair tax-free zones as gaustad suggests for downtown, or having remote control boat events as QE suggested. And Kohls will open nearby on Delaware soon. For whatever reasons (nearby residential density much greater than downtown, parking, easy car access, who knows what else), that's an area in which people have shown they want to do shopping.

Restoring cars to Main St makes sense to undo a bad mistake. Eventually if/when that happens (likely when, not if) probably there might be a small boost to retail on Main. There's a small uptick even without that - Jenny Shop, etc. But it's still a lot less in all of downtown than even that one N Buffalo block.

Maybe down the road there will be revival of downtown retail in cities like Buffalo. Things can change unpredictably, but it happens slowly and naturally. Govt efforts to make it happen in the sort term are as unlikely to work as when Masiello's people decided where a restaurant-bar should be located (Breckenridge, Ya-Ya Brewhouse). Even if they could succeed, Buffalo has many kinds of deep problems for which govt does have real responsibility and should direct its focus. Let the free market - shoppers and risk taking business people - be the ones to determine where retail is located (and where it isn't located).

Hey Sally! I read that NYT article and it seems to be more of a positive spin on the things a city like Cleveland can do to stimulate downtown development. In that sense there are some possible take-aways to be found for Buffalo in looking at the case of Cleveland.

What was the Macy's plan? I don't recall ever hearing about that but it was before my time. I am sort of glad it didn't happen though having Macy's before everyone else would have been cool. 1970's urban planning (like building HSBC over Main St when there was plenty of vacant land) left a lot to be desired....

Sally. Thanks for the info on that Macy's plan.

On Cleveland I was referring not to the current state of the city but to the steps they are taking to try and spark a turnaround.

"The situation has galvanized both the public and private sectors to address the downtown commercial district's plight. "We have really had to get involved in a multipronged approach to improve demand," said David Browning, managing partner of the CB Richard Ellis real estate brokerage firm in Cleveland.

More than two years ago, Mr. Browning and a group of commercial real estate brokers and civic leaders began meeting once a month to plan a strategy for breathing new life into Cleveland's downtown, and those efforts have recently borne fruit.

Cleveland was one of the few cities of its size without a downtown business improvement district until business owners recently approved one. The new Special Improvement District is to have a $3 million budget from fees assessed on all businesses with sidewalk frontage; the money will pay for cleanup and beautification.

The city also enacted legislation in July that gives any new downtown employer a tax rebate for bringing 25 or more jobs downtown, or to current downtown employers that add 10 or more jobs.

The tax rebate is based on a payroll tax formula, but is equivalent to 50 percent of income taxes paid by each employee. In other words, the city would refund to the employer approximately half of each new employee's income taxes that would have been paid to the city.

The tax rebate is based on a model developed in Columbus, Ohio, which helped to lure 25 employers downtown and reduced that city's office vacancy rate by four percentage points in two years.

Cleveland's taxpayers have also subsidized new downtown housing, both rental and owner-occupied, at a rate of about 500 new units a year for the last five years. The Pinnacle, for instance, is a new condominium in the historic warehouse district that has received an estimated $20,000 in tax credits and abatements for each unit.

"A huge civic conversation has been sparked," said Joe Cimperman, a member of the City Council who represents downtown and attends the monthly strategy sessions. "We're the No. 1 poor city in America, and people are now saying, 'We have to make this happen for ourselves. We have to get this city back on track.' "

The city's fortunes are indisputably dependent upon the downtown commercial district, according to a study conducted by the Maxine Levine Goodman College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. The study found that more than 60 percent of the city's general revenue is generated by income and property taxes from the central business district. As revenues have declined, so have services for the entire city."

Nor is Buffalo.

What I am saying is that the public policy quoted in the NYT article is good policy. Cleveland's problems can't be tied to those policies. They are having problems because of wider economic issues that have impacted all the rust belt cities and, lately, some sunbelt cities as well. Good policy can be emulated. It doesn't mean that Cleveland will become Austin or Buffalo will become Providence.

I've read your posts and I haven't figured out what point it is that you are trying to make here. You are talking about PIT and CLE and talking about their downtown retail struggle, but what is the lesson to be learned from that? Are you trying to say that Buffalo is better because we also don't have retail? Are you pro-Canalside? Should you be given that it doesn't jibe with what you say about PIT or CLE?

Have you been to PIT or CLE even or are you just going off what you've read? GDC says that he was there and that there was retail yet you point to a NYT article that you then point out is three years old. Could it be possible that there is small retail and the NYT was only referring to large department stores?

You are not entirely correct on PIT btw. The developing, and by all accounts thriving, Shops at Station Square are essentially downtown. They are seperated from downtown by only the Monongahela River. I could see arguing that they aren't downtown but distance-wise they are closer to downtown than Canalside will be to the Hyatt.

I'm a Buffalo supporter til the end, but let's be serious. The Buffalo-Cleveland comparison is a joke. About all their downtowns have in common is the fact that they rest on Lake Erie. Cleveland's downtown has the "real city" feel each and every one of us would like downtown Buffalo to have. For those of you depending on articles to cite vacancy rates- honestly, you have to take the three hour drive and take a peak around. There is FAR more hustle and bustle, three major sports venues downtown, including an NFL stadium smack-dab on the waterfront. Furthermore, there city population is quite a bit higher than ours. Compare ~478,000 to Buffalo's sub-300,000. Quite frankly, it's not a slant on Buffalo, but like Drew Carrey once said, Cleveland Rocks!

I'm a Buffalo supporter til the end, but let's be serious. The Buffalo-Cleveland comparison is a joke. About all their downtowns have in common is the fact that they rest on Lake Erie. Cleveland's downtown has the "real city" feel each and every one of us would like downtown Buffalo to have. For those of you depending on articles to site vacancy rates- honestly, you have to take the three hour drive and take a peak around. There is FAR more hustle and bustle, three major sports venues downtown, including an NFL stadium smack-dab on the waterfront. Furthermore, their city population is quite a bit higher than ours. Compare ~478,000 to Buffalo's sub-300,000. Quite frankly, it's not a slant on Buffalo, but like Drew Carrey once said, Cleveland Rocks!

OK, I pretty much agree with all of that, with the exception that I think good ideas can be found in other cities that are struggling as much as Buffalo is.

I agree with CRobs that downtown Cleveland, owing to its larger population, does seem a good bit more vital than Buffalo. I have been there quite a few times for business meetings. Overall though, Cleveland is suffering more right now than Buffalo is.

sb16 - That was decided in the early 1960s. Almost 50 years go. Maybe it's time to let go and move on? Just a thought.

SB16 - Don't blame UB for Buffalo's downfall. Expanding UB to a downtown location could have helped, but at that time the Downtown area was much different than it is today. Speculating on what would have happened if UB moved downtown is about as effective as speculating what would have happened if the steel and automotive industries were still thriving in America.

There are a lot of factors beyond the presence of Buffalo State that leads to more success along Elmwood than other areas of the city. The college helps, but it is not the only or even primary factor in the development along Elmwood. Elmwood is different because the people in that area have worked hard to protect it from the scourge that has inflicted the rest of the city. It is still not thriving, but it is surving better than other sections of the city.