Buffalo Rising Online

Wow! Build it. Build it now!! This is Buffalo rising, literally. Its easy to get discouraged when every new project (Bass Pro, Gates Circle) meets a wall of oppostion. Its nice to see a project moving ahead without all the fuss.

While the fact that Issa is selling the building potential tenants is great and it looks spectacular, I think it needs to be stressed that it is still far from a definite build. He isnt going to build it (as planned) without 40% occupancy that is going to be a lot more Cannon and another tenant.

You do however have to hand it to Cannon- incredible building.

My new goal in life is to live in this building. I can't think of anywhere in the world I'd rather live. -That's not a joke.

WOW! I can't even think of anything sarcastic to say. Looks beautiful.

I love how it interacts with City Hall and the court house and the statle and the dulski.

In any other location...it would look like an island all alone....but its surrounded by some pretty decent sized buildings which make it like a musical crescendo....

The only comment I could add is that I would like to see 3 more of these buildings each on the city limit (east, south and north)

Cannon is currently spending millions to renovate their offices in Grand Island. Can't see them being a tenant. Although I would love to have them downtown.

Loved the presentation....love the idea of this building.

I can realistically see getting this project done.....

One company could definately take up 20-25% of the building if it's a large company with multiple floors. My current employer takes up 20+ floors in downtown NYC, i don't think 5-10 floors is a pie in the sky hope for an "Anchor" tenant.

That was an AWESOME video !!! Driving home from Ft. Erie into Buffalo on the Peace bridge on Tuesday evenng, I tried to imagine how "sweet" this would look. With a new courthouse as well !!! Nice !!! This would make all those who enter the U.S. via the Peace bridge AMAZED ! *** Zenfur...I like the thin people comment !!! LOL

I had an idea the other day driving crosstown.

One way to bring people to WNY would be to have a state office building built downtown. I would like to see some tall bldgs built along Oak, where every current building is ugly and unrestrictive to walking downtown or even outside viewing.

Imagine tall buildings filled with with state workers possibly transferred (with incentives) from Albany or suburbs to Buffalo, in place of the New York State Insurance Fund building at 225 Oak.

We need people populating east of downtown also, not just lower west side.

Ask ourselves - why are these businesses NOT locating downtown? Not enough Class A? Not the right setup? Why? Then provide.

Build it and it would be great.. build it and fill it with out of town tenants and it would be amazing!!! Cannot wait wait wait to see what kind of hotel he'll put putting in there.

I've heard about this large tenant he's had in tow for a while, I can't imagine him building this building and doing all the marketing thats entailed with it, spending all this money, and then filling it with HSBC when its lease is up.. I think the man is wayyy smarter than that and he's got a big fish on the line.

Scooter do you work for Cannon?... b/c their office on Grand Island if far from a "multi-million" dollar facility. By the way it seems they were "considering moving" their office to the City Tower only after it was anounced, this project was in the works for a very long time. But then again they could be building a big money campus further out in the boondocks or they're renovating to sell???

Aurburn we've all got our wishes...I think we all agree though that if this thing gets off the ground it will be a huge step in the right direction for Downtown.

I've yet to hear of any lawsuits or preservationist complaints, maybe its b/c they're afraid of a battle with a developer who is this large??

Yes - just a wish. It wasn't meant to say "No" to the City Tower, either, just another idea to throw into the mix.

Well said BRO... that one gave me a chuckle. I also enjoyed your spalofts website... I think its just a matter of cheap software and "marketablility". I think your spalofts aims for a younger, trendier, hipper crowd. While the Cannon walk through (all though not superbly done) aims to exert a feeling of class and sophistication instead of portraying it as a place to get laid. (www.spalofts.com)

Good call BROKEEPSBLOCKINGME It IS a pretty cheap 3d tour. It looks alot like sketchup but I have never done an animation with Sketchup.

Auburn, the last thing we need in this community is more reliance on government job. Governments employ more people than any other sector in our community. That reliance has nearly bankrupted the city twice, and nearly bankrupted the county twice through inefficiency and inflexibility.

What if the answer to your question as to why businesses aren't locating downtown is in great part because of the unfriendly business climate perpetrated by the numerous lawyers of government and the massive and oppressive state bureaucracy that exists in this state. How do you provide what business want, at the same time your building high rises funded by taxpayers (either in actual construction or rental dollars)?

TBone....I think that the point was much simpler than you interpreted....it was simply...if there must be city, county, state and federal jobs...then locate them in downtown Buffalo.

and to be honest...the Niagara Center just doesnt satisfy all the needs. Buffalo could easily handle a building 2x the size of the Dulski Federal Building to centrally locate all the federal agencies in our region....and we could probably use another Dulski Building for state agencies.

I think the point to be simple was simply if they must be had....let them be had in Buffalo.

Phil silvestri and STEEL for the pritzker too!

I am nothing less than "giddey" right now. I absolutely love this man. Sell him the convention center too for the love of god.

Oh I don't think I can ever beat out that kind of competition.

Chris, My point is that it is the government structure in large part that makes Buffalo and all of upstate New York unappealing to business. We should not just sit back and say "it is what it is" and embrace it, we should work to change the structure. By building massive buildings to house governmental agencies you are advocating making government more expensive (and arguably less effective) just for the sake of moving jobs into the City and making some impact on the Buffalo skyline.

We should be working to fix the problems that make Buffalo unattractive to private investment, not making the problem worse by making government more expensive.

I do enjoy the "preservationist" sarcasm, but please realize he is doing the right thing by building an urban friendly tower on a vacant parcel of land.

He is not trying to knock down the Statler for a shovel ready site in case someday he might be able to but a 4 story new-build or sell it to somebody else.

I'd love to experience this being constructed and finished.

Speaking of Issa the Statler and preservation- I really, honestly, want to know what those who are preservation minded think of his plan to add a 14 story office tower onto the back side of the Statler- i know I have asked this before but no one seems willing to share their thoughts...

I am honestly very curious, I am not preservation minded but I think the plan is a little odd to say the least... I am really interested to see how he (and his architects) plan to blend the 2 together.

I haven't seen any, just a note that one was planned for directly across the street from the convention center.

^^ cool name and i hope so, i would love to see it toped off before i get deployed in june of 2010. does any one know if anyone has talked about this building having an observation deck or a public restaurant on top or somthing like that. That would be very cool since it would be like 230 feet taller than city halls observation deck.

I think that BROKEEPSBLOCKINGME put it best about the scum sucking preservationists and anti-development liberals:

"As soon as the build gets officially anounced the scum sucking preservationist will come crawling out of their holes with Tim Tielman and Lippes fronting their idiotic assemblage to stop yet another development because McKinley got a header in that particular spot of the parking lot. Then theyll want a plaque and heritage museum there stating this is where McKinley got his first Buffalo blowjob..."

gb21 and GP are both showing their very obvious ignorance. Get some education, children.

Oh, PS: Nobody should hold any breath, waiting for this guy to build this pile or to renovate the old Statler. You should live so long ....

Look.. if the preservationists were ass nutty as some character out of the movie "Brazil", don't you think we would have witnessed more success against the albright knox?

the only real question i have. whats up with moog? do they have a downtown presence? they are a huge company that should have done something for the skyline. i blame it on the books in the library!