After years of studying, planning and early infrastructure construction work, the Highland Park development is under construction with more buildings to come this spring.
Developers have spent several years working through the regulatory process and digging up the old Central Park Plaza to ready it for housing. That includes putting back Chalmers Avenue, long lost to the plaza. LP Ciminelli Construction is well along on two apartment buildings on the site and scheduled to rent the first units in July.
The Buffalo Planning Board Monday approved some design changes in townhouses for sale by Burke Homes. David Burke said his part of the overall project is houses for sale.
"I'm going to be the general contractor for all the townhome portion of Highland Park," said Burke. "We're going to be selling these townhomes."
Initially, that is six units with an eventual total of 32 planned. Ciminelli Vice President John Ciminelli said the harsh winter has created a few weeks of delay, but work on the apartment buildings is continuing.
"One building is under roof as we speak," he said, "and the other building is being framed and it's three-quarters built."
Elim Christian Fellowship is also building housing adjacent to Burke and Ciminelli, creating a three-way node of development that will eventually move across the larger site. Eventually, there might be nearly 700 housing units on the former plaza, along with an array of retail spaces to serve the new neighborhood.
