Buffalo Pierce-Arrow Plant redevelopment

Buffalo News (via Arch Record)

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Pierce-Arrow plant may get overhauled
By Sharon Linstedt NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 07/18/07 6:42 AM

A Troy development company wants to turn the former Pierce-Arrow auto manufacturing plant in North Buffalo into a mixed-use complex that includes residences, retail and a hotel.

United Group of Companies unveiled its proposal to overhaul the sprawling, one millionsquare- foot site, located on Great Arrow Avenue between Elmwood Avenue and Lincoln Parkway, before the Buffalo Planning Board on Tuesday. The project would carry a price tag exceeding $100 million.

Jeffrey R. Smetana, executive vice president of United Development Corp., said the ambitious redevelopment effort would be done in phases, starting with creation of about 250 student-oriented apartments.

He told the planning panel there is demand for off-campus housing in that neighborhood, particularly from nearby Buffalo State College students. Pending approval of its plans, the first phase of reconstruction could begin this fall.

United Group has hired Chaintreuil Jenson Stark Architects of Buffalo to design the project.

Richard M. Tobe, the city’s commissioner of economic development, permits and inspections, said he has met with United Group representatives and is encouraged by their interest.

“We’ve had meetings with them to discuss possible projects. We’re encouraged by outof- town interest in what would be a substantial redevelopment on a site with a lot of local history,†Tobe said.

He cautioned, however, that the site has multiple owners, and it will require significant physical investment to convert the century-old structures into modern uses.

“This will be a complicated and expensive project. This is a big one,†he said.

James T. Sandoro, director of Buffalo’s Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Museum, said he’s pleased to hear of plans to give new life to the historic plant.

“That plant is mecca for tens of thousands of people around the world who consider the Pierce-Arrow the greatest car of the 20th century,†Sandoro said. “I’d be thrilled to see somebody come in and make into something great for the community.â€

This will be the first Buffalo project for United Group, whose extensive portfolio includes market rate housing, senior and student housing and commercial development. It was chosen by Niagara County Community College earlier this year to develop about 750 student apartments in three phases.

United’s resume of development and management of student housing includes more than 5,000 units of both onand off-campus living quarters. Among its most recent efforts are new-build student apartments for Finger Lakes Community College in Canandaigua that will debut for the 2007-2008 school year.

The Pierce-Arrow plant, designed by famed industrial architect Albert Kahn, is situated on a 15-acre site that formerly had been part of the 1901 Pan- American Exposition. Groundbreaking for the massive car plant took place in early 1906, and the first Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Co. vehicle rolled off the line in January 1907.

In 2001, real estate developer Anthony Kissling announced plans to acquire the site and turn the plant into a major telecommunications center, but those plans never advanced. But the site is far from idle, serving as a home to more than two dozen tenants. The eclectic mix ranges from small medical and design firms to a company that makes squirrel feeders.

The plant’s 135,000-squarefoot administration building, which faces Elmwood Avenue, was bought by a Brooklyn developer in 2005. Joseph Hecht announced plans to convert the building, designed by Buffalo architect George Cary, to loft apartments, but the conversion has not taken place to date.

Wow, those rear sections are functionalist. Gropius must've schplotzed his pants.

Proof, I guess, that Buffalo isn't quite a Detroitian basket case: it's not exactly abandoned and left to rot...

good news for buffalo. this plant is HUGE. just look at this picture.

I love Kahn's work, and it looks very much intact, more so than most of his Detroit works. I'd love to check it out the next time I'm over there.

The old Ford plant on Main is something to see as well. Close to the Darwin Martin House (I wish they never knocked down one of Wright's only industrial buildings, the Larkin soap plant).

It was the administration building that was torn down, not the factory; believe it or not, a lot of the Larkin industrial buildings (*not* by Wright, but comparable to Pierce-Arrow) still stand, and even in good use...
http://freenet.buffalo.edu/bah/a/exch/726/tc.html

This is just up the street from the Psychiatric Hospital, another spectacular disused but intact complex of buildings. I hope that both restorations can take place simultaneously. It could be quite a neighbourhood with the two of them, Delaware Park, and the Albright-Knox.

...and the Martin House, and the Buffalo Zoo, etc. etc.

Yeah, you're right. Even the Martin house is only a few blocks away. It's quite a neighbourhood!

I wonder what Ani DiFranco thinks...

Buffalo seems to be finally latching on to its architecture as a tourist draw. When I was at BUF earlier this year, I saw ads (paraphrasing) that "Buffaloians need not build up their city - Wright, Sullivan, Richardson and Olmstead already did". There's a cafe at the airport that is designed with faux elements from the Martin House.

Though I think only serious architecture buffs would care that much - it's a bit of a niche market, but there are good opportunities here.

I think Buffalo's already been latching on in one degree or another for a quarter century, since Buffalo Architecture: A City Guide came out.

If it's any more so now, it may just reflect the overall rise of "cultural tourism" as a lucrative factor, esp. among the Starbucks/Barnes+Noble crowd...

Adma, it is definitely more so now, and it is because they are realizing that once Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House restoration is complete, Buffalo will have one of the premiere sites in the US for architourism. Add the Martin House complex to FLW's Graycliff restoration, to the construction of a FLW mausoleum in Forest Lawn Cemetery, to the planned construction of a FLW designed gas station at the Pierce Arrow museum, and the planned construction of a FLW designed boathouse for the West Side Rowing Club on Lake Erie, and you'll have a full-on froth develop in the mouth of every FLW fan on the continent.

I have no idea how much of an economic boost they believe they'll realize from that, but they have to hitch their wagon to something, right?

I've been through the Martin House twice - once prior to restoration work commencing, and once since - and was outside it again last fall to see progress on the Conservatory and Pergola. When this is all done I'll be badgering all of my friends to head down to Buffalo to see it all as it will be stunning. If nothing else, The Anchor Bar and the Martin House Foundation will both be making a tidy sum off of us.

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