The Vision for Downtown Buffalo

The Queen City of the Great Lakes…

What kind of regional center is Downtown Buffalo? The strategy developed to date is not about being all things to all people. Downtown Buffalo has to be a specific type of regional center, one that builds on its strengths in each of several regional economies.

Culture and Entertainment

For example, there is ample documentation of the strength of Downtown Buffalo as a center for culture and entertainment. Recent substantial investments in Shea’s Performing Arts Center, the Andrews Theatre of the Irish Classical Theatre Company, and nearby Kleinhan’s Music Hall, help to confirm Downtown’s role as a regional center. The fourteen million dollars invested in Shea’s enabled it to move from thirty relatively modest shows a year to sixty first-rate shows a year. As a result of these and other investments, employment in the restaurant business in Downtown is growing at a faster rate than anywhere else in the region.

Health Services

The creation of a world-class medical campus on the northeast corner of Downtown reinforces the branding of downtown as a regional, if not global, center. The increased collaboration between already world-class institutions such as Roswell Park Cancer Institute and Hauptmann-Woodward is setting the framework for the success of this development. The combination of teaching, research and medical technology incubators will further reinforce the regional prominence of Downtown.

Commerce and Government Clusters

Downtown Buffalo is already the center for government, finance, banking and legal services in the region. As such it should be an attractive choice for commercial location decision makers. The infrastructure is well established and reliable, while there are enough good sites for infill office buildings and existing structures appropriate for adaptive reuse to produce plenty of space to house these commerce clusters. A new building code, simpler procedures for permit acquisition, and a clear vision of Downtown as a center of regional commerce reinforces its appeal as a location for business. Of course government, finance, insurance, and real estate operations should already consider a Downtown location first. This will become increasingly true as the rest of the strategy is implemented, addressing parking, access, residential life, and neighborhood services along with culture and entertainment.

The Neighborhood of Neighborhoods

Buffalo will not have a great Downtown until its inner ring of neighborhoods is also great. They are one and the same place. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been and are continuing to be invested in stabilizing the inner ring of neighborhoods surrounding Buffalo’s central business district.

In the Lower West Side, Hope VI and infill housing, along with a new Tops Supermarket and a focus on Niagara Street as a gateway boulevard into our core area, will further improve the quality of life and property values in that neighborhood. The investments in the Allendale Theatre and in Kleinhans Music Hall further strengthen Allentown. The Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and new plans for investment in the Fruit Belt on both Jefferson and Michigan Avenue as well as on the east-west streets linking the medial campus to its neighbors on all sides will also be reinforcing. The same is true for the Home Ownership Zone on the near East Side of Downtown and past investments in residential stabilization to the southeast. 

Downtown as a regional center is bigger than the central business district. The vision demands that Downtown serve both the adjoining neighborhoods and the region. As such, the regional center we are calling Downtown is loosely defined on the north by Prospect Ave. and North Street, on the east by Jefferson Avenue and on the south and west all the way to the water. It is a Downtown with a current population of about 18,000 residents and 60,000 workers. It has the spending power to help fuel residential services and regional attractions. It is the neighborhood of neighborhoods for the region.

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