The Buffalo City Mission has looked at its relocation options and has decided to stay and expand at its current location. The City Mission has occupied its building at the corner of Tupper and Ellicott streets since 1984. The heavily-used shelter is located at the southern end of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. City Mission officials were open to selling its property if a suitable alternative location was made available. A potential move to 545 Swan Street at the edge of the Larkin District was scuttled last summer.
In November, the City Mission hired McGuire Development Company to secure a new site and sell its current building. Buffalo Business First is reporting that the City Mission will redevelop its current campus:
The new expansion at E. Tupper calls for building a three-story, redeveloped campus to replace the existing facility, a 32,000-square-foot, one-story site. The site is often at capacity, housing about 280 men nightly, plus another 100 on cots on cold winter nights.
Officials said the development plan will coincide with an ambitious 10-year plan by the Homeless Alliance of WNY to end homelessness in the city of Buffalo by 2020.
Plans for the new facility will be unveiled Monday night at 6 pm in the Pratt Willert Community Center located at 422 Pratt Street.
One area property owner is discouraged by the news. Asked for a quick take on the news, the owner said, “Leadership please? This is in the middle of the most promising up and coming area. It’s discouraging and makes you want to give up and just move to somewhere nice.”