It’s October for Aud demolition in Buffalo, March for Bass Pro construction
Plans to knock down Buffalo's venerable Memorial Auditorium to make way for a Bass Pro Shops store got initial City of Buffalo approval Tuesday.
The Buffalo Planning Board OK'd a general site plan that will see demolition begin in early October, following completion of a comprehensive asbestos removal effort.
"If all goes well, by the end of March we'll be ready to start construction," said Chuck Rosenow, president of the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp., which is overseeing the massive Canal Side redevelopment project, which includes the Bass Pro store.
Under the current timetable, remediation of asbestos and other hazardous materials from the Aud will wrap up by the end of September, followed by the start of building demolition in early October.
"We will not implode it. We can't do that because of where it's located," said Lowell Dewey, of C&S Engineering, the project's demolition consultant.
Dewey cited the close proximity of the I-190, Skyway, CSX/Amtrak railroad corridor, and underground water and sewer conduits, all of which stand in the way of a dramatic implosion end to the Aud's 68- year run. A request for bids to take down the Aud will go out next month.
Steve Fitzmaurice, chief operating officer of the adjacent One HSBC Center office tower, urged the planning board to approve the demolition plan to maintain the project's momentum.
"We're anxious to see the Aud go. We've been looking at that eyesore for years now," Fitzmaurice said. "This is a very important next step."
The five-acre Aud site will be a blank slate resembling a gravel parking lot when demolition is complete. The only remnants will be sub-surface foundations on the north side of building, along Lower Terrace Street, which will be reused to build the new Bass Pro store.
Rosenow said while the development agency and its consultants work on getting the future store site construction-ready, Bass Pro designers continue to perfect blueprints for a 125,000-square-foot Outdoor World store. Current renderings, which have not been made public, depict a multilevel store, with underground parking for 450 vehicles.
Eric Recoon, a Benderson Development executive, is working directly with Bass Pro to integrate the new store into the framework of the 20-acre Canal Side site.
"We've seen a bunch of slightly tweaked iterations over the past months. It's going to be a dramatic and impressive building, a one-of-a-kind store, that is very much in keeping with the Great Lakes/Erie Canal theme," Recoon said.
The Benderson executive said Bass Pro officials will come to Buffalo in the next month to walk through the recently opened harbor and the project site as part of the effort to "marry the store design" to the larger $400 million development.
A master plan for siting the Bass Pro store, plus another 400,000 square feet of retail, entertainment, residential, office and museum space on the blocks surrounding the historic Erie Canal Harbor, will be made public by late summer, according to Recoon.
Full-blown plans for the entire Canal Side project are expected to be complete by early October to officially kick-off required environmental reviews.
"We have to begin the [State Environmental Quality Review] process at least six months ahead of when we want to start construction so there's no delays," said Jordan A. Levy, chairman of the harbor agency. "At that point our plans will become very, very public."
The current timetable calls for the Bass Pro story to open in early 2010.
