A Broadway Fillmore landmark is under contract. An investment group that includes Kaleida Health transplant surgeon Fadi Dagher, MD has agreed to purchase the Eckhardt Building at the northwest corner of Broadway and Fillmore. Dagher met neighborhood stakeholders today to introduce himself. Renovation plans for the building are still fluid but sources say Dagher is eager to bring retail and office tenants into the building’s first two floors. Plans for the third floor are undetermined.
The circa-1940, 42,000 sq.ft. building has been vacant since 2004 when the New York State Department of Labor and 78 Restoration Corporation, a neighborhood based education and job training program, closed their offices.
The Landmark Society of the Niagara Frontier summarizes the history of the building:
Eckhardt’s/Kobacker’s Department Store is architecturally significant as an excellent example of a largely-intact, early Art Moderne commercial building. Designed by local firm Bley & Lyman for John H. Eckhardt, this sleek building is one of the most significant early Modern buildings surviving in Buffalo. A similar style department store building, the W. T. Grant department store (1939), once stood at Main and Huron Streets in downtown Buffalo (demolished 1980). The building’s curved facade stands out for its design and materials, which include granite, light cream terra cotta and stainless steel. Eckhardt had operated a store at the principal commercial intersection of the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood since the 1880’s. Former tenants of the building include Kobacker’s and Sears department stores.
The property has been owned by the same family since the 1880’s and has turned down at least one purchase offer from a national drug store that sought to demolish the building.
Dagher’s FJD Capital Real Estate LLC purchased 998 Broadway earlier this month for $600,000. It is the former location of Sattler’s Department Store and most recently a K-Mart directly across from the Broadway Market. A charter school is said to be lined up to occupy the building. Dagher is also said to be purchasing a building in the 600 block of Broadway.