Ciminelli Real Estate is planning a follow-up to its Conventus project on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. The office building would be constructed on the site of the former Langston Hughes property at High and Washington streets. It would also occupy a site that was pegged for a second phase of the UB Medical School, at least in early plans (below). UB’s $375 million, 540,000 sq. ft. complex that is under construction is expected to open in Fall 2016.
The Buffalo News has the information on Ciminelli’s very early plans:
Preliminary plans call for a slightly smaller building on High and Washington streets, diagonally across the street from Conventus Center, on the Langston Hughes site now owned by Ciminelli Real Estate.
Ciminelli Real Estate officials are talking about creating a 250,000-square-foot building with a $70 million to $75 million price tag, said Dennis M. Penman, the company’s executive vice president.
“We are finding the market so interested in Conventus that we started preliminary planning on the Langston Hughes site,” Penman said.
No decision has yet been made on how – or whether – the former Langston Hughes Institute building on the site would be incorporated into the project, said Anne Duggan, Ciminelli Real Estate’s director of marking and public relations. The Langston Hughes building, constructed in 1926, is about 28,000 square feet in size.
The Langston Hughes Institute sold its High Street properties to Ciminelli in mid-2010 for $1.9 million. The purchase price included the three-story, 28,500 sq.ft building on High Street and adjacent parking lots at 963-69 Washington Street.
Development of the Langston Hughes site could start within 12 to 24 months and take a year to complete according to Ciminelli officials.
“What we do, as developers, with any site we are involved in is create multiple potential scenarios; it’s a very fluid process,” says Anne Duggan, Ciminelli spokesperson. “As it relates to 33 High Street, everything is still extremely preliminary and conceptual. There are no definite plans for the site. However, we are and have been in continual dialog with both UB and Kaleida to keep them abreast of any preliminary planning ideas.”