Buffalo Rising Online

Oh - how awesome a roof-top garden.

this is great, with at least three restaurants already goin in here the addition of a 4th with patrons coming from the offices this area should finally begin to spring to life

Does roof garden mean Green Roof? I hope so! Another great re-use of another solid old building. Too bad there weren't more buildings around here left to get renovated or provide more residential options. It is tough to build a district around a single block of surviving structures. The view out your window is less than glamorous.

They start as rentals... so probably no estimate yet on a purchase price. I wish more of these would start as condos from the get-go. There are many people that would be willing to buy a nice condo, but are not willing to fork over money in rent.

Holy shit did they say that they are starting construction this week!

^^agreed. there is no reason why this area cant be just as vibrant than Elmwood

Hey, I hope you folks got a free month's rent for the plug.

Hey, I hope you folks got a free month's rent for the plug.

friggen sweet!

The problem with new construction is it costs much more than a renovation project. For the amount of space created renovations always seem to be cheaper. That is why there have been few residential in-fill projects built from the ground up in Downtown. Rocco's building over on Ellicott is the only building (I can think of) constructed downtown for the purpose of new residential units. If we had just 2-5 buildings on these blocks it would go a long way to creating a whole neighborhood which infill would hopefully follow. SoHo, the distillery district and others were not developed from the ground up but took advantage of building they didn't demolish to grow a market for the point where infill would be supported. The cobblestone could have had that... but unlike other cities we demolish everything as first opportunity leaving us with little left to build a future from. So I don't much else happening in the cobblestone district long time without sometime with DEEP pockets stepping in to take over a whole block.

Having these huge open single parcel sites create a level on investment that scares potential developers away. It is much less of a risk to develop one building than an entire block. The difference between loosing some money and going totally bankrupt. That is why these blocks have laid dormant for so long and exactly the reason why you see (residential) development happening almost exclusively where existing buildings are. The urban planning and development principles that created these huge block sites are the same that built the Main Place Mall, The convention center (huge public investments) etc. When it was progressive to demolish whole swaths of downtown to make room for new enlightened development. We see where that got us...

It is like those people at a certain business I wont name ;) who feel that should just demolish a wonderful old building they recently bought. All people see if a vacant building, few have the vision to see the potential in them. Even when these same people walk by a huge success story every day on the other side of their building. They just can't fathom that an old building is worth being reused. The roof is collapsed... tear it down and build new.. but even then a new building needs to have a roof so you have to build a new roof either way.. might as well put it on the old building and save yourself the demolition and landfill costs.

Sbrof... I always thought renovation was much much more expensive than new builds??? Especially large scale with buildings like this?

About time someone put a restaurant this close the arena... good god... I would like to see a hotel a little closer too!! Wasn't there a plan to convert the hsbc atrium???

The lack of available buildings in the immediate cobblestone area really stinks... but I could totally see the city owned parking lots infront of the arena and across the street from this development being sold together and make into something "Eaton Center" esque...there is a lot of potential for the cobblestone district

Sbrof... I always thought renovation was much much more expensive than new builds??? Especially large scale with buildings like this?

About time someone put a restaurant this close the arena... good god... I would like to see a hotel a little closer too!! Wasn't there a plan to convert the hsbc atrium???

The lack of available buildings in the immediate cobblestone area really stinks... but I could totally see the city owned parking lots infront of the arena and across the street from this development being sold together and make into something "Eaton Center" esque...there is a lot of potential for the cobblestone district

Great project - looks awesome. It will be an important link in the Cobblestone neighborhood. Bravo!

Tear down the Perry Projects

It is all dependent on what you are trying to build. If you want to tear down the Richardson Towers and build a Wal-Mart sure it is probably cheaper but if you are going to put any sort of effort, detail or quality construction into a site then costs to renovate are usually cheaper than new construction. Look at the cost of those homes they are building in the Sycamore Village. They are going to sell for 85k - 100k because that is how much it is going to cost to build them. Where as you can renovate pretty much the worst care scenario for a typical home for 60k or less. Habitat for Humanity, which relies on volunteers and donations to build homes only can get the costs down, "the average cost to construct a local (Iowa) Habitat home is $71,000" (maybe lower than that here but probably not by much) and those are often very small, single story homes.

While the demo of the blocks does prove to be a set back in piece meal renovations, it does open up the opportunity to be creative with parking. The drawback with the existing buildings is that you usually get and exposed gated lot breaking up the street next to them.

The exposed block, if large enough (or if paired with another and the center street turned into an alley) can conseal a great amount of parking while still having all the street fronts filled with buildings up to the street.

Similar to the South Block infill in Lockport with the Ulriuch City Center. They did stop short of putting buildings on the east border street (Locust), but the north and south border street buildings (Main and Walnut) are up to the street with the parking lot sandwhiched in between them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/underneatheverything/174792531/in/set-72057594117162677/ Google Earth still shows way back when they were breaking ground: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Lockport,+NY,+United+States+of+America&ie=UTF8&ll=43.169407,-78.691308&spn=0.002598,0.003535&t=h&z=18&iwloc=addr&om=1

As mentioned above these projects are high risk in our area and would involve some gov't support to get them off the ground. But if done in a comprehensive manner could transform an area into an urban area while still retaining parking. They may not be the cool old buildings that I adore so much, but can go along way and are desireable to a lot of people who want new.

Very interesting. I would buy!

People better buy these up quick, they are gonna be right across the street when Jim Kelly and I move the Bills downtown :-)

Does anyone know if these plans are the Carmina & Wood plans that were shown in an earlier thread? If not could someone attribute the plans so we know who's doing them? I know its nitpicking, but its nice to know who's doing the work in the city, especially conversions and green development.