Construction Watch: Crane Appears at Courthouse Site
Steel will soon be rising at the new federal courthouse on Niagara Square. With foundation work complete, general contractor Mascaro Construction is about to begin installing the steel framework. Construction on the $123 million, 10-story glass structure began last October and should be completed by mid-2010 under current plans.
New York City-based Kohn Pederson Fox Architects designed the 268,000 sq.ft. building. The firm also designed M&T Center at Fountain Plaza (former Goldome) and the new Buffalo Niagara International Airport terminal.
A Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver Rating is anticipated for the courthouse. The building will provide the courts with nine new courtrooms and 11 chambers, as well as 54 enclosed parking spaces. An integrated art installation by North Tonawanda-born artist Robert Mangold is planned for the glass entry pavilion.
The giant lattice-boom hydraulic crane has a lifting capacity of 275-tons and can reach to 400 feet. Steel work is expected to take four months.
Photos by Aaron Zimmerman
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bobbyraz49
The courthouse, the Dulski building, the Casino, the condo's at the marina ! WOW ..With all this activity ,,kind of reminds me of Vegas !
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GDC
Don't forget about the new downtown Beach and Inner Harbor Development. Add to that WoW.
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Prodigal-Son
I was just in Vegas this week - Three new casinos, at least eight new condo towers, and 40,000 new jobs (just casino jobs) in the next two years. I like the work downtown too, but don't confuse it with Vegas. This is just what "normal" cities in other parts of the country look like, when there is an opportunity make money (or federal investment).
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LivingForge
Buffalo is far more "normal" than the American metropolises. For every New York City there are several Milwaukees, Buffalos, Clevelands, Grand Rapids, Garys, Hammonds, etc etc.
Lets not think that Vegas is any standard bearer for a "normal" economy.
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SilentMajority
Glad to see work has resumed on the Statler. Oh wait... nevermind.
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GDC
Speaking of Statler, does anyone know the current status on that? Are we still getting a hotel and condo mix out of this building soon?
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RLC
it will be nice to see the fed courthouse begin to take shape. I hope that the courthouse and 200 Delaware will brighten up the skyline a little. I still think the night skyline is in need of more life. The HSBC tower could use "something" near the top (perhaps a lighted logo) and the Rand building and area surrounding is completely dark. Once these two projects open, hopefully this will help.
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tjhorner1
The skyline of Milwaukee (Buffalo's twin sister on every level, in my opinion) has transformed DRAMATICALLY in the past 10 years, with multiple condo towers. So has Cleveland, to a somewhat lesser extent. And please, don't compare Buffalo to Grand Rapids, Gary or Hammond, IN. Buffalo is a much bigger metro, and destination than any of these cities.
For a better contast, do look at places such as Cleveland and Milwaukee, as well as Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Denver, if you are looking for a comparison of "normal" non-sunbelt cities. If you do that, Living Forge, you will see that Buffalo is not ahead of any of these cities, but merely finally catching up. We have a lot of work to do, but I love the progress thus far!
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hamp
I was also in Las Vegas for a convention recently. The economy is crashing due in part to the mortgage crisis there and to the drop-off in tourism. I couldn't wait to leave.
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SLEEPL8
hamp- define "crashing" slowing maybe but the economy in Vegas most likely will never "crash"
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Smitch83
Thank you, tjhorner. I had never even heard of Hammond, IN before LivingForge mentioned it. You might get by with comparing those three "cities" to a utica or troy, but certainly not Buffalo. Those cities are third rate at best.
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AtwaterLouse
Milwaukee's might be Buffalo's 'twin sister on every level' in your opinion, but realistically it's not on the same level as Buffalo economically so it's not a fair comparison to point to their dramatic skyline growth.
Milwaukee has corporate headquarters of six Fortune 500 companies, plus a seventh in a suburb. Buffalo and its burbs have zero. All those factors help make it much easier to have a dramatically changing skyline. Large companies can have growing office space needs, and they can also create more spin-off businesses needing office space, more upper income employees wanting condos, etc.
It's more realistic to consider Rochester as Buffalo's 'sibling' for comparisons. Same NY state business environment, same snow amount, etc.
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AtwaterLouse
That was replying to tjhorner's comment.
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MJWorthington
thankfully that surface parking lot on the square is now gone....
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RPreskop
tjhorner, Why not compare Buffalo to Grand Rapids, Michigan. At the rate our region is losing population, the Buffalo Area will be similar in size to Grand Rapids. You guys keep comparing Buffalo to Toronto, Canada which is foolhardy because Toronto is light years ahead of Buffalo in major city status. Comparing Buffalo to Toronto is equivalent to comparing Buffalo to Tokyo, Japan and Seoul, South Korea. If we don't change the way we do business in this area and change myopic, parochial attitudes as well, Buffalo will very easily become a third rate city just like Gary, IN and Bridgeport, CT.
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JohnMarko
Umm - I live and work in Vegas now for over 12 years - and while it has "slowed" somewhat - by Vegas standards, it's still "booming" by any other standard.
Still the fastest growing city in the Nation - and we have something like 10 towers under construction now - with six to eight in just the City Centre development alone - a multi-billion dollar development and the largetst single development in the US ever - far larger than the Rockefeller Center in NYC in it's time. And only 3 are casinos - City Centre is a mixed-use development. And that doesn't even include all the different high-rise condos and office buildings going up all over.
We ultimately had about 80 high-rise towers planned - and we "slowed" to "only" 40 or so now. When the three new casinos open in a couple years - that will add over 40,000 new jobs to the area alone - and with that an expected resumption of the now infamous housing mortgage market which is now in in the worst crisis in the country - but that's because we had the largest "boom"...
No - Vegas hasn't "crashed" by any standards. And it's not a "normal" city to compare to - it's totally unique in the world...we still have over 7,000 new residents each month call this "home"...
Just thought you'd all l ike to know the way it is in my corner of the world...
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sonyactivision
Yeah, and whose money is building Las Vegas? Is it Vegas money? No. It's Wall Street money and every investor there is shorting casinos and bailing out while they can. This economy is going to put a hurt on places like Las Vegas and while some projects that were well along in the pipeline are going to be completed, many others are being scrapped. It's not all bad news over there but when the building stops, there's gonna be a lull. A big lull.
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MJWorthington
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jan/24/market-gets-tougher-citycenter-sell-dubai/#/City_Center_model/
Who's money? Dubai's money :)
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AdamFIx
Re: AtwaterLouse's Fortune 500 point. My first thought was "what about M&T?" Turns out you're right, they are #509. Close, though. We almost have one!!
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sally
That list is only for publicly traded companies. On their list of the top 500 private companies Buffalo is home to two. Delaware North and Rich Products. Both of which btw would also be on the Fortune 500 list of public companies were they to ever go public.
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AtwaterLouse
Sounds nice, but this doesn't look true:
The lowest co. on 2008 Fortune 500 had $4.6 billion revenue. According to that other Forbes list of private companies, neither Rich Products ($2.4B) nor Delaware North ($2.0B) had enough revenue to make the Fortune 500 even if publicly traded. Both are over $2B/year short. Rochester-HQ-ed private co Wegmans came much closer ($4.1B), but about a half billion short. And of course if all private cos were on the F500, the cutoff amount would be higher.
Regardless of lists, the point I made remains that Milwaukee is HQ of significantly more very big companies than Buffalo is, so that's one reason why they're not a fair comparison for skyline growth which tjhorner suggested. The six F-500 companies headquartered there result in a lot of office space, high-end residential space, spin-off, etc. Other cities would be better comparisons for Buffalo, such as Rochester.
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hamp
Let's just say that Las Vegas isn't for everyone. It is unique, and not the city I would ever want Buffalo to emulate. The housing market there is dismal and it has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. But more importantly the sense of community that we have in Buffalo seems to be non-existent.
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kooksapalooza
u guys need to lighten up...i think bobbyraz was just sayin he was excited about whats going on and joking around...nobody was really comparing buffalo and vegas
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RLC
i agree...i moved here from Vegas in 2005 and though the new construction in buffalo is awesome for us, vegas is its own city and completely different. We wouldn't want the vegas lifestyle and crowded public spaces in Buffalo. One thing Buffalo has that Vegas definitely does not is that a majority of WNYers call this city "home." Most people in Vegas have moved there from somewhere else and it is very transient. Great city though....
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RPreskop
I have been to Las Vegas once and once is enough. As far as I am concerned Vegas is the most architecturally ugly city that I have ever seen. Nevada as a whole is an ugly, desolate sand and sagebrush wasteland. I strongly prefer Buffalo and other older northern cities over Las Vegas.
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