Dear Buffalo,

I officially give up.

After 3.5 years of insisting that this region was really in the beginning stages of turning itself around I am convinced that it either is not or is 50 years away from becoming as good as a 2nd rate city.

The turning point was last March when I visited Cleveland for the 1st time. Visiting places like Berlin or Amsterdam or Paris or Lisbon or Munich or NYC had no effect on how I felt about this place because there were much different circumstances that make those places so much better. But to see the rest our slightly bigger rust belt brothers aggressively try to make things better was what stood out. Cleveland acts big, and fights hard to maintain that almost self-assumed existence and with the hard work, focus and attitude has an amazing Warehouse District, a Ritz Carlton, museums, stadia, shopping center, good waterfront, light rail transit even…the list goes on.

The next day I was in downtown Buffalo and all I saw was the same as I’ve always seen-mostly people who were using downtown for:
1. To collect social services
2. Attend court hearings
3. Catch school busses
4. Panhandle

The urban design which I knew was fairly pathetic before stood out to me more than ever before. And the progress I’ve been tracking all of a sudden seemed so mediocre.

The Cleveland visit was on top of a couple visits to Pittsburgh. Another city with all the problems of Buffalo but fights hard against it and spends money on seemingly everything it can to make its downtown as strong as the best of them. I can’t even begin to tell you how great I think downtown Pittsburgh is, and its only getting better by the day seemingly.

This summer I went back to DC and during that time a good friend of mine up here moved to Charlotte (go figure). Out of curiosity I checked up on what kind of development was going on down there via skyscraper page forums and it was like Dubai in America. Not that I like Dubai, or Southern US development in general but thinking about all those good paying jobs, the increasing quality of life, none of this is or ever will come to Buffalo-and that hit hard.

And then Byron Brown wrote the most pathetic letter to Forbes magazine explaining why Buffalo isn’t dying.

I came back and after one day of being downtown I’m already done. Please don’t explain to me all the good things that are happening around here-I’m well aware of them. Its simply too little-and dare I say-too late.

Thank you to all the readers and commenters. I hope you enjoyed the material and even found it informative perhaps.

I never stopped caring. I just stopped hoping.

Consider this my last post.

-Mark

Around this time in the year we were supposed to find out about Wyndham committing to the Statler and Issa getting some cash flow from a European bank…

…not so much.

Instead, his Manchester portfolio is all but pipe dreams and what has been built-is no longer his…

Crain’s Manchester Business has reported that the BSC Group - the development company Issa operates - has seen two of its projects turned over to David Costley-Wood of the Manchester office of KPMG. The projects include the Sarah Tower, a proposed downtown Manchester tower that was supposed to house a hotel and after attempts to sell 130 apartments fell well short of its goal, and the partially-completed Sarah Point that would have included 140 apartments plus a health clinic and retail component.

He’s still giving the Statler project the old college try however…

Issa’s representatives have reached out to Erie, Pa.-based Scott Enterprises, a family-run hospitality company, regarding a partnership with Issa’s BSC Development Buffalo. The deal under discussion would see Scott become the hands-on operator of a proposed 346- room Wyndham hotel.

Issa has told the British press he is negotiating with Gresham Ltd., a London-based lender on a $240 million (U. S.) loan. He has also filed an application with New York State for $20 million in Historic Tax Credits.

I still believe the Statler will get done somehow but god knows how long it will take. Its embarrassing to know that my first blog post about him saving the Statler is in building’s lobby and “Press Release” section of the Statler site.

The fancy websites, the yachts, the pay-to-watch speeches. What an incredible facade.

Note to self: When a rich man from abroad with no development experience in the states and very limited ones in the Buffalo of the UK- Machester- undertakes two large development projects downtown, be more suspicious next time.

It looks like the high-end expansion of the Galleria should be completely done in time for Holiday ‘08…and with nice results.

Not seeing the whole faux-urban experience coming to life before, I see that they are putting retail immediately across from the Cheesecake Factory and such with the retail coming right in front of the new parking garage. Hyde Park Steakhouse is what you see at the picture above.

Above is ‘Bar Louie’-a pretty popular bar chain across the country. Interesting architectural elements include a kinda-garage door for a garage that never existed.

Overall I’m surprised how well the project was designed. The street that goes between the two sides of retail is two-way, one lane, low speed. Good sidewalks too. Wish this was all coming to Canal Side but Buffalo took forever to get their act together and Pyramid knew they needed to bring new life into a mall that was becoming pretty boring.

You’ve all heard that Buffalo is on Forbes’ “Ten Fastest Dying Cities”…w/e. I don’t know why Pittsburgh wasn’t on it but other than it its a fairly obvious list.

Buffalo has issues, a lot of them, a lot of old ones too. Things that can be dealt with and some that will probably never be solved.

There are two types of cliche Buffalonians. Those that obsess over this and add to their endless gloom and doom, and the others who say the exact opposite and wax on about how Buffalo is the best. ever. WIVB has a pretty good video of that:

You can’t get more Buffalo than this:

Caroline Babb, “I think Buffalo’s a beautiful city. It’s one of the best cities there is. We have the Bills, we have the Sabres, we have a lot of fine restaurants. A lot of five star restaurants. It’s beautiful here.”

There’s a list of things that need to be done to make things better…to merely assist the region fight the inevitable realities of the 21st century economy. But it all starts with the mentality. If large sums of people demand responsible government and a business-friendly culture instead of whining or convincing themselves everything is fine-then the chances of survival are greatly increased.

Genesee Gateway has some signage around it promoting the upcoming project. One that might have the most positive change on the downtown urban fabric since the Theatre District revitalization. The one negative about the project is that there is no residential but it should still have a great 1st floor presence for everyone who lives/works/walks by. One additional great feature about the project is that it gives exposure to some really interesting buildings around it/across from it that remind me of late 1800’s early 1900’s NYC like this one below…

Daniel Briere made $5mil his last season in Buffalo, I believe made about 2.5 or 3 the year before and is now making insanely huge money in Philadelphia (a front loaded contract starting at over $9mil)

So you’d think his Buffalo home would be slightly expensive…

Briere sold his house on Covent Garden Lane for $325,000 — roughly $14,000 less than what he paid for it five years ago. The deal closed on July 29, according to documents filed in the Erie County Clerk’s office.

I doubt the value really went down. I bet Briere though he was getting a steal not understanding how insanely affordable McMansions are up here and only truly learned the housing market here the hard way.

Let’s see how much Drury’s house ends up going for…

Meanwhile, another Sabre co-captain, who also left the team last summer — Chris Drury — has yet to sell his house in Clarence’s Spaulding Lake subdivision. Drury paid $550,000 for the house in 2005.

The Pasquale continues to move along quickly in the land of planning/design fail known as Waterfront Village. Not one to rock the boat, this tower adds design features that are ‘in context with its surroundings’. Good for them.

I believe the townhomes are in the stages of being redesigned since the three that are up have struggled to attain much interest. (12 more were supposed to be constructed)

Those beige lines going across the back of the nearly-windowless side of the tower are a fabulous accent too I must say.

It’s great to know that a third and final tower is in the works on the site although I dread to see the renderings. Having a fairly dense neighborhood of wealthy people in downtown is great for the city tax rolls and can possibly make retailers feel a bit more comfortable with investing in Canal Side or downtown/the waterfront in general.

But one day Buffalo will desire a well designed, sustainable city infrastructure and they will look back on our generations and think of us as thoughtless and stupid people for letting such a project evolve into what it became.

One of the better things about Buffalo is the Buffalo News crime reports. My personal favorite was the man who was shot while sitting on the toilet at the Buffalo Tourist Lodge on Main and didn’t even realize it until the next day.

This one is close to the top though…

A Buffalo man was robbed of five cents Tuesday night by two teenage boys outside his home in the 2700 block of Main Street, near East Amherst Street, police said.

Northwest District police said the victim was confronted at about 10 p. m. by two boys, described as 14 to 16 years old. The boys demanded money and displayed a gun covered by a cloth. They took the man’s cash and ran.

The structural steel is coming along at the Federal Courthouse. The two story rectangular base is bascially there while the cylinder is starting to ascend above it. Its a sigh of relief to really see this starting to come along finally.

The Avant project continues to move along quickly. Most of the glass facing north and west is up while little of it is up on the sides facing south and east. With the new courthouse, NewEra, and this leading from city hall towards the corner of Chippewa and Delaware and then going up to 285 you have a pretty sweet downtown boulevard. I’m excited to find out what restaurant takes the 1st floor…according to the website: “a most delectable restaurant.”