Buffalo Rising Online

Close enough to D'youville for them to buy for apartments?

could we get inside shots as well?? i'd like to see the condition

I've always believed that D'Youville should grab this property. They would be a great steward to the building and plus they would fix up yet another block on Connecticut St. They are already doing a stellar job cleaning up the neighborhood, why not continue doing what is already working.

Hooray more lofts.

Wait a minute. Were they or were they not asking for far less for a building full of antiques? $375k IIRC.

Now they're asking more for an almost empty building, interesting.

As fas as the neighborhood supporting lofts - just a few years ago I would have bet that the Elk Terminal area would NEVER support lofts... Obviously, I was wrong. If that area can support it (to great success), I would think this area could.

Parking Lot, Parking Lot, Parking Lot, no one will want to live there!

This property has been for sale for over 3.5 years! When I first looked at it (through Hasting and Cohen) in early 2005 it was priced at $349,000. About 1 year later the price went up to $450,000. Not sure if this guy really wants to sell the building, but it usually helps to LOWER the price when a property does not sell, not keep raising it!

Nothing is as it seems with this building, or the business. He's had a 'going out of business' sale off and on for the last few years, while attending, and buying, at almost every auction. He's been in and out of retirement as often as Garth Brooks/Roger Clemens/any title holding boxer c. 1985. Once is understandable, three or four times with the local tv statiions 'oh...poor horsefeather's, they can't make it in the city and will close after this sale...' makes it part of the business plan.

Keep in mind that the currently the building is assessed for taxes at $75,000 and pays a little over $3,000 per year. If the city re-assesses the building at say $499,000, the taxes will jump to over $22,000. If any improvement is made to the building, basically add in 4.5% of that cost per year.

I'm becoming a big advocate of the proposal in Florida to wipe out property taxes and raise the sales tax, property transfer tax and car registration fees.

I do think rising is on to something, ... however, I don't think the seller woulld have difficulty finding a schmuck, we have plenty of those, it's the far rarer schmuck's-with-money we seem to be lacking. By the way, I'd join the cheering seciton.

this is a terrible area - lets concentrate on getting Elmwood together first before we start building lofts on the lower west side, place looks like a war zone.

This building is worth no more that 200k on a good day.

This isn't a terrible area, and it doesn't look like a war zone. It looks like an area that's slowly starting to gentrify, anchored by a large and growing institution (D'Youville).

I have no idea whether lofts would work here, but I do know that I was able to rent out an apartment nearby on Jersey Street after less than a week of looking for a tenant, and at a 20% increase from the previous rent.

I'd hold off on this one guys...after talkin to the realator the conversion costs to make it ready to be flipped for residential housing are over a million...meaning it would cost (without bargaining) over 1.5 million (plus realator fees, closing costs, etc) just to get it ready to fix. IDK about you but that is too much for something in this location...

There is a reason this has sat on the market for almost 4 yrs. As for the listing price, OutsidelookingIn is correct, it was listed for $350K. If you check out loopnet, it might be listed at that price still.

Any developer would look at this building and ask themselves two fundamental questions; (1) Will a project work in this location, and (2) can the project costs be justified by future cash flows. In this case, I’m afraid the response would be a resounding no.

Not to mention we may be seeing the initial indicators of softening in the downtown residential market. To keep downtown’s residential renaissance moving, developers must take on projects in quality locations at reasonable project budgets to allow for competitive rents. We can’t expect demand for $1,000+/mo. lofts in a poor location, simply because the building in question is architecturally significant, and aesthetically pleasing.

Buffalo needs to start demolishing these buidlings and grain elevaotrs instead of trying to save everything. Move into the 21st century.

I bet someone could pick up Lackawanna Council Woman Andrea Haxton's condemned building at the corner of Ridge and Ingham for a much lower price.