Buffalo Rising Online

Aug 2nd 2007, 12:54pm By Chrissy Corrigan

If you ask any member of the proposed Waterfront Weather Center's steering committee about the project that brought them together, it seems each will ultimately end up describing it the same way: Exciting. Happily, progress has been rolling along smoothly, and it's hard to see it any other way.

Don Paul, steering committee member and everyone's favorite weatherman, says the project took shape "like pieces of a pie that came together." Both he and fellow member Craig Turner shared an idea for a "snow museum," which would focus on lake effect and Great Lakes weather. The thought had been marinating, in Paul's case, for about five years. Recently, he connected with Tom Niziol, lifelong WNYer and National Weather Service meteorologist. In a fairly short time period, the committee was formed, including reps from the Buffalo Common Council, Clark Patterson Associates, and various local organizations.

Once the committee came together, community support spread quickly. On March 20, the Common Council, a driving force behind the project led by senior attorney Paul Wold, passed a resolution in "conceptual support." Shortly after, Erie County unanimously passed legislation in support of the project. Additionally, countless municipalities have jumped on board with their own supportive resolutions. "Every council and town this has come before has jumped on board," according to Paul, "with no negative feedback."

Though Paul describes the project as still in "an embryotic stage," part of all the excitement is the virtually unprecedented quickness at which it is gaining momentum. Steve Ranalli, engineer and senior associate at Clark Patterson (with similar "experience centers" on their corporate resume), has sat on plenty of boards and said, "It's difficult to get things to move from ideas, to a real study, to reality." He describes the mere three month period between the abstract idea to the beginnings of the essential feasibility study as moving at "lighting speed."

The ongoing study will outline various costs as well as precisely what would need to happen, mostly financially, for the center to become reality. Already an individual has stepped forward to make personal financial contributions to the study, and a law firm has agreed to do all the "legal hussling" pro bono.

This is hardly just the ever-forward-thinking local cheerleaders getting excited. "It's exciting to hear responsible, level headed politicians...and economic developers getting a little worked up about this too," Paul said. "They're people who have real experience with what's feasible and what's not and have done this before." It was good to know that my frequent and ever-so-eloquent exclamations of "It just sounds SO cool," were being backed by both the people who know their stuff, and those who have the ability to, you know, make real financial contributions.

When Paul discusses plans for the "Weather Experience or Discovery Center" (they're still undecided on a definite name), it's impossible not to share his energy. And Paul hardly practiced the kind of abstract rambling akin to so many seemingly promising proposals of yesterwaterfront, but rather set forth a set of concrete ideas, with a lax enough attitude to keep it from sounding at all rehearsed. He admits time and time again the work that lies ahead, but the long list of tasks in front of the committee do nothing to deter his infectious spirit. He described himself and Niziol, who are new to and energized by the local development game, "like kids" after each meeting.

Paul envisions a center intended to not only draw Niagara Falls and Toronto tourists into the Buffalo area, but also to serve as a stronghold of academic research, with the hopes of involving related departments at area universities. At the time of our meeting, the committee already had plans to meet with a local college.

On the tourist side of things, the committee has drawn up ideas for a series of interactive exhibits that encompass all types of weather, with a special local focus, of course, on the wonders of lake effect storms. "I know the word unique is very overused," said Paul, "but really, we're striving to be unique here."

With plans for an Imax theatre with interactive keyboards to simulate a virtual storm chase (based on real data from actual storms), an "active snow room where people will get to experience a lake effect blizzard, and be supplied by the center with the proper clothing," (Paul even added the possibility of indoor snowball fights) and educational displays on global climate change, just to name a few, the center would absolutely be cause for such a oft-misused term. While various weather centers exist across the country, though most major ones are typically located in Southern states, none have the kind of tourist appeal that the waterfront center would bring nor do they present this kind of tourist/research center hybrid.

A lot of hopes for a large tourist draw are based on plans for a "National Hurricane Museum" being built not too far from New Orleans, which estimates 400,000 visitors per year. Given the huge tourist market of Niagara Falls and Toronto that could easily be tapped into, and the very interactive nature of the center, a Buffalo weather center could see figures far surpassing those of the strictly hurricane-focused center.

Paul sees the blizzard simulation especially as "tremendously marketable to places like Houston and Tampa," where he imagines snowflake-adorned ads for the center, offering a welcome respite from soaring temperatures and unbearable humidity. Additionally, it's easy to see what carefully placed ads in major Falls tourist hubs could do, encouraging hundreds of thousands to make the short trip over to Buffalo.

In addition to providing a wealth of exciting exhibits and resources to draw tourists and local clientèle alike, the center, in an ideal vision, would be totally green. Using solar power, wind power and a concept known as "heat exchange," which utilizes the temperature changes in the lake to heat and cool the building, it would practice precisely what it preached. With those glorious wind turbines visible from the Harbor (the center's proposed location, whether Inner or Outer, to showcase the Lake that gives such an Effect) and wind constantly whipping across the water, harvesting wind power wouldn't exactly be an issue.

In a presentation to the Erie Canal Harbor District Corporation held a few weeks ago and designed to properly introduce the proposal to he board, the committee began a "very good dialogue," said Turner, not only with the Canal group, but with ThinkWell Design and Production. A design firm from Burbank, CA with an impressive vision and client list, to say the very least, they were "very receptive to the idea," according to Turner. And, like so many others who have seen plans for the center, they are, yes, "excited" about an "interesting idea they haven't heard before," a lot coming from a group behind countless major exhibits and performances across the globe.

Of course, the big If, as always, lies with funding. Once the feasibility study is done, it will be time to face raw figures and plausibilities. The committee is currently working on "stepping back and gathering concrete data" as they continue to move "from an idea into a tangible thing," said Turner. A couple of local philanthropists, however, have already showed interest in funding, and work is being done to get bigger organizations involved, though it's all still very hush-hush. With global climate change as a major focus of the center, and the applause-worthy goal of keeping it green, it has all the makings of something funders would want their name on. Few would debate the fact that global warming is the cause-of-the-moment (and the planet can't much afford to have it any other way.)

"The thought of doing this with paltry funding, of doing it halfway, doesn't make it," stressed Paul. He is firmly aware of the challenge ahead but determined to move the project in the direction of an architecturally stunning center for weather research and experience, which would be “in the constant flux of change”. The committee has tossed out the word "museum," which Paul believes is "too stagnant," which the center would be far from.

Paul pointed out that If properly funded, it--like weather--would need no hype. The possibility that the solution to the essential Waterfront Question is on the horizon is--like the raw science of storm chasing-- exciting in and of itself. "There is no single bullet for the waterfront," Paul said, "but we think this thing could be absolutely huge."

Image of proposed exhibit, "You Do The Weather," courtesy of Clark Patterson