BUFFALO — Buffalo was riding a decade of economic upturn when a racist gunman attack killed 10 people in May, obscuring progress. While the city was sad, we had to consider the unpleasant portrayals of the slaughtered poor area of the East Side.
These harsh takes are only part of the story, according to residents, business owners and city officials. Now they are determined to refocus on recovery.
Key efforts to improve the East Side have been undertaken over the years, including new vocational training facilities and overhauls of deserted train stations. And supporters say Buffalo has become a better place to live due to the city-wide initiative to spend billions of dollars on parks, public art projects and apartments.
These efforts may even have reversed the chronic population decline. The latest census figures show that Buffalo’s population has increased for the first time in 70 years.
“Another story about Buffalo is that it’s being invested,” said Brandye Merriweather, president of Buffalo Urban Development Corporation, a non-profit organization dedicated to reusing city-owned vacant lots.
“I’m very sensitive to the problems caused by the shooting,” said Meriwether, who grew up across the street from where the shooting took place and still has a family in the neighborhood.
The wave of progress began when then-Governor of New York, Andrew M. Kuomo, promised $ 1 billion in grants and tax credits as part of a revitalization effort, with taxpayer funding and private investment. It has been supported by the combination of. The year since then.
Perhaps the most obvious sign of a change in Buffalo’s fate is an empty warehouse, a former city hall, and a new apartment that appears in a long-standing parking lot that has been converted into a long-awaited home. According to Mayor Byron W. Brown’s office, 224 apartment projects, most of which are rented, worth about $ 3 billion in investment, have started or are underway in the last decade, including 10,150 apartments.
And the pace of new homes seems to be accelerating. One-third of the total, or 78 projects, were announced in 2020 and 2021, the mayor’s office said.
Among them is the Seneca One Tower, one of the tallest buildings in the city and one of Buffalo’s most famous projects. Completed in 1972 as the home of the bank, it has been vacant in recent years. Today, the 40-story downtown spire has been used for a variety of purposes after a $ 100 million refurbishment.
Douglas Development, which purchased the tower six years ago, has added 115 apartments, a food hall, a large gym and a craft brewery. We also lifted the walls around the square to keep the wind on Lake Erie.
Barbara Foy (64), who started renting a two-bedroom apartment in Senecawan this spring with her husband Jack (65), said she enjoyed breaking the blinds and sleeping to enjoy the sparkle of the skyline. .. For almost 30 years, Foy worked as a social worker around her corner, but she never got stuck at night and instead drove back to her home in her suburbs. I did.
But activation helped her see Buffalo in a whole new light. “It looks like something is happening every weekend,” Foy said, adding that he enjoyed the city’s pride parade in June. “Buffalo has really come back to life, and I’m very proud of it.”
Office renting is slow. Approximately 70% of Seneca One’s space is rented, most of which is rented to Buffalo-based M & T Bank and 12 small tech companies. According to securities firm CBRE, vacancy rates in downtown top office buildings were 13% at the end of last year, down from 14% in 2020.
On the other hand, housing leasing has been firm. Gregg Baker, development director at Douglas, said it took only nine months to rent all Senecawan apartments after they hit the market for up to $ 3,000 a month in the fall of 2020. According to the census, the median rent for Buffalo is $ 800 per month.
Douglas has acquired approximately 20 properties in the region since purchasing Seneca One. For this, former hotels and hospitals will be converted into housing.
“People sell their homes to the suburbs and return to the city, while when I was young I lived in the suburbs and commute to the city,” said Baker from Buffalo.
In the vast city divided by the highway, improving infrastructure was also a priority, but efforts to date have paid off primarily on the West Side. For example, Niagara Street, near the bridge to Canada, once lined with car dealerships, shines with new sidewalks, street lights, and protected bike lanes. Bicycle stores and restaurants have also revived dilapidated storefronts.
Nearby workers are about to begin a $ 110 million overhaul of LaSalle Park, a 77-acre waterfront green space surrounded by Interstate 190. The plan requires a wide pedestrian bridge over the highway.
Relieving the rough parts of Buffalo’s commercial past is also the focus of downtown Canalside, an ongoing neighborhood that embraces the short debris of the original Erie Canal. This afternoon, a group of schools paraded around signs explaining how Midwestern wheat and pine once flowed through buffalo on their way to Europe. Movie nights and yoga classes take place on the nearby lawn.
“Buffalo may have a way, but it still has a long way to go,” said 32-year-old Stephanie Slowiek in the sun, sipping a hard cider purchased from a nearby stand. Slowiek, a nurse who grew up in the suburbs of Buffalo, lives on the border of the city today.
If there is a model of how Buffalo draws new uses from the outer skin of the industry, it’s Larkinville, the city’s former soap and boxing excursion that developers reinvented as a business district about 10 years ago. maybe. The Brocklong factory, which currently has offices, is clustered around a square dotted with colorful Adirondack chairs. Wednesday night concerts are a summer staple.
Makeovers of similar magnitude are rare on the East Side, but they can change quickly.
This spring, authorities announced a $ 225 million injection into the neighborhood, including $ 185 million from the state. Among the funds are $ 30 million for the African-American heritage corridor along Michigan Avenue and 6100 for the redevelopment of the Central Terminal, a 17-story Art Deco station with the last passengers in 1979. I have a million dollars.
In June, Governor Kathy Hokul announced that he would invest $ 50 million in the East Side to help homeowners repair and unpaid utility bills.
Several projects have already achieved concrete results, including the redevelopment of the 35-acre portion of Northland Avenue, which is lined with factories. Much of the property in the neighborhood remains abandoned, but the manufacturer of the metalworking machine was reborn in 2018 as the 237,000-square-foot Northland Central office and educational facility. This includes the Northland Labor Training Center, which teaches locals work skills.
“The impact of this place was astounding,” said Derek Frank, 41, who enrolled in class after serving eight years in prison for drug trafficking. Frank is now employed as an electrician, as is his son, Derek Jr., 21, who attended the class with his father.
“They put the building in the center of the city, which makes it accessible and convenient,” he added.
However, East Side redevelopment plans sometimes collide. Efforts to create a cluster of hospitals called the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus have caused gentrification. However, supporters point out that the hospital, which employs 15,000 people, has regained some of the economic downturn after the factory was closed.
Buffalo has grown tremendously, whether stimulated by public investment or other reasons. The population of 278,000 at the 2020 census increased by 7% from 261,000 in 2010.
Buffalo enjoys a stable stream of immigrants, like the family of Muhammad Z. Zaman, who emigrated from Bangladesh in 2004. This is because Buffalo was one of the few places in the United States where Islamic primary schools are located.
Today, an active artist, Zaman, 31, is one of several mural painters hired to add a bright design to the walls of a building that remains exposed to demolition. One of his works, incorporating Arabic calligraphy, which means “our colors make us beautiful,” adorns the sides of Broadway buildings with jazz.
“When we first moved here, we felt we were only a Bangladeshi family,” Zaman said. “Now people are coming here and there.”
