The Urban Design Project : Queen City Hub Plan [header images/logo]

2. Achieving the Vision

Putting it All Together

Focusing attention on strategic investment areas does not mean treating them as self-contained districts or urban islands. It means using new residential districts and attendant retail development to knit them together; connecting them along “great streets” on the Ellicott radials and grid; announcing them with celebratory gateways; and envisioning them as part of a greater Downtown that extends beyond the historical bounds of the CBD.

Priority will be given to four new neighborhoods Downtown, adding to the strength of existing residential units and the inner ring of neighborhoods. (click the image for a larger version)

A Residential Base

A Residential Base. The plan requires diverse pedestrian-oriented residential communities throughout Downtown. Housing Downtown will serve a growing market for city living, bring life to the streets, support retail development, make connections to adjacent neighborhoods, and help create the continuous urban fabric that Downtown needs.

The plan identifies a series of four focus areas for mixed-use housing development that utilizes the existing stock of buildings wherever possible. These include the 600- 800 blocks of Main Street and throughout the Theatre District; on Genesee Street east of Main; the 500 Block of Main Street and “Electric District” to the immediate east; and at the foot of Main Street in the Cobblestone District extending east along Perry Street.

In the Central Business District, more than seven hundred new units are now under construction or in final phases of financing and design. Rents for units range from $600/month to well over $1,300/month. All of these units are in residential focus areas called for in the plan. They involve an estimated investment of well over $90 million including land, public improvements, soft costs, and construction. Some of the sites in play involve an important mix of affordable and middle income rents and future sites will require still more attention to adding additional affordable housing to meet the demand of the current Downtown workforce.

Genesee St. between Ellicott and Elm is one of the largely intact blocks of turn-of-the-century buildings, that should be preserved and developed for mixed-use residential and commercial uses.

Supportive Retail

Supportive Retail. The residential focus areas are important, in part, because they reinforce the market for retail services in Downtown. Plan reviewers and participants in the Regional/Urban Design Assistance Team visit of the American Institute of Architects said we should not squander the potential impact of the still modest market for Downtown housing by dispersing it. When we combine the demand for shopping by Downtown workers and visitors with the market potential of residents who live Downtown or in adjacent inner-ring neighborhoods, the aggregate approaches what is necessary to support a more competitive array of retail goods and services.

Great streets are an essential part of the establishment of great downtowns. Selecting a few key streets for special treatment will reinforce the Ellicott radial and grid street plan as well as connections to both the Olmsted destination parks and the waterfront.

Connections

Making Downtown whole means finding ways to connect the strategic investment areas and residential focus areas with each other and with the inner ring of neighborhoods, the waterfront, and the rest of the city. The Queen City Hub envisions a series of celebratory gateways and “great streets” built on the framework of the radial and grid system. Such “great streets” should put the pedestrian first, calm the traffic, and improve the urban environment to connect investment areas, support residential development and retail, and link Downtown to neighborhoods and waterfront. For example, Church Street should link the new Downtown Education Campus west to Genesee and from there to the water.

It is critical to focus on the Strategic Investment Areas (dark gray) representing an area slightly larger than the Central Business District (black buildings). At the same time we must concentrate on the connections between Downtown and its abutting neighborhoods (light gray), respecting their interdependence.

A Greater Downtown

An important part of the vision for Downtown involves seeing it more broadly than we do now. Our CBD is relatively small compared to several peer cities. If we can imagine a Downtown that encompasses a relatively modest 4.5 square miles – an area bounded by Porter Avenue and North Street on the north, Jefferson Avenue to the east, and water on the south and west – we can see more clearly our assets, opportunities, and challenges, and act accordingly. One important aid to this imagination of Downtown would be a system of gateways and great streets that celebrate connections among Downtown points of entry, the city and the region.

The geography of The Queen City Hub honors the traditional boundary of the central business district while suggesting a larger conception of Downtown, involving about ten per cent of the total area of today’s city. But this area accounts for forty percent of the business activity and tax base of the city with well over sixty thousand people employed. The central business district plus the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus account for more than 55,000 of these employees.

The Sidway Building at Main and Goodell is being renovated as an apartment building.

This greater Downtown brings the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus fully into the family of Downtown employment centers. It includes more than 15,000 additional residents in the Downtown market base. Investments along Michigan Avenue, for example, will add value to the Downtown and abutting neighborhoods. Hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in the inner ring of neighborhoods in the greater Downtown are leveraged by investments in the strategic areas and all are supported with “great streets” and gateways.