Buffalo Rising Online

I think this is absolutely terrible and the taxpayer money shouldnt be given to Snyder unless he redevelops the Hyatt as a mixed use building of Hotel, Office and Residential.

As long as the Hyatt remains a full hotel...then Snyder will continue to hold Buffalo and Erie County back from getting a new 450,000 sqft Convention and Conference Center (which must be at a different location).

As long as the Hyatt remains a full hotel...then Snyder will not get rid of the Atrium restaurant and reopen Genessee Street (which is important if not critical for the success of the Genessee Gateway Project, the Statler and a new office tower in place of the current convention center)

Furthermore, contrary to the Buffalo News article, downtown can support almost double the number of hotel rooms downtown if the Light Rail were connected to the Central Terminal, Galleria and the 6 million Airport travelers.

I thought the Buffalo News article was a shame for the objectivity and reputation of the newspaper. The article was basically a paid opinion piece on behalf of Snyder that no hotels should be built because they might take away from Snyders Hyatt ... and no light rail should be extended because it could take away from snyder/palladino parking lots.

Convert the Hyatt to mixed use like the Dulski, knock down the atrium, reopen genessee treet and let the convention center relocate to a new and bigger facility at the rewatered ohio basin. Buffalo needs more conferences, conventions, tourism venues and hotels. A new ohio basin convenion/conference/hotel center could be a tourism venue unto itself.

The truth is that Snyder is holding Buffalo back acting in his own interest instead of using his talents and is business to propel Buffalo forward. Buffalonians should be intelligent enough to differentiate power and greed from good citizenship and good civil leadership.

The state should not be involved in picking winners and losers in the downtown hotel market.

They should reposition this building as condos. No matter what they do they will still have to compete against the new Waterfront Village motel 8

Steel, I actually agree with you for once.

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The fact that taxpayer money is being used is laughable. Paul Snyder is part of that "old gaurd" that is holding Buffalo back. The sooner a new hotel opens the better. As someone who has done events there, I know for a fact most of my [ex] clients are drooling for a new location for balls and Events. The Hyatt is just an eyesore and shabby. Not keeping the bar in the Lobby also speaks volumns about the hotel, name one "tanker" hotel in any city that does not have a cocktail lounge in the Lobby area? The "atrium" is probably the most dated and ugly part of the hotel, look at it closely, water leaks, dirty windows and faces a desolate empty few blocks of Main street. The only high point of the place is the staff, great group of people who bend over backwords to help anyone out and make sure a person is happy. It is to bad that the "Statler" keeps falling through, that location with the amount of beautiful banquet, bar, lounge and lobby space, along with the shear amount of rooms for hotel/condo/mixed use would bring back a life that the city center has not seen in decades. The fact that people are scrambling to book events at the new "Birchfield" proves that Buffalo is ready for new, upscale and well run party/event space.

A fitness center in the atrium?

Tear down the atrium , put the street in, and make this thing condo. What a freaking waste.

If this project didn't work in the first place what's new and diferent now and that makes another huge investment justified??? Is anything ever going to change in Buffalo? This makes me sick.

Check out the reviews for the Hyatt on various travel sites. Most give the hotel low scores, primarily because of the 1980s decor of the rooms, and the lack of a swimming pool and on-site fitness facilities.

The reason for the atrium was that in the era it was built, all Hyatt hotels had a large John Portman-style central atriums; it was a trademark of the chain. The original plans for the Buffalo Hyatt involved tearing down the Genesee and Victor's buildings, and building a new, then-contemporary Hyatt with the usual central atrium. A central atrium would have been impossible with a retrofit of the existing strucutres, so the greenhouse-like atrium was used as a compromise for the Genesee and Victor's to be saved. Atriums are no longer a Hyatt trademark, so one barrier to removing the greenhouse has been lifted.

This Hyatt should be condemned...When i brought the girlfriend back to buffalo for a long weekend we stayed there, and at the doubletree on the canadian side of the falls. The doubletree was more a bit more expensive, and for good reason. This hotel is joke. It's faded and uncomfortable. The rooms are plain and unwelcoming. The beds aren't even close to acceptable.

Honestly, I'm amazed Hyatt hasn't pulled their flag from this chain ages ago

There are mostly negative reviews on TripAdvisor--see the link below.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g60974-d93122-r22262031-Hyatt_Regency_Buffalo-Buffalo_New_York.html

The review about the wedding being shut down is hilarious!

NO TAXPAYER MONEY FOR PRIVATE GAIN. if the city has to make subsidies and basically has to give money away to these hotels for them to stay in buisness, they are obviously doing somthing wrong. that, or there is not much demand for them. either way, we are not helping, we are just throwing money at a problem that will not go away. in a few years they will be wanting more money. and then after that, more. LET THE FREE MARKET WORK! what the heck are we doing wasting millions on hotel rooms?? how about cleaning up the Parks? bettering Education? Better funding for firefighters and police officers? god to we need political change in this city.

I am glad to know that my new assessment (up 50%) is going to subsidize another failing business adventure which is co-authored jointly by the city and the private sector. Noone would notice if the Hyatt went under and became vacant because it would look like the rest of Main Street. While Brown and the council blame the unions and their contracts for the demise of the city perhaps they should look no further than some of the foolish ideas that they have financed and refinanced with public (tax) contributions. If you turn on the civic television station (ch 22) that Brown has made into his free personal campaign channel you would think that Buffalo is on the verge of a renaissance. Buffalo will never change until you have a complete change of elected leadership on the second floor and in the council chambers. Everyone of these elected officials shares responsibility in directing a failing government. The best part is not one of them is embarrassed by the service that they are in charge of directing. There is not a leader among them.

I am still so disappointed that the city did not follow through on its award winning master plan by recommending this redesign incorporate a removal of the atrium to include a partial reconnection of genesee. The urban fabric in this city has been severed and destroyed in pasrt due to these past mistakes..When will we ever learn?

The Hyatt doesn't have a pool? I seem to remember a field trip where we went there to swim in the pool. Very educational, I know. I remember it being in the little glass enclosure in the first picture. It was cool because you were swimming on top of the city.

I still remember Buffalo Place telling us at a meeting at ECC around 2001 in regards to 'Cars Sharing Main Street' that when Main Street DOES get moving on re-introducing traffice back to the street that the owner of the HYATT had agreed to move the Atrium over to it's Huron/Pearl Side and make room for traffic both on Main and Genesee St. ...So what happend????????? Lies as always.

Taxpayers must demand an end to subsidies for business. They are counterproductive and go against the whole concept of the marketplace. IDA's should be the first to go to create a level playing field. Also end taxpayer support of sprawl (which is really difficult to quantify) and funnel PUBLIC dollars into sustainable communities. Then the Hyatt would make or break on its own merits.

Yeah, that was never in the recent plans for "cars sharing main street". It would be a great move. Instead the fitness center prevails. What a great use of a public right of way. good grief.

So how narrow will the sidewalk be once traffic comes to the Main & Huron Block around the Hyatt? Yikes!

Point of clarification- the atrium restaurant/lounge will remain. The fitness center is going into the former Genesee Bar space which is within the old Genesee Building portion of the complex- accessed from the atrium, but facing Main Street.