Downtown Housing Tour Properties Announced
We temporarily divert all this chatter about speculative development proposed on Gates Circle uptown to focus on where residential development is happening: Downtown! Hundreds of people have moved into over a dozen new downtown residential projects in recent years and organizers of Old Home Week are inviting you inside during the second annual Downtown Housing Tour.
On Saturday, July 7th, from 11 am until 4 pm, you will be able to see the various styles and trends that make up the exciting housing developments transforming downtown Buffalo. A tour map may be picked up at the Market Arcade building located at 617 Main Street the day of the event. The tour is free and self-guided.
Transportation is not provided, but many properties are within walking distance of each other or just blocks away from free light rail service along Main Street. Buffalo Blue Bicycles, an innovative community bicycle-lending program, is making its services available to tour goers at no charge. Bikes must be reserved online in advance.
More and more buildings are being renovated into lofts, apartments and condominiums, and at least eleven properties have signed-on to be open for viewing during the tour including:
-Belesario -Ellicott Commons -Ellicott Lofts -Elsinghorst Building -Holling Place and 504 Washington -IS Lofts -Lofts @ Elk Terminal -Oak School Lofts -St. Mary’s Square Condos -Warehouse Lofts -Webb Building
Five of the properties are new to the tour. Make plans to discover what loft and downtown living is all about. The downtown tour is one of six neighborhood tours taking place on July 7th as part of Old Home Week. The neighborhood tours are sponsored by the Buffalo Niagara Association of Realtors and Ciminelli Development with significant support from Buffalo Place and the Buffalo News.
Organizers are still looking for residents of the above properties interested in hosting their units. Contact me for additional information.
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chris69
Gosh the IS Lofts look terrible from the outside....(my opinion)
I like downtown living. I like apartment life. What I dont understand is why being in a an apartment or condo in downtown Buffalo is so much cheaper than an apartment of single family home outside of downtown.
You can pick up a $50,000 house in some parts of Buffalo.....and in other parts of Buffalo and the suburbs you can get a decent place for $100,000....at 6% that is only 600 per month....ok yes add another 100 a month for property and school taxes....but that is still what 700 a month for what a 2 or 3 or 4 bedroom home yet in Buffalo it seems like everything to buy or rent is $1,000 (which translates to $175k) to $1,200 per month (which translates to $200k)....thats still what I would consider a huge discrepancy...especially for a downtown that doesnt have any form of retail, grocery stores, cleaners, etc.....and has unsafe crappy schools filled with kids that know there are no jobs in Buffalo even if they go to college and the only way to make a living is off the state (either in prison, or welfare or being employed by the state).
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chris69
sorry I meant that downtown living was expensive.....not cheap....
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Biniszkiewicz
Chris69: you can't pick up a newly constructed house in Buffalo for $50k. These new apartments are expensive because it costs a lot to build them.
As to the rest of the cost/benefit equation: people are willing to pay more for these because of location and style. You're right: you will get more bang for your buck buying a home somewhere (though many people don't want the upkeep and taxes and upfront costs of home ownership).
As for the 'no jobs except off the state', clearly wrong. Survey people living downtown and few will be public employees. As to schools: most of the people moving to these lofty style apartments don't have kids (their either young or empty nesters, for the most part). But I know of at least one family moving to downtown from Clarence with a child in private school in Buffalo. For them, part of the equation is: 'why commute every day into the city? We should just live there.'
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Sal
Is the Sidway Building on the tour list?
chris69 - downtown living can be expensive when you compare brand-new apartments with older housing stock. Most, if not all, places listed in this article are new and up to a higher code standard. Condos can be cheaper because of the way property taxes are charged and because of the income tax advantages associated with owning your own place. In your analogy, property taxes would be almost 3 times the amount for a $100,000 single family rate and you need to include the garbage user fee.
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jooliecoolie
i went on this downtown housing tour last year and loved it!! i would highly recommend it to anyone interested. in fact, i’ve been sharing my experience with coworkers since then. yes, some people may think that the prices are high, but i believe most of these buildings are not having vacancy issues.
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Kernwatch
Those of us watching the relentless decline of neighborhoods, as the city has about 25,000 housing vacancies & has budgeted $14 million for 1000 demolitions in the new fical year (July 1), wonder if there is any kind of housing plan as housing goes up everywhere in a steadily shrinking city.
Downtown is important, but the Sidway building was emptied of commercial tenants with heavy HUD subsidies, as 616 heavily subsidized downtown waterfront units at Marine Drive Apartments are no longer even mentioned.
What is the plan? Why are desirable waterfront units at Marine Drive still taxpayer-subsidized on some of the city's most valuable land? I assume they are not part of the tour?
Ptivatizing Marine Drive, now having subsidized rents as low as $250 /month all utilities included, could create affordable condo's on the waterfront while enhancing the city's struggling taxbase.
The city is shrinking. What is the housing plan as housing is going up everywhere that folks did not live during Bflo's heyday when twice as large?
Helter skelter does not work.
Dick Kern
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