Priority Issue: Working Downtown

While Downtown takes on new roles, the constituents of Downtown understand that its historic role as a center of employment also needs to be reinforced. At the 1999 Downtown Summit the issue of “Working Downtown” was a strong number two priority issue and developing a business growth strategy was the number two priority project. Office space is a key part of the productive capacity of any Downtown. Changing functional and technological requirements for office users require that Downtown Buffalo improve its office space product in order to grow Downtown employment base.

Century Centre II

If closure of the former M. Wile plant on Goodell Street was a blow to the economy, the almost immediate renovation of this building must be seen as a recovery. The adaptive re-use of the historic 172,000 square foot daylight factory building was completed in 2001.

Hampton Inn and Suites

What had been one of Downtown Buffalo’s many old and underutilized office buildings opened in mid-2001 as one of the city’s most luxurious hotels. Benderson Development reconfigured the former Jackson Building into a 138- room hotel and suites complex. The project also included the demolition of the troubled 210 Delaware Avenue apartment building once known as The Ford Hotel.

Adelphia National Operations Center

This project is currently on hold pending Adelphia's recent Chapter 11 filing. We are hopeful that the project will move forward when Adelphia re-emerges from bankruptcy. The new facility will ultimately house about 2,000 Adelphia employees, half of whom have already been hired and are working now in temporary space around the city.

665 Main Street

Although not added to Downtown Buffalo 2002! agenda until 2001, this new office building on a site previously occupied by a McDonald’s drive- in restaurant is already complete. Its first tenants, the Wolf Group, the Buffalo Niagara Partnership and Buffalo Niagara Enterprise, have already moved in.

Other projects are on the horizon, including a new office building on the vacant parcel at the corner of Chippewa and Main Street, and work on a notable Summit priority, a business development strategy for Downtown - is proceeding. Total Downtown employment will rise by as much as ten percent with the full implementation of the Inner Harbor plan, including the Adelphia project, and with full build-out of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. Still additional employment may result from the completion of new Federal court facilities.

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