Comments on: Let’s Sue

By: wholesale fishing equipment

wholesale fishing equipment — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:26:12 +0000

wholesale fishing equipment…

I enjoyed reading your blog. It is so interesting reading other peoples personal take on a subject….

By: SuEllen

SuEllen — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 04:24:30 +0000

PLEASE! Develop sports fishing down there, ice fishing the works. Just don’t bring in a strip mall w/ yet another Banana Republic & maybe a Cheesecake Factory. Ugh, might as well let Rick Snowden bring in the whores.

By: BuffaloPundit » Blog Archive » Weeds and Asphalt

BuffaloPundit » Blog Archive » Weeds and Asphalt — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 01:13:34 +0000

[…] I think most people who have seen the Canal Side renderings might balk at using a term - “big box” - that is more commonly associated with such things as shopping center BJs and Wals Mart. Parking structures, visible from and adjacent to the street, are even more detrimental. Not only are people disinterested in reaching restaurants, entertainment venues and other evening offerings overshadowed by such realities, investors shy away from opening public-dependent businesses in their vicinities. Evening entertainment â€” which begins to live and breathe at 9 â€” has little chance at thriving. […]

By: steve

steve — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 18:55:17 +0000

Hank –

We can’t get a “clean deal” because we are typically not a prime market for anyone. The cost of doing business is high all across NY. We have buckets o’ brownfields waiting to remediated and claimed, but that too costs money. And, we have a government/political structure that seems designed to scare the bejeebers out of anyone with an idea.

So, how do we get these folks to look at us? Money. IDA tax breaks, state and federal incentives of all flavors, NYPA power, and on and on and on. I don’t know that I’d ever shop at a Bass Pro anywhere (since, so far, they don’t sell golf equipment), but I’d guess they are getting no different treatment or incentives than would be or have been offered to all manner of companies. Look at what was put on the table to get Geico here. Ingram Micro. Hell, we emptied the cupboard for that German (I think) firm to open a chemical plant on the vacant site of a former chemical plant in Niagara Falls, and still they turned us down.

Bass Pro or (insert company name here) probably doesn’t need us nearly as much as we need them. So long as the scale is tilted that way, incentives are the cost of being in the game.

Let me close with a question. Would people feel differently about the subsidies if the name on the door was, say, Intel?

By: hank kaczmarek

hank kaczmarek — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 13:24:20 +0000

Steve, that’s just the point. Buffalo and WNY are marks for businesses with a penchant for shaking down local government to increase their bottom line. Why can’t Buffalo get a “Clean Deal” from a private business? What makes WNY the Patsy?

By: steve

steve — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 21:10:02 +0000

Hank — What makes you think IKEA will simply come here on their own? Unfortunately, our current economy makes “corporate welfare” somewhat necessary — bait, if you will, to attract a business to an area it otherwise wouldn’t look at. Name one significant business that has located here (or most anywhere in upstate NY) in the last 20 years without some form of subsidy.

I don’t like it, but if that’s what it takes to float our economic ship up off the bottom, then so be it.

As for “doing it right,” who decides what is right? Again, waiting for everyone to agree on “right” assures nothing will get done.

By: Mike Hudson

Mike Hudson — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:30:22 +0000

the bottom line is that few things get built in our neck of western new york because outside developers have only to read the local papers or stop by the country club bar in sands point or boca raton to hear the latest horror stories about the last group that tried to do business here. there wouldn’t be any big box stores if tons of people didn’t go to them, and the property in question wouldn’t have been a vacant lot for the past half century if some of those now freely criticising and talking about their wonderful ideas had come foreward previously and put their plans into action. why can’t they build it at the aud? why can’t you go live five miles from where you live. you don’t want to. i find it curious that no one here is talking about the jobs that will be created in the center of the city. and yes, the public funding is a potential problem. but commenting on, much less taking a position on a deal one hasn’t seen seems irresponsible at best.

By: BuffaloPundit

BuffaloPundit — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 16:21:48 +0000

It’s one thing for someone to say, we should take a close look at the project and make sure it follows with prior planning and preserves green space, etc.

It’s another thing for people to just dismissively call the design an “abomination” or to impugn the people who put it together just ’cause. It’s also another thing for people to whinge about the “authenticity” of the site without explaining themselves, since it used to be the docks - not the most savory part of town.

My criticism is primarily directed at the latter.

By: hank kaczmarek

hank kaczmarek — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 16:11:03 +0000

Good God A-mighty, It just never stops, does it?

50 years of waiting, I see the white elephant looming. I don’t want it to fall, but history tells the story.

At this point, Tell Bass Pro to “do like they do elsewhere” and build WITHOUT CORPORATE WELFARE, or tell them to take a hike and get IKEA in there.

Some of the people fighting the Casino, Joel Rose for one, has told me that he’s fighting the casino not because of economics, but because of his fear of the fate befalling his fellow citizens who will spend what little money they now have trying to get rich by gambling, and the Senecas don’t use the money they will reap from Buffalo’s poor wisely on the various reservations. So there’s obviously more than one mindset in the anti-casino forces.

I certainly understand the “DO SOMETHING WITH IT BEFORE I DIE” mentality. I’m one of them. But just for once, could it be done RIGHT??

By: Rifle Dude

Rifle Dude — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 13:00:05 +0000

Does it not make sense to put a retailer who is in the business of selling boats and fishing gear to be on the water?

What is wrong with having a retailer who actually promotes the *use* of the waterfront? I took the time to read what is available online in regards to this proposal and can’t understand the rabid opposition.

What does the opposition favor?