Phase One: Announce megaproject skyscraper, comprehensive downtown master plan, underground parking at Niagara Square, Central Terminal renovation, and blockbuster Statler renovation.

Phase Two: ?

Phase Three: Profit.

Buffalo native Brian Reilly, who most recently did economic development for Cleveland, has been appointed to replace Richard Tobe. If he is able to implement the items listed in the News’ article, then this might be a great step forward for Buffalo. Instead of remaining mired in bureaucracy, stasis, and a city hall mindset that is all about “the way it’s always been done” versus optimizing the ways in which development can take place in Buffalo, it appears that Mr. Reilly has set some excellent goals:

The changes promoted by Brown and Reilly include:

• A 30-day time period for providing businesses with clear steps and predictable timetables.

• A single point of contact to help business owners navigate city, county and state regulations.

• Modernization of decades-old zoning codes.

• Buffalo Green, a new effort to provide technical assistance to emerging, ecologically friendly businesses.

• A review of the composition and training for boards and committees that issue approvals for development.

• Removal of legal and policy barriers to convey city-owned properties to nonprofit and faith-based organizations for publicly minded reuses of vacant properties.

Reilly also said that using precredential development companies to reduce time and paperwork associated with project submissions also was under consideration, as was advanced approval of uses for some development sites.

Brown said a citywide preservation plan, with strict code enforcement and aggressive prosecution, would be developed for historic properties.

“The goal is to work with the preservation community and identify what those structures are that are the most significant and which the city should target for preservation,” Brown said. “This is something that has not been in place, [and] it’s something we intend on putting in place.”

Everything on that list is excellent, and I love the fact that prioritization and targeting of buildings for preservation is part of the agenda, as well as modernizing codes and regulations. One-stop shopping for businesses wanting to set up shop in Buffalo will also be a very welcome change.

I wish him and his staff the best of luck in changing the hitherto unchangeable.

At around 3:30 this afternoon, near the Erie Canal Terminus, Hillary Clinton and other dignitaries, luminaries, glitterati, politicos, and other people with fancy suits will be simultaneously thumbing their Blackberries whilst arguing over who gets to stand close to the ribbon to get their maw on the evening news.

That’s because the canal terminus park isn’t “officially” open until the electeds get their photo op.

On a serious note, everyone who had a hand in crafting the park that we have today deserves the community’s praise and accolades. When I moved to Buffalo in 2001, that spot was a barren wasteland of a parking lot under the skyway. As a newcomer, I had no idea that it held any special significance whatsoever. Now, its historic importance is evident to all, and the city has a new, well-designed, well thought-out attraction to be proud of.

But the work has only just begun. The Canal Side project writ large will bring residents, businesses, retail, and restaurants. Hot dog vendors are a great start, but something more permanent and winterized will be needed to ensure that the project is attractive year-round.

So, give the electeds their oversized scissors and red ribbons. Give them their photo ops and their speeches. It doesn’t matter. With this project, we all won one.

This story in the Buffalo News is frustrating as all hell. My own town of Clarence has two quaint little shopping districts - the Four Corners and the Hollow - and then there’s Transit Road. Two of three of those are walkable. Guess which.

I honestly cannot fathom why anyone in suburban Buffalo would be opposed to the idea of a walkable neighborhood. Would it kill people to be able to walk down to a corner store or florist or dry cleaner or coffee shop? I’m lucky. I can do that. There are loads of people who can’t, and I’m shocked that a lot of them don’t want to.

Walkable neighborhoods don’t just give you exercise and gas savings. Walkability helps build community. You see your neighbors. You walk by their homes. You become a regular at a local business. Buffalo’s suburbs need more - not less - walkability and mixed-use neighborhoods. But the suburbs aren’t the only victims. Any shops at Waterfront Village?

The Town Centre development that Benderson wants to build in Amherst is a start. It will feature retail, hotel, residential, and commercial in the complex. In Lewiston, there’s the Village at Oxbow - the first new walkable community being planned and built in WNY. I guess, as per the News article, it behooves those of us who support these sustainable, walkable communities to show up at town board meetings and speak in support of them.

How much Buffalo area progress has been stanched by an exceedingly vocal and obnoxious minority>

The Buffalo News reports today on a retail project that is proposed to be built on Transit Road in Clarence near County Road. Given the demographics surrounding that area, it’s not surprising that projects such as this are being proposed for that corridor.

The Wellesley, Massachusetts-based developer has a website up showing renderings of the proposed “Carriage Court at Clarence”.

The renderings make it appear to be an upscale shopping plaza (.pdf). Nothing particularly new or different. So, I have a suggestion.

Do you see in the site plan (.pdf) how the bulk of the parking is surrounded by retail? How about reversing that. Put the parking in the back, put the retail in the center, and run a tree-lined little pedestrian area down the middle, sort of like how Benderson proposes to do with its Amherst Centre project on Maple (.pdf).

In 2008, this is how you do it:

Also, kudos to both Benderson and Berkshire for putting the plans on their websites so that one doesn’t need to traipse to town board meetings to see what’s what.

[UPDATE: This is a post from March that I’m promoting back to the top (with new title to fit this week’s theme) because of the continuing drama in Amherst Town Hall regarding Benderson’s proposed lifestyle center project at Maple near North Forest. A vote earlier this week was pushed off to June 2nd to permit county involvement with traffic mitigation issues. Benderson recently made some changes to the design of the 34-acre, $44 million mixed-use project.

The comments tend to talk about the fakeness of the project versus the authenticity. Given that Amherst actually has no town center - the Village of Williamsville technically being its own governmental entity - as fake as it is, at least it’s not just another shopping plee-yeea-za.]

Benderson Development recently bought the parcel of land formerly known as the Buffalo Shooting Club. They’re planning to build Western New York’s first lifestyle center there. A lifestyle center is a new form of shopping center that resembles a village downtown. It encourages walking, and usually features nice amenities and upscale shops. Cleveland’s Legacy Village is an example (careful - loud music).

Predictably, there is opposition to the proposal from neighbors and others. Some complain that Benderson has loads of vacant storefronts throughout Amherst - a valid concern, for sure. Others are more NIMBY-ish. Like these people.

Anyone who knows Maple Road in that area knows that we’re not talking about some bucolic little country lane. It’s a four-lane road with a suicide lane in the middle. The Pepsi Center is right there. UB North is walking distance (as are its thousands of well-financed students). Just over the 290 to the east is a bona fide retail strip.

But what’s amazing to me is that there had been a shooting club there. People with guns shooting at pieces of clay thrown in the air, or at targets set up. Shooting? OK. Lexus SUVs coming to visit Trader Joe’s (which is rumored to be opening its first WNY location at this location)? No good.

Not only that, but this will be a mixed-use facility. The plan includes a new hotel, some non-retail commercial space, and even condominiums. In my mind, a development like this can only enhance the value of the surrounding neighborhoods, offers them a new amenity, and adds value to the town’s tax base. The Benderson plan is here in a large .pdf.

All Things Buffalo wrote about lifestyle centers as being evidence of an evolution in shopping.

The fact that it’s taken Buffalo 10 years to pick up on a nationwide trend is amusing, and the NIMBYism is something that must be anticipated. I’m in favor of this project, because it will enhance the quality of life in Amherst, and will most likely have a positive effect on nearby property values.

Build it.

The scapegoat. Read about the history of that term here.

Now that the federal government is using the common tern and its food as scapegoats for the changing of the Peace Bridge design, I nominate the common tern to become the scapegoat for everything that fails Buffalo. For instance,

The common tern is raising tolls today.

Assemblyman Mike Cole slept on a common tern’s floor after getting drunk at an Albany party.

The common tern is responsible for the billboard-y thing at Canal Side.

The common tern is holding up the Bass Pro deal.

The common tern is hoarding rice, causing warehouse clubs to limit sales.

The MBBA is run by a common tern.

People move to the suburbs because of all the common terns in the city.

Tom Bauerle had Doug Hagmann on today, and Hagmann said the common tern presents a clear and present terrorist threat to ‘murka.

The common tern suggested red budget-green budget to Joel Giambra.

We can’t build the boulevard alternative/Southtowns Connector due to the common tern.

See how easy this is?

The city announced today that it is halting all subsidized new home in the city, citing the fact that there are thousands of abandoned, derelict houses in Buffalo, underscoring a complete lack of market demand.

April Fools!

Senator Schumer announced that he is seeking $4 billion in federal money to help cities demolish vacant homes. Projects such as Sycamore Village, however, continue apace.

The Buffalo News’ Sharon Linstedt reports that Bashar Issa has put his Statler renovation on “hold”.

In reviewing my British - American English dictionary, I find that “on hold” translates as “over”.

An employee of Issa’s BSC Development Buffalo LLC, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that, although redevelopment is being halted, Issa “is not going to walk away” from the building.

“He made the point he is not selling the building and is not walking away,” the employee said. “He had a loan deal that didn’t pan out, and he will look at Plan B and Plan C. It’s not a dead project.”

The BSC Development staff member also said current vendor contracts will be honored and the halt in renovations will not affect tenants or the Park Lane Catering’s event schedule in the Statler’s Golden Ballroom, and Terrace and Rendezvous rooms.

I think it’s safe to say that Issa was and is in over his head. It’s one thing to build a project or two in your hometown (each of which was overbudget and late), but it’s a whole different thing to do a massive renovation of a local icon in a shrinking Great Lakes city across the ocean. Progress has been slow, Issa got himself embroiled in a nasty labor dispute, and it became increasingly clear that expectations were probably too high indeed.

In any event, I hope Issa can execute plans B - Zed, and we should bear in mind that what little progress he’s been able to accomplish in the Statler is greater than any progress the prior owner had been able to accomplish. But the notion that this young man from Manchester was going to single-handedly show Buffalo a thing or two seems to have been quite overblown indeed.

Here’s a relatively new website that lists development projects and their status in Buffalo.

Sharon Linstedt has an update on the Canal Side project in today’s News. It isn’t pretty, and it pays to keep scrolling to this:

The public’s first opportunity to weigh in on Canal Side will come during the “scoping” phase of the environmental review, which will define the issues to be studied. There will also be a series of public presentations to detail what will be one of the city’s largest development efforts.

The entire public review process will take six to nine months and must be concluded before full-blown construction begins.

This, my friends, will be a clusterexpletive of titanic proportions. Every obstructionist with an ability to do a press release will be bemoaning the cost, the scope, the identity of the developer, whether things are built to the curb or not, parking, malls, retail, the suburbs, sunshine, wind, rain, and maybe even baby Jesus.

While the harbor agency, working in conjunction with Benderson Development Corp. and Bass Pro, is hitting the milestones of the predevelopment agreement which governs the project, they are also considering a few modifications. Among the changes are development of a museum that would not only house Great Lakes and Erie Canal exhibits, but would also give shelter to the currently homeless Niagara Aerospace Museum.

The agency also is in talks with the City of Buffalo regarding a lead role in construction of a long-planned, 850-vehicle parking ramp to be located in front of Marine Drive Apartments. The harbor development agency proposes to pay the city’s $3 million share of the $18 million project and provide parking to apartment residents, while expanding the number of spaces available to Canal Side visitors and downtown commuters.

Parking ramp? It’s sorely needed, because, well, people drive places. It would be a little nuts to build an outdoor shopping mall with cobble lanes and not factor in parking. But this is red meat fresh tofu to Buffalo’s loudest.

The planners have also raised the estimated price tag for all the development from an original $275 million to more than $500 million. Levy said the upward adjustment reflects refined abatement, demolition and construction costs, but will not boost Bass Pro’s $35 million incentive, or the $4 million Benderson will get to lure additional retail tenants.

Half a billion public dollars to build a new shopping district in downtown Buffalo. Under the Skyway. I still think it’s a good project, in spite of the silliness of the past, but that’s a lot of scratch for a shiny new toy.

UPDATE / EDIT: Commenter “Matt” offers:

The half a billion dollars is the overall cost of the development NOT the public money. If you read the entire paragraph it says “Levy said the upward adjustment reflects refined abatement, demolition and construction costs, but will not boost Bass Pro’s $35 million incentive, or the $4 million Benderson will get to lure additional retail tenants.”

Lets stick with the facts

Photo by MJ Worthington via FixBuffalo @ Flickr

Toronto will be sponsoring a public art competition that might make some in Buffalo cringe. Because they don’t think creatively.

Though it’s possible for one to interpret its blue-green turquoise underbelly as reference to the clean and sparking waters that attacking American ships sailed in on during the War of 1812, the City of Toronto has initiated a public art competition to better mark the shoreline, and the winning and short-listed entries are on view this Thursday during an open house.

Most remarkable about this competition is that the Gardiner itself is being used in the selected artwork. Though it may send shivers down the engineering and roads departments from a technical point of view, this is a major first step in activating the underside of the Gardiner and hopefully more sections will follow. Once that happens, and the underside of the expressway is made pedestrian friendly and welcoming, we might just forget it’s up there

The winning entry, called “Watertable” will be unveiled on Thursday:

The concept WATERTABLE reveals the original shoreline of Lake Ontario and creates the look of shimmering water, appearing to float under the surface of the Gardiner Expressway. It is a beacon not only for the new entrance to Fort York, but also for the revitalization now underway of its entire underdeveloped 43-acre site in anticipation of the Bicentennial celebrations of the War of 1812. Fort York, the birthplace of Toronto, is being restored and redeveloped to reflect its enormous importance as a national historic site and to provide much needed parkland for the communities rapidly emerging around it.

I’m still astonished how Toronto can grow and thrive in spite of that “scar” Gardiner on its waterfront. Premier McGuinty, tear down this wall! *Sniff*

Mayor Byron Brown and Congressman Brian Higgins held a press conference this morning to announce that the Erie Basin Marina will now be open all year-round. This way, Buffalonians can enjoy views of the lake and the Buffalo Light, as well as the scenic concrete bunker and parking lots of the marina during the wintertime.

This past weekend, Labatt’s sponsored the local iteration of its North American pond hockey tournament, and it was by all accounts a rousing success. Although opening the marina area up during the winter was being planned, the success of the hockey event pushed it up to today.

Mayor Brown says this move won’t cost the city anything, and it is hoped that the Hatch might open up occasionally during the off-season.

The funny thing about it was that the press conference was held outside, with temps in the mid-30s and a very, very biting wind (not breeze - wind) that had most everybody in attendance shivering.

It’s a nice gesture, and will certainly be appreciated when it’s warm enough, but I don’t think that particular strip is going to be all that popular in the dead of winter.

In other news, Tim Tielman was expressly named several times as one of the people who will be consulted as to what to do with that area during the wintertime. Regular folks will have an opportunity also to be heard. My question is - what expertise does Tim Tielman have with producing wintertime attractions in a parking lot?

This is an actual Craigslist ad offering AM&A’s for sale. (In case it’s deleted, I’ve screencapped it here and here.

The Long Island investment group that bought the building had announced a $66 million renovation plan, but nothing ever happened. Indeed, they bought the building for just over $2MM, and it’s now on the market for $3.5 MM.

What have they done to the building since buying it to add $1.5 million in value to it? Damned if I know.

HT West Coast Perspective at Buffalo Rising.

Paul Wolf’s Buffalo Ideas excerpts a great Q&A that the Pittsburgh Tribune held with urbanist gurus Joel Kotkin and Richard Florida. A couple of quotes to pull:

Florida on economic stimulus:

Maybe Mayor Davey Lawrence and Richard King Mellon were great for their day; they probably were. But the days of the strong mayor and a business leadership group fixing a city are long over. Cities are too complex, they are too organic, they are too multifaceted. So those folks have to go away.

Kotkin on attracting people & business:

I would focus on companies that are growing in the area, people who are moving in; the inherent quality of life that Pittsburgh offers; the cost advantages that Pittsburgh offers. Those are your critical advantages over your competitors. That’s really where you ought to make your case. If you had a thriving economy, and people were coming in from all over the country — if immigrants saw Pittsburgh as a destination — then I think all sorts of nice things would happen: Restaurants would open, neighborhoods would come back. You have immigrants who are now going to places like Fargo, N.D., because they see opportunities there. You have to create a kind of opportunity environment and that would be the biggest thing you could do. Instead of spending money on these absurd projects — stadiums, (light-rail) tunnels and casinos — why don’t you just fix what you have so it works better, maintain what you have so it works better and find out what are the things that businesses actually need? — not five CEOs of the remnants of companies that have been there for a long time and all they care about are skyboxes. You’ve got to think about what you’re going to do that will make it easier for people to do business in Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh area. Find out. Take your 100 fastest growing companies, sit down with them and ask them what would encourage you to grow faster. I doubt it’s going to be a casino that it is they will be looking for.

Kotkin on attracting immigrants:

Another thing we’ve heard a lot about recently is, “How can Pittsburgh attract immigrants?” Well, Pittsburgh has immigrants. They’re sitting in its major universities. They’ve chosen to locate in Pittsburgh. They’ve come to graduate school there. They’re coming there and leaving. If you want to attract immigrants, well, just try to keep the ones who’ve already chosen to come to your place. The same thing is what I’ve always talked about with young college students. You’ve got 50,000 or 60,000 or 70,000 college students in your town. My God, they’ve chosen to live there. Try to encourage them to stick around after graduation and see if they can’t start a business or contribute some energy.

Each one of those quotes applies equally to the Buffalo area.

Looks like Uniland will actually get to start construction on the 68-condo tower later this year, after all.

“It was a very thorough decision,” said Richard Moore, a partner in Magavern Magavern & Grimm LLP, Uniland’s attorney. “The record clearly reflects the determinations that were made.”

The Park Lane Condominiums owners’ association had filed the lawsuit alleging that the Buffalo officials violated several environment review and impact mandates when the project was approved last fall.

“The review of these concerns was thorough, complete and consistent with the requirements set forth in SEQRA (a state environmental quality review),” Dillon wrote in his decision. “The court concludes that the determination of the lead agency was not made in violation of SEQRA nor was it arbitrary and capricious, nor an abuse of discretion.”

Score one for the super-heating, sight line-blocking, sunlight-blocking, and air flow-blocking forces of progress!

Bass Pro: I think if we’re counting, we’re up to the third agreement. The first being the original MOU, the second being the barely-binding “pre-development agreement” involving the sacred Central Wharf, and the third being a new “pre-development agreement” involving the Aud.

The Aud itself is slated for asbestos removal and subsequent demolition. The Donovan building next door should be gone before the year is out.

Buffalo Geek told me that Mayor Byron Brown had posted an open letter to old man Wilson to prove that Buffalo is a city on the comeup. The letter is not there anymore.

To bolster his argument, Brown linked to a .pdf file showing a list of the myriad and sundry development projects now underway in Buffalo.

It’s since been updated, but I archived it here. You can see that it’s packed with fail.

The actual list is located here.

Bass Pro is on there. So are a bunch of already-completed projects, like HealthNow and the First Niagara branch on Exchange. There are other projects that don’t really exist yet, like an AM&A renovation, and Paladino’s 50 Court Street, which is wrapped up in litigation.

But for a city to try and convince old man Wilson to keep the Bills in Buffalo, nothing could possibly be more persuasive than this entry:

B-Kwik expansion-Tim Horton’s, 1991 Seneca Street, new construction

I mean, come on. A Tim’s at the B-Kwik on Seneca? Buffalo rennaissance!

The Adam’s Mark has been sold to San Francisco-based Chartes Lodging Group. According to Business First, they will be investing millions into improving the craptastic Buffalo Adam’s Mark, and changing its brand affiliation.

Here are some comments of mine with respect to the Adam’s Mark. (Click to enlarge):

That’s my prediction. It is never, ever going to happen. Not in my lifetime, not in yours. Frankly, I think that increased traffic capacity isn’t needed in Buffalo anyway. Why shove it down Buffalo’s throat if it so clearly doesn’t want it?

The Ambassador Bridge to Black Rock? Not going to happen. No one’s going to build a plaza and new interchange on the US side with the Scajaquada and 190 right there, particularly given the fact that the push now is to downgrade the Scajaquada to a boulevard of some sort.

While an ideal crossing would be across the river just south of Grand Island, so that it would connect up with the I-290 and I-190, that disturbs residential neighborhoods in Canada.

Instead, we should completely jettison the Peace Bridge expansion altogether and instead increase capacity at Queenston-Lewiston. That single span gets a tremendous amount of truck and vehicular traffic, and recently received an upgrade to five lanes. The Q-L bridge provides direct access on both sides of the span to a major highway; the 405 to the QEW on the Canadian side, and the I-190 on the US side.

If there was any semblance of forward-thinking on the part of the CVB, it would already have been in talks to develop and construct a gorgeous visitor’s center that is run locally - not from Albany. Lease some Thruway property from the Authority and give border crossers a reason to come to a whole host of attractions in Western New York. The fact that there is no “Welcome to New York” or “Welcome to WNY” center on this side of the border underscores just how backwards and simple our supposed tourism promoters are. They’re at Thruway rest areas, but not at the border. How patently stupid; you have to wait until you get to Pembroke or Angola - well on your way out of the metro area.

There comes a time when you just say “enough”. The Peace Bridge project has spent ten years in environmental review, design review, and negotiations over the now-dead shared border management. We can sit and wait another few years for a new administration to change its mind, but it’s been almost ten years now that nothing tangible has happened. The preservation community has drawn a line in the sand as far as the neighborhood that would be adversely affected by a new plaza on the Buffalo side, and we all know about Al Coppola’s threat to move his Pan Am house. What else could be more persuasive?

So screw it. Enough. Everybody wins.

Expand the Queenston-Lewiston bridge with a second, signature span across the Niagara River, right at the escarpment with a gorgeous view of the meandering river leading to Youngstown, and Lake Ontario beyond.

In the opening salvo of the non-sequitur follies, we had Al Coppola threatening to tear down the little white Pan Am house in a fit of pique over the fact that his friend’s restaurant was denied permission to install an awning.

Pretty much all of Buffalo, except for a misguided few, gave a collective, “huh?”

But Al has changed his mind. He doesn’t want to tear down the house as a pointless response to the goings on at the Stillwater Cafe. Instead, he wants to move it.

He wants to move the house to Columbus Parkway, near the Peace Bridge.

Poor little white house - a pawn in a chess game Coppola is playing with an imaginary friend.

Why would he want to take what is ostensibly an historic house away from the area - the site of the Pan Am Expo - that makes it historic in the first place?

Why, to make some kind of point about Peace Bridge expansion!

If planners tear down some homes in the Columbus Parkway area to make way for the bridge project, then they’ll also have to tear down his “historic treasure,” Coppola said.

In the meantime, he vowed to push to have the building, which was built in the 1850s, designated a city landmark.

City officials have informed Coppola that any plan to move the vacant building would require permits from numerous departments.

Coppola, a former Buffalo Common Council member and state senator, said he’s not concerned that critics will brand him an obstructionist. He claimed the Peace Bridge expansion as it is currently proposed would be one of the most “colossal mistakes” the region has ever made. He said he feels compelled to take steps that might prod planners to revise blueprints.

Of course! Why, if the planners are perfectly willing to tear down a whole swath of neighborhood, this one little white house - outside of its historical context - will make them think twice, by gum!

Yesterday, Coppola had a letter to the editor published in the News that basically said, “ok, yeah, diesel is much cleaner now, what with ultra-low sulfur fuel and particulate traps, but what about the brake dust!??!?!!! It’s got asbestos in it!!!!!!

Oh, and also he calls PBA director Ron Reinas”[t]his interloper from Port Colborne, Ont.” who “has an agenda that needs to be exposed.” Rather than expose it, Coppola is satisfied merely to hurl the insinuation without follow-through, evidence, or back-up of any kind:

Who are the friends of the authority who will really benefit from more dust, more fumes, more trucks?

Now, I don’t know if brake dust emissions have ever been measured or subjected to testing in any way, but my gut tells me that’s a losing argument.

Given that it costs an awful lot of money to move a building - money that Coppola probably doesn’t have, or doesn’t want to spend - can we think of some more non-sequiture uses for that pretty little bargaining chip on Delaware?

Maybe we can threaten to throw it in the Lake if the state doesn’t pass the Great Lakes Compact.

Maybe we can threaten to move it next to the Skyway to demand that they both be demolished.

Maybe we can place it, stud by stud, inside the Central Terminal to highlight its plight.

Maybe it’s fine just where it is, in cloudcuckooland.

Any more ideas? I mean, the sky’s the limit.