A breath of fresh air is blowing down Delaware Avenue. Glass has made an appearance at 620 Delaware Avenue – a Benderson Development project that is slated to reopen as a Residence Inn by Marriott. Up until this point, the building looked as if it should have been located out by the airport, or near UB’s swamp campus. The facade of the former Holiday Inn, facing Delaware, was a disgrace, with no windows overlooking one of the most historic vistas in the city. Instead, windows faced north and south, with excellent vantage points onto neighboring Walgreens. Yikes.
Once up and operational, the new Residence Inn by Marriott will have a much better interaction with the street, as it should be.
From a May 2017 BRO post:
The eight-story building has been owned by Benderson since 1966 since its construction. Hart Hotels operated the 167-room hotel under a lease with Benderson that was not renewed. Benderson-owned Buffalo Lodging LLC will reduce the number of rooms by 62. All public spaces, including the hotel lobby, space on the ground to be occupied by Starbucks, and mechanicals will be updated. An outdoor pool will be enclosed.
The building façade will consist of brick veneer, reinforced concrete precast elements at the base, and a decorative spandrel glass panel system to cap the building as cornice and trim details. Building colors will consist of natural brown brick, grey precast material, and solar grey glass with an off-white metal panel system as accenting trim and cornices.
A vertical Residence Inn sign was proposed as an architectural element on the Delaware Avenue façade. It would be internally illuminated with halo lit maroon lettering which would illuminate white at night. There would also be a Residence Inn ground sign at the southern driveway, two Starbucks roof-mounted signs, and two small and round Starbucks pedestrian scale blade signs on the north and east elevations.