One of the last remaining, undeveloped parcels within downtown Buffalo’s Canalside footprint could see a series of apartment buildings constructed along with some 20,000 square feet of commercial and retail space.
It has been two years since the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp. named a development team led by the Pennrose Group to develop the North Aud Block - a vacant Canalside parcel that sits in the shadow of the Seneca One Tower.
Now, a Pennrose executive - William D’Avella - says he expects a construction loan to help finance the proposed $200 million project to be secured later this year and construction to follow.
Plans call for 350 apartments - some in a 10-story high-rise, others in mid-rise buildings - to be developed during the next three years. The apartments will be leased to those in the affordable, workforce, and market rate brackets.
“To build a mixed-income community and pair that together with a really strong place-making retail footprint to bring food and beverage, entertainment, and retail options to people who are visiting Canalside, both local and not, and people who are going to be living there,” D’Avella said.
The project is one of four residential-anchored developments in the pipeline for the Canalside area. Combined, those four projects could bring as many as 1,300 new apartments extending out to lower Main Street.
That includes the 686 apartments in the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority’s Marine Drive complex redesign, Nick Sinatra’s Heritage Pointe apartments with 57 units, and developer Douglas Jemal’s proposed 168-unit 61 Terrace apartment building.
To D’Avella, more is better and creates a key critical mass and development synergy in and around Canalside.
“Their success is our success. And likewise, we think it's important that the whole region, that whole area, succeeds together. I've loved it when this happened at Seneca One with Doug (Jemal), and I hope that the South Aud block continues to move forward with construction, so it turns into like a nicely redeveloped area that all makes sense together,” D’Avella said.
The end game is to bring more people, on a 24/7 basis, to Canalside and lower Main Street, D’Avella said. He said this time next year, the North Aud Block will look like a construction zone.
