A large piece of Buffalo History traded hands today. Pierce Arrow LLC purchased the former headquarters of the Pierce Arrow Motor Car Corp. at 1695 Elmwood Avenue. The buyer also picked up a portion of the Pierce assembly plant at 1721-23 Elmwood.
Pierce Arrow LLC paid $3 million for the 132,000 sq.ft. office building and $828,601 for the properties at 1721-23 Elmwood. The sellers were Pierce Arrow Holdings LLC and Pierce Arrow Automobiles Realty LLC.
The buyer is registered to 4706 18th Avenue in Brooklyn the same address as Read Property Group owned by Robert Wolf. It is unclear whether Wolf is the buyer, but here is some background on the firm from The Real Deal:
Read Property Group is a Brooklyn-based real estate developer that was founded in 1993. Read Property has been a prolific builder in Brooklyn in recent years, and some of its gambles have turned into home-runs. In 2014 it successfully flipped a Bushwick site it purchased for $6 million in a foreclosure auction into a $58 million luxury apartment building. The sale was considered a milestone for the up-and-coming Bushwick neighborhood earned Read Property accolades for selling the property before a single unit had been leased. Read Property also has plans to develop the old Rheingold Brewery into a 10-building apartment project, but has faced community backlash for the lack of affordable housing in the project plans. Read would gift some of the lots to a local housing nonprofit in 2015 and also sold off parcels of the project to other developers. Read has not been wedded to New York City, however. In 2014 Read also purchased the 120-unit Windsong Club Apartments for $8.4 million in Florida.
The Pierce office building was designed by Lockwood, Green & Company and built in 1906-1907. It was put on the market last year with a $5 million asking price.
Rocco Termini has redeveloped three former manufacturing complexes nearby including the Houk Lofts on Grote Street and Foundry Lofts and ARCO Lofts on Elmwood.