By Joyce Kryszak
Buffalo, NY – The Bass Pro Shops will be coming to Buffalo's waterfront. Store officials today confirmed they are wrapping up details of a contract with the state.
It was exactly a year ago that state, city and store officials announced grand plans for a Bass Pro in the old Memorial Auditorium. Larry Whiteley is Manager of Corporate Public Relations for Bass Pro. He says the contract should soon be complete. In fact, Whitely says research and design work has already been quietly going on behind the scenes. Whitely says there was never a reason for worry that the store wouldn't materialize.
"What people don't understand is that this is a major project. It takes a lot of time to go through all the details and make sure everything is working right," said Whitely. "We've had other areas of the country where it's taken a year, two years, three years, working through everything -- as we did other things too, because this is not near the only thing we are doing."
Whitely did say that the Erie Canal Development Corporation has been extremely helpful in recent months in working through some of those details. The project will cost $123 million with $66 million of that in public dollars for infrastructure and access to the old Aud. Bass Pro will spend roughly $57 million renovating the space into a mega-sports retail, education and entertainment attraction. Whitely says there is no exact ground-breaking date yet -- but Bass Pro could be a belated Christmas present for Buffalo.
"Right now we are finishing opening...we've got two more stores we're opening next week, and then we hope we can breathe a little during the holidays," said Whitely.. "Then, maybe we can doing the ground-breakings and the ribbon unveilings, and all that stuff, at any other stores we're getting ready to announce, too."
Bass Pro is rapidly expanding in other parts of the country. Where they already exist, the stores are credited with drawing ten of thousands of people from near and far.