Imagine a giant television screen glaring down upon the boaters and kayakers on Buffalo's waterfront. The opposition are making their voices heard.
Developer Doug Swift and partners want to install a 90' x 80' LED screen on an old grain elevator building near their RiverWorks project on Ganson Street. While the proposal came before the Zoning Board of Appeals Wednesday, it is not formally before any city regulatory agency.
It is a complicated issue because no one lives near the site, but many will soon live right across the Buffalo River. Swift says the project deserves some code variances.
"It is big, but this building doesn't change the height or the volume of this building, because it's not going above the existing roof line and the tower is already massive and crumbling," Swift said. "We're in a heavy industrial zone there. There are currently no residents within eyesight of this."
It is the latest commercialization of the Inner Harbor. The proposed site is next to the grain elevators, which have been turned into giant symbolic beer cans along the river.
Opposition to the 7,200-square-foot screen is already forming. Preservationist Dan Sack made his concerns known at the Zoning meeting.
"I don't think there's any question other than that will produce this huge change in the character of the neighborhood," Sack said. "And undesirable? Well, of course there're rules and I'm not a lawyer, but under the rules when you grant someone a variance for something that sets a precedent. The Buffalo River is not Times Square."
Opponent Broady Richardson also said the screen would be inappropriate.
"The nature of these signs to talk about them in the context of Times Square or something that you would go to Bills stadium and pay an admission in order to see something, the signage of this sort is simply, inherently inappropriate and garish," said Richardson.
