After months of maddening delay, Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME) has started construction on a development project which will change the face of the highly visible Main-Ferry intersection.
Within a week of taking title to the property in January, HOME’s general contractor Lamparelli Construction began removed of asbestos and lead from within the architecturally significant three-story building at 1542 Main and an adjoining two-story structure on West Ferry. On February 26 the contractor began removal of the Ferry Street structure–to make way for a new three-story addition to the Main Street building.
Architects Charles Gordon and Robert Conway have used New York State’s Green Building Initiative to design the project, which will provide more than 3,000 square feet of barrier-free office space for the regional civil rights agency as well as ten units of energy-efficient barrier-free affordable housing.
The nearly $2.9 million project has garnered support from the State of New York, the City of Buffalo, and the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York as well as the Margaret L. Wendt Foundation, the Mulroy Family Foundation, the M&T Bank Foundation, the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, the Western New York Foundation, and more than 50 individual donors. Estimates are that the project should be completed by December 2011.
Housing Opportunities Made Equal is a civil rights organization whose mission is to promote diversity and assure the people of Western New York an equal opportunity to live in the housing and communities of their choice. Working under government contract, HOME provides fair housing education, advocacy and enforcement in seven counties of Western New York.
Get Connected: HOME, 716.854.1400