OK OK it’s not exactly a sports story, but from time to time I chime in on downtown Buffalo development news, especially when it involves the neighborhoods around our sports venues.

Yesterday Savarino Construction announced that they were no longer planning to rehab the old Benlin Building on Perry and Mississippi into 36 loft condominiums. Instead they are going to go “mixed use”, still planning restaurant space on the ground floor, and office space on floors 3 through 5, and I hear Empire State Development Corporation will be the tenant for two of those floors. The second floor will remain saved for 9 residences, but they will now be apartments.

Of course, the Buffalo Rising crowd is cheering this on as some wonderful bold stroke for the city. Check the comment board in another day or two, and the nonsense there will devolve into arguments how the doors should not be painted eggshell white and how we need an IKEA. But my opinion is very simple - while I am glad to see rehab work at long last start on this magnificent structure, the final use of thie building is not a win for the neighborhood.

Office suites are fine and dandy, but at 5PM everyone shuts the lights off and books for the suburbs. Second, this is not some influx of new jobs into the city, just a shuffling of downtown tenants, leaving vacant space for lease elsewhere. Third, the dwarfed residential component again serves renters and transients, and not investors who want to buy into city living. The original plans for the building had a ground floor workout room and a rooftop patio and garden. Now it’s just nine apartments wedged in among offices. Blech!

I’ve been eyeballing downtown real estate for almost five years now, with the idea of moving back to the city core someday. Yes I’m knee deep into Cheektowaga politics, and it would be soooooooooo hard to walk away from all that (sarcasm intended). The fact of the matter is, downtown housing today caters to three markets - the luxury buyer (think Waterfront Village 350K and up way up), the luxury renter (think Bellesario), and the low income renter (think Holling). There is nothing to cater to the middle class buyer, who wants to spend 100-225K on cool digs in the center city. Cobblestone Lofts would have been the first project to cater to that niche. I am convinced they would have sold out in a week.

These plans were first unveiled and approved in 2005. My guess is that the developers re-crunched the numbers and found that they just weren’t viable. There has to be a reason that guys like Obletz and Termini rehab all these structures like the Webb, 210 Ellicott etc. and turn them into rentals. That’s where the money is.

*Sigh* So I sit here check in hand for the new place I want to buy, that cool and funky and trendy space that I am chomping at the bit to find. And my thoughts turn back to Cheektowaga, where I am in town government and now knee deep into an overhaul of the Town’s Master Plan. And I have been putting forth this idea - imagine the creation of a downtown Cheektowaga centered by the Galleria Mall and its new lifestyles center. Mid rise condos, office parks, trails, greenspace and micro parks, all densely packed and creating a vibrant and exciting “live work shop play” environment.

I’ve shared the concept with my partner Pete. His reply? “Ya think your good ideas are ever going to fly in Cheektowaga? Bwa-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!”

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