Four development teams gathered this evening in the Mary Seton Room at Kleinhans Music Hall to present to the public their proposals for the reuse of Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo. The property includes seven interconnected buildings between Bryant Street and Hodge Avenue. Also included are several properties on West Utica Street. A fifth proposal from Pyramid Brokerage was rejected because it proposed reuse of only a portion of the site. The meeting opened with Mike Hughes, Senior Vice President at Kaleida, who stated, “these are very exciting times for our community.” Concerns of neighbors, leaders and citizens are…
Author: Holly Metz Doyle
Spring of 2016 will see the next phase in Executive Properties’ infill project on Buffalo’s West Side. Plans for a new single family home at 568 Seventh Street have been released. Additionally, two duplexes on the North and South East corners of Pennsylvania Street and Prospect Avenue are planned, as well as another single family residence. Executive Properties’ President, Joel Giambra, describes their design as “pseudo-custom builds.” He and his team feel this approach provides a unique opportunity to homeowners to be a part of the design process and put their own touches on their new homes. Executive Properties’ builders…
December saw the first residential tenants of 500 Seneca Street plant their feet, unpack their bags and settle in to make the Hydraulic Lofts their home. Luke Cusack, Property Manager for Savarino Companies, says that although no formal marketing has been done at this point, news is spreading and tenants are reserving their spots. The complex will include approximately 100 residential units, half of which are already spoken for. Not surprisingly, Cusack says the building is attracting empty nesters looking to downsize, as well as young urban professionals. Althea Luehrsen is the CEO of Leadership Buffalo whose office occupies one…
Pending approval by the Buffalo Planning, Preservation and Zoning Boards, 291 North LLC, will purchase the former Nazareth Home of the Franciscan Sisters Building at 279-291 North and 298 Summer Streets from Uniland (see background) who purchased the property for $1 million earlier this year. Uniland spokesperson Jill Pawlik states that, “We are in negotiations at this point,” with a deal not yet finalized. Michael O’Rourke and Buffalo native Andy Plant, founders of Westmont Living, a West Coast based senior living community, have partnered with Buffalonian and half-brother to Plant, Bill Reich to bring Westmont Living to Buffalo. Reich will…
Just passed by the Buffalo Zoning Board is the latest venture for Executive Properties, Olmsted Apartments. The 2.5 million dollar privately funded project will be located at 494-502 Seventh Street, between Pennsylvania and Jersey streets and will be composed of two three-story buildings with ten rental units per building. Each walk-up unit is anticipated to be 1,400 square feet with two bedrooms and two baths, as well as an attached garage per unit for one car. Each building will have two handicapped accessible units and between the two buildings will be a common courtyard. The project is scheduled to be…
I have often given more than an idle thought to seeing an acupuncturist for medicinal relief of occasional ailments. As the saying goes, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat,” and like many folks, I despise big Pharma and know that often, though admittedly not always, there are alternatives to the drugs and pills that are typically dispensed by western doctors as the solution to a problem. Through a little internet research, I found the basic description of acupuncture as a form of Chinese medicine, practiced for centuries and based on the theory that energy, chi, flows through…
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian born inventor and engineer who is best known for his contributions to alternating current (AC) electrical transmission. He briefly worked with Thomas Edison, but the two had a well known parting of ways over AC/DC transmission known as the “War of Currents”. Nikola Tesla’s work has deep roots right here in Western New York. 2280 Niagara Street is home to Terminal A, the site of the world’s first Bulk Power Transmission Receiving Station which allowed Tesla’s three-phase alternating AC electrical transmission to travel and deliver electricity over long distances. Terminal A received electrical transmission from…
I had the pleasure of walking through the three-story J.R. Barrington Building, formerly known as the Birzon Building at 686 Main Street this week. I have watched the progress of this building all summer long with anticipation and crazy curiosity and was glad to put on a hard hat to check it out. There is quite a bit of history to this building built in 1901, with a unique characteristic of the structure dating back to the 1930’s when it was owned by the Mendelson Furniture Company. Mendelson built a two-story, brick and cedar-shingle house inside the building to showcase…
The vacant lot at the corner of Grant and Potomac is showing signs of progress with the plans of a three-story residential/commercial property staked on the premises. HES Properties, owned by brothers Chris and Matt Siano, purchased the lot at 363 Grant Street from the City and, as previously reported by Buffalo Rising, has plans for the second and third floors to be devoted to five apartments per floor with one apartment on the ground floor as well as a 2,500 ft. commercial space yet to be leased. According to site architect John Wingfelder, plans were just finalized to install…
“First comes thought, then organization of that thought into ideas and plans, then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.” ~ Napoleon Hill In Mark Goldman’s imagination twenty four years ago was a plan to transform Chippewa Street in downtown Buffalo from what many people described as a red light district into an entertainment center of the city. Goldman purchased the Calumet Building in 1988 and the rest is Buffalo history. During the 1990’s, Chippewa had an energetic and dynamic nightlife. The area was a fun, eclectic and safe place to…