After a month of preliminary construction work on the Webster Block, the Buffalo Sabres and HARBORcenter Development LLC officially broke ground Saturday on the new mixed-used hockey and entertainment facility being developed directly in front of the First Niagara Center. The $172 million project will feature two full-size NHL ice rinks, a full-service hotel, a two-story restaurant, street-level retail space and a five-level, 850-space parking structure. The ice rinks, restaurant, and retail stores are scheduled to open in September 2014. The hotel is slated to follow in the spring of 2015.”In the two years since I purchased the Buffalo Sabres, the…
Author: Buffalonian4life
Two properties in two up and coming neighborhoods have new owners. A three-story building at 483 Main Street and a surface parking lot at 933 Michigan Avenue traded hands yesterday.483 Main is the former home of Christian Science Reading Room. Rebecca and Pete McCauley’s 483 Main Street LLC purchased the property for $230,000. It is located adjacent to Martin Group’s new headquarters and Carmina Wood Morris’ six-story building at the corner of Main and W. Mohawk Street. Downtown sources say the new owners are planning to restore the building for a mix of uses.
It’s been the poster child for “neglected” buildings, but Ellicott Development appears ready to move on reuse of the Coffee Rich building at 199 Scott Street. Company officials are scheduled to be at the Planning Board meeting on April 9th to present plans to convert the prominent eight story building into a mixed-use complex anchored by 20 market-rate apartments. According to a draft agenda, Ellicott is also planning a sit-in restaurant, banquet room and offices. The brick building was built in 1920 and has been vacant since the mid-1990’s. Containing approximately 122,000 square feet, it the tallest structure in the…
Construction of the new Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino is moving rapidly towards a November completion date. Crews have nearly finished work on the site’s new parking garage and casino structure. The building’s stone facade will also start to take shape soon. The $130 million project is expected to include 800 slot machines and 16 game tables. In addition, according to the Seneca Gaming website, “visitors will be able to enjoy many of the local flavors for which Buffalo is famous. The menu of the American-style restaurant that will be located in the new casino will feature such signature items as…
Should the Buffalo Sabres get an opportunity to flip on the switches at the First Niagara Center this season, New Wave Energy Corporation will be the company supplying the power. The Sabres announced a partnership with the local natural gas and electricity supplier that is headquartered at 434 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, NY, Tuesday. In accordance with being the official Power Behind the Buffalo Sabres™ the away penalty box will be outfitted with New Wave Energy swag to reinforce the company brand each Sabres power play. “As the Power behind the Buffalo Sabres, New Wave Energy will present our fan base…
The Buffalo Bisons announced that they have signed a two-year agreement with the Toronto Blue Jays to be their Triple-A affiliate, Tuesday.The Bisons were the top farm team in the International League for the New York Mets for the past four seasons, but the move to cut organizational ties with New York and team up with Toronto makes sense geographically and competitively.With a mere 99-miles separating Coca-Cola Field from the Rogers Centre in downtown Toronto, the Blue Jays will have more flexibility in making call-up decisions, while the Bisons will inherit one of the most talent rich minor league systems…
THE BASICS: The New Phoenix Theatre has opened its 2012-13 season with playwright Keith Waterhouse’s adaptation of, and elaboration upon, a minor classic of late Victorian literature, DIARY OF A NOBODY. The play, which was directed by Robert Waterhouse (son of the late playwright), plays weekends at the New Phoenix through October 13th. The show runs approximately two hours with its single intermission. Thursday nights are pay-what-you-can.THUMBNAIL SKETCH: England, 1890’s. A year (or so) in the lives of Charles and Carrie Pooter, striving members of the middle class, shortly following their move to a new house in North London. The…
The Hotel Lafayette was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places. Developer Rocco Termini is in the initial stages of converting the historic property into a mix of banquet and restaurant space, a boutique hotel and apartments. Though faded, the structure was recognized as the most important extant design of Louise Bethune (1856-1913), the first female in the United States to be officially recognized as a professional architect by the American Institute of Architects (1888; Fellow in 1889) and the Western Association of Architects (1885), the two professionally accepted organizations during late-nineteenth century. The original Lafayette Hotel was just half…
The High Line in New York City is open, drawing large crowds to a once sleepy section of the west side and earning rave reviews. The 1.45 mile former elevated rail line, abandoned since 1980, was transformed into an innovative public park and promenade thirty feet over the streets of Manhattan. It doesn’t disappoint. From Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to 20th Street, the first section of the linear green space opened in June 2009 with views of the Hudson River and city skyline. It has been a runaway success. An estimated two million people have experienced the High…
Although the Hydraulics neighborhood continued to thrive into the twentieth-century, by the mid-1900s, the area faced increasing economic difficulties. Like the city of Buffalo as a whole, job loss, declining population and the aging of the transportation infrastructure began to cripple the Hydraulics neighborhood. Times were quickly changing in Buffalo during the post-World War II era. By the 1940s and 50s, the city’s railroads and factories, which had been constructed nearly a century earlier, were rapidly aging and becoming obsolete. Buffalo also suffered from a series of crippling labor strikes which made many industry and business owners leery. Many of…