The Norstar Building, today known as the Bank of America Building, located at 560 Main Street (aka 10 Fountain Plaza), has been nominated to the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places. Ciminelli Real Estate is planning convert nearly all of the nine-story building that opened in November 1982 to residential use.
The historic designation creates opportunity for the Norstar Building to be revitalized to become a catalyst in transforming downtown from a traditional 9-to-5 Central Business District, currently focused on corporate offices, into a Central Connectivity District that emphasizes downtown as an area for socializing, collaborating, and experiencing culture. The designation also unlocks key advantages that make redevelopment more viable and impactful, including:
- Historic preservation incentives: Historic Preservation Certification and listing on the State and National Registers of Historic Places makes the property eligible for certain grants and tax credits that may significantly improve the financial feasibility of redevelopment into a mixed-use building anchored by multifamily housing, and retail and amenity spaces.
- Enhanced redevelopment outlook: The improved financial feasibility outlook supports plans for redeveloping the Norstar Building that complement broader revitalization efforts around Fountain Plaza and the Theater District. This includes projects proposed by Shea’s Performing Arts Center, the expansion of Odoo’s workforce in Fountain Plaza, D’Youville University’s new medical school, and programming by Buffalo Place and Buffalo Urban Development Corporation (BUDC). Together, these initiatives are redefining downtown Buffalo’s identity with an emphasis on living, socializing, collaborating, and cultural experiences.
“It’s a unique opportunity to honor the building’s innovative past while considering its future in an increasingly more vibrant Downtown Buffalo,” said Kyle Ciminelli, President of Ciminelli Real Estate Corporation.
From the National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form prepared by kta preservation specialists:
The Norstar Building is a nine-story steel-framed concrete commercial office building at 560 Main Street in downtown Buffalo. Many of the building’s original materials remain intact to convey its original state as an early 1980s office building designed with cost-conscious energy efficiency as a primary motivation. Although it is less than fifty years old, the Norstar Building meets Criterion Consideration G for its pioneering energy efficient design.
The building was also an important, formative project in the development of the significant architectural career of Mark Mendell (1939-2016), who would go on to serve as President of Cannon Design from 1992 to 2015.
The building’s exterior reflects its site-sensitive design aimed towards energy efficiency in a downtown area. The nine-story tower dominates the site, skewed at a bold angle from the corner of Pearl Street and West Huron Street. The tower rises on a northwest-southeast alignment with regular alternation of ribbon windows and concrete panels under a flat roof. A two and three-story portion extends to the sidewalk at the pedestrian level along Pearl Street, running northsouth along Pearl Street on the southwest side of the tower. The recessed main entrance sits at the junction of the tower and the shorter portion, at an angle accessed from West Huron Street, up a wide set of concrete stairs. Pre-cast concrete panels divide each floor. A ribbon of single-pane glass windows wraps around the building beneath the panels, topped by sections of pale gray painted aluminum. Floors lack variation. Bold siting and geometry of the building’s massing defines the exterior. The tower’s northeastern profile is predominantly flush. The southwestern combines recessed windows for shade with light shelves that project indirect light into the interior.
A few years after the building was completed, the building was connected to adjacent buildings via a system of elevated skywalks. The skywalks, which are outside the period of significance, are external, ending at the building’s exterior walls, and are not considered part of the property. They have been excluded from the nomination.
A second-story enclosed skywalk connects to the adjacent Hyatt (Genesee Building) across West Huron Street to the south; a second-story enclosed skywalk connects to the Augspurger Parking ramp to the west across Pearl Street; a connecting glass corridor was constructed to the north to the Key Bank Center towers circa 2000. Two large garage doors on the west elevation of the two-story portion near the northwest corner can be accessed from Pearl Street.
The interior plan of the Norstar Building reflects its pioneering design and its status as the first major energy-efficient tall commercial office building in downtown Buffalo. Central entrances on the northeast and southwest access a tile-floored central lobby flanked by offices to the southeast and northwest. An atrium skylight spills natural light down to the ground floor. Stairwells paired with elevator lobbies flank the northeastern entrance. A mezzanine corridor overlooks the lobby.
The plans of the upper floors in the tower are very similar, reflecting the desire for maximum flexibility. The stairwells and elevators peg the center of each floor and tiled bathrooms sit between them. A corridor wraps around the floor on most floors, with non-structural partitions defining offices along the exterior walls. On the third and fifth floors, the corridor has been given over to additional office spaces on one side and an open floor plan. Offices are divided by drywall partition walls, in some cases with single-pane glass facing the corridor such as on portions of the fifth and sixth floors. The corridors and most of the offices are carpeted. Acoustic panel dropped ceilings are in most of the offices, as is energy-efficient fluorescent lighting. A vacant location on the east end of the sixth floor contains acoustic panel dropped ceilings with smaller square panels, as well as nine-light inset lighting fixtures.
The windows are character-defining for their energy-efficient, site-specific design and orientation and are intact in their original configuration and materials throughout. A light shelf system is visible inside the building, demonstrating their (for the early 1890s) innovative design aimed towards energy consciousness. The windows differ between the northeast and southwest elevations, indicating their relationship to building orientation to maximize or minimize sun and wind exposure. The profile of the windows on the north is basically flush with the exterior wall, while the windows on the south are recessed into the wall. Looking from inside a typical office through a window on the south side of the building, the light shelves are clearly visible as an extended, angled exterior sill. At the transom level above, the system is visible as a glass box used to redistribute incoming light reflected by the shelves below. This distinctive system is clearly intact on each floor of the building.
Context: Buffalo’s Downtown Revitalization, 1970s-1980s
The construction of the Norstar Building represented a major investment in revitalizing the commercial and civic life of downtown Buffalo. It was among the first new buildings to be constructed as part of a decades-long investment in the economic growth of downtown Buffalo, catalyzing much of the future design approaches and commitment to increasing public and commercial activity in downtown Buffalo in the post-Urban Renewal era.
In the 1970s, Buffalo was reeling from the loss of jobs, population, and businesses. Northern downtown grew shabby as tenants relocated and key properties fell into city hands due to tax foreclosure. The construction and architecture industries also suffered, as there was a major lag in development as well. At a time when much of downtown had been neglected, vacant, or abandoned, politicians and business leaders recognized that a major overhaul of the commercial and office amenities of the area was required to attract investment. As the city struggled to devise a new identity, plans came together later in the decade. With the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA) metro rail under construction from 1979-1984, vehicular traffic was closed off on Main Street in favor of the public transit railway. When the rail line opened between 1984 and 1986, downtown Buffalo was undergoing a major transformation that began, at least in part, with the construction of the Liberty Norstar Building and then Fountain Plaza.
With the help of federal tools to assist depressed cities, Buffalo developed a plan for a new commercial center. With congressional assistance, the city secured a commitment from the Hyatt Corporation to build a new Hyatt Hotel at Genesee Street, making use of an older building that would be rehabilitated. Buffalo Savings Bank announced plans for a new headquarters building adjacent to its original gold-domed building in 1979. And, in 1980, Liberty Bank announced its willingness to build a new building downtown, if the city could agree to rebuild the blocks between Genesee and Chippewa.
The city reached out to the community for guidance in the development of four new buildings, a large urban plaza and a new parking ramp. Mayor James Griffin invited Graphic Controls CEO William M. E. Clarkson to chair a Main-Genesee Task Group (MGTG) to represent the city, to work with the five architects and their clients, and to recommend building site plans and designs that would make the most of this rare opportunity to create a new downtown neighborhood. Clarkson agreed and brought on contractor Henry Balling, downtown leader and attorney Robert D. Fernbach, Acting Dean of the UB School of Architecture Alfred Price, artist Virginia Tillou, and NFTA chair Allen Dekdebrun to serve as task group members. Staffed by successive Community Development commissioners Larry Quinn, Jim Militello, Fred Fadel and Larry Rubin from 1980 to 1991, the MGTG influenced the architects and clients to build projects not just for their own use, but to function as a unit and to be a new place for downtown activity that would instill civic pride.
Clarkson and the city’s team wanted a space that would be an outdoor attraction in downtown with a year-round identity. Goals were established for a public ice rink, a community Christmas tree, a major fountain/artwork element, and a public plaza all connected by second floor pedestrian bridges. Design work had progressed on the four private buildings, but the task group convinced the owners to submit their designs to wind tunnel testing to be sure they would lessen the most difficult weather condition in downtown—wind rushing off Lake Erie. Design adjustments were made to ensure that building entries, public plazas, and the ice rink would be visitor-friendly, even in January. The Norstar Building played a major role in this, as it was innovatively sited to provide a windscreen.
The Norstar Building was the first completed portion of the larger project intended to revitalize this part of downtown Buffalo. Its opening coincided with and encouraged renewed financial investment in the area. By 1982-1983, the Main-Genesee district was expected to generate a total of $7.4 million in new, private capital investment, with an additional $15.5 million in the broader nineteen-block precinct. Benefits estimated from the area’s development included 550 construction jobs and eight hundred and fifty new permanent jobs, with the city expecting nearly a half million dollars per year in revenues from property taxes.
After the Norstar Building was constructed, the city Task Group proceeded to design a public plaza and outlined a site plan for an additional building to complete the Chippewa side of the block, but a developer did not immediately come forward. The city cleared the site in 1983, planting grass for a temporary lawn until the climate was right for additional development. In 1987, Key Bank announced plans to develop Key Center, north of the nominated building. They searched for an experienced developer and selected CitiCom of Toronto. Although Key Bank secured sufficient tenant interest for one tower, the city was able to support construction of the shell for a second planned tower, allowing design and construction of the public plaza and ice rink to proceed at the same time. Clarkson and the task group worked with the city to design the plaza, rink, and fountain, raising public and private funds for their construction. The fountain was constructed with limited funds and sweat equity with the director of the Buffalo Arts Commission David More, Stuart Dawson of Sasaki Associates, designers of the Fountain Plaza public space, and Clarkson personally selecting individual granite blocks from remnants at the quarry in Minnesota and arranging for them to be shipped to Buffalo by rail. Fountain Plaza, Rotary Rink, and Key Center opened to the public in 1991. The second tower at Key Center was built out in 2000, fully completing the Fountain Plaza project. By that time, connections, many of them through interconnected skyways, linked these buildings together so that people could travel through them without going inside in the harsh winter weather.
Cannon Design: A Leader in Energy-Efficient Architecture
The Norstar Building was an important, formative project in the development of the significant architectural career of Mark Mendell and the firm of Cannon Design, a firm that maintains an industry-leading commitment to sustainable design today. Cannon also designed two other major buildings in the region around the same time as the Norstar Building: the Buffalo Metropolitan Transportation Center in downtown Buffalo (1977) and the Occidental Chemical Building in downtown Niagara Falls (1980). Both buildings influenced Cannon’s approach to energyefficiency at the Norstar Building, albeit in different ways. Together, they all demonstrate the firm’s pioneering approaches to energy-conscious design and continued commitment to improving energy efficiency in commercial architecture at a time when many firms were not placing these elements at the core of their design motivations.
The building won several awards for its innovative approaches to energy efficiency: the OwensCorning Energy Conservation Award (1982); Illuminating Engineering Society North America Lighting Design Award, Great Lakes Region (1984); U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs Special Commendation Project of the Year Award (1983); and Construction Specifications Institute Project of the Year Award (1983). The breadth of these awards demonstrates the multifaceted design approaches to the overarching umbrella of ‘energy efficiency.’ In some cases, the building was one of only a few to receive awards in the nation (Owens-Corning Energy Conservation Award; in others, it was highlighted for its “unusually site sensitive” approach to design (AIA), or its unprecedented energy efficiency for lighting schemata in the region (Illuminating Engineering Society).
The Norstar Building today is only about half occupied, mostly as offices by Bank of America employees. Cannon Design is headquartered in Key Center next door.
Early Design for Liberty Bank’s HQs at Main and Huron Streets.