Deal reached on Bass Pro store
By Sharon Linstedt - News Staff Reporter
Updated: 03/29/07 12:22 PM
A deal has been reached to bring a Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World store to Buffalo's waterfront.
The Buffalo News has confirmed the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp. is expected to approve an agreement for a Bass Pro store on the former Central Wharf site, directly on the Buffalo River.
The deal is the linchpin in a $250 million private/public initiative to redevelop Buffalo’s Erie Canal Harbor District, with the one-of-a-kind Bass Pro store as the retail anchor. The store is expected to be 120,000 square feet, about half the size of the store originally planned for the old Memorial Auditorium.
“This is the real deal. We have money, we have a developer and this is going to happen,” said a member of the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp. board of directors, which negotiated the agreement.
The vote will take place at a special meeting of the harbor development panel scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday.
The agreement is “a completely different animal” than the Memorandum of Understanding, unveiled with great fanfare in November 2004, according to the panel member, who confirmed the deal on the condition of anonymity.
“The '04 announcement was made on a wing and a prayer and it turned out to be just another plan, just another photo opportunity. This is based in reality,” the source added.
The agreement forecasts a spring 2008 construction start, with Bass Pro and other retailers opening by mid-2009 on the five-acre site, which is bounded by Scott and Main streets, the historic Commercial Slip and the Buffalo River.
In addition to construction of a Bass Pro store, designed to resemble a circa 1800s commercial building, the plan also calls for an adjacent cluster of retail shops, linked to a 300-car parking garage.
An Erie Canal/Great Lakes Museum, waterside promenade, public plaza, and a linear water feature on the former site of the Prime Slip are also part of the blueprint.
Under terms of the predevelopment agreement, Bass Pro would receive $25 million in public funding to open a waterfront store. Bass Pro would be required to pay a common area fee of $300,000 a year to help support the Erie Canal Harbor district.
The deal also provides the city with $10 million to pay for demolition of the vacant Memorial Auditorium, which had long been the hoped-for site of a Buffalo Bass Pro Shops store.
Buffalo-born Benderson Development will act as the project’s developer, overseeing construction of the outdoor store and additional retail on the waterfront site, as well as mixed used projects on the Aud site, Donovan State Office Building site, and the vacant Webster Block, in front of HSBC Arena.
The development process “will necessarily” include fresh environmental impact studies to evaluate the feasibility and appropriateness of bringing the mix of retail, entertainment and historical venues to the site, according to the harbor panel source.
“There is a process to be followed and we will honor that process. There are no final designs at this point, so there is flexibility in making this work,” he said.
For full details, see Friday’s Buffalo News.