Sorry, the last thing we need is more shovel ready sites. What needs to happen is not to demolish these buildings, but hold the owners responsible for the condition, establish a master plan for urban renewal and design in the city, and offer more incentives to draw companies to the city. Change the city charter so the same incentives that are in place for renovating buildings into rentals can be used for apts/condos for sale.
There is a VERY low vacancy rate for class A office space, we need to get more of these old buildings renovated and turned into Class A Space. Look at the Larkin building on seneca, here is a building in the middle of nowhere and its 95% full, and creating its own little vibrant area all on its own.
Lets get rid of government sponsored housing and start offering rental vouchers.
Lets kill three birds with one stone and get rid of the projects off of the 190 near the casino site and use that area for a new stadium/event center/convention center. Lets make it 55,000 seats so we can actually sell out games, make it a dome (that can be open for bills games), but allows us to use it for other events (what good is a building used 12 times a year?!), and also incorporate a convention center into the mix. This is a much better location, since there is multiple major arteries that we can access the stadium by, its a lot more convenient for Rochester and Ontario fans, and will spawn a ton of offshoot development, not to mention getting rid of some terrible 1950’s goverment sponsored housing experiments (projects).
Overall we need to support good urban design, and create a master plan that is turned into actual code for the city, we need to make Buffalo walkable again. If we are going to tear something down, lets make sure we are replacing it with something as significant or better. We don’t need to tear down great urban buildings that need some TLC to putup a single story Walgreens with a huge parking lot, or a suburban Arby’s… etc.