Dulski Building to reincarnate as ‘Avant’
Developers say ‘world-class’ project is ‘right for this time’
Goodbye, Dulski. Hello, Avant. The former Thaddeus J. Dulski Federal Office Building at the corner of Delaware Avenue and West Huron Street downtown has been renamed “Avant.”
“We are borrowing the French term for moving forward,” said Uniland Development Co. Chairman Carl J. Montante Sr., whose firm is co-developing the top-to-bottom overhaul of the 37-year-old former government building with Buffalo’s Acquest Development.
Montante said the new name symbolizes the effort to strip the 15-story building down to its steel beams and rebuild it as a mix of hotel, office and luxury condominiums.
The project “is right for this time; it’s right for this place,” Montante said, noting that a recent wave of new construction and adaptive reuse in the downtown core indicates Buffalo itself is also moving forward.
“Our days of apologizing are over,” he said of the state of downtown.
Acquest chief William D. Huntress called the project “world class” and stressed its status as the first mixed use building in the city to bring together hospitality, office and residential space.
When it debuts in mid-2009, it will house a 150-room Embassy Suites hotel on floors one through seven, with Class-A office space on the middle five levels, topped by three floors of high-end condominiums. The dwellings will range in price from $400,000 to more than $1.5 million.
Uniquest, which expects to have approval from the New York State Attorney General’s Office to begin marketing the units in August, has already fielded hundreds of inquiries about the condos, including some 75 it characterized as “serious.”
Montante said he’s had detailed discussions with a potential buyer for the 4,000-square-foot, 15th-floor penthouse unit.
Uniquest recently announced it has signed Buffalo law firm Damon & Morey LLP as anchor tenant for its office floors. The law firm will move into the 11th and 12th floors, taking 50,000-square-feet, under a 15-year lease that starts May 1, 2009.
While most of the structure is currently torn down to its structural steel, a portion of the north and west sides of the building is clad in its new glass facade. Blueish gray and pearl panels are replacing the tan concrete that made up its exterior.
In unveiling the building’s new identity, Montante also disclosed the price tag for transforming the 375,000-square-foot federal building to a state-of- the-art mixed use complex has ballooned from a projected $68 million to as much as $80 million.
He blamed rising international demand for steel and skyrocketing fuel prices for the sharp price increase, and said it’s affecting every construction project in the country.
Montante also said higher building costs will not block plans for his company’s next major project, a 23-story condominium tower on Gates Circle in the city’s Delaware District. Construction of that building, originally pegged as a $55 million effort, is tentatively slated to begin in late 2009 or early 2010.
During its days as a federal government-owned office tower, the Dulski listed its official address as 111 W. Huron St. Since acquiring the building in a federal auction in late 2006, Uniquest Development has unofficially referred to the site as 200 Delaware, but developers wanted a more distinct name.
Buffalo advertising and marketing firm Crowley Webb was brought in to assist the naming effort, cutting an original list of some 100 possible monikers down to a handful of choices. When Avant took the lead in the name game, there was some concern that Buffalonians would have a tough time pronouncing it.
“There was some worry that the Buffalo “flat A” would overtake the softer “Ah-vahnt,” said Uniland spokeswoman Judi Griggs.
To dispel concerns Crowley Webb hit Main Street and asked passers-by to pronounce Avant, along with two other possible building names. When results yielded a 90 percent success rate for Avant’s soft A’s, the choice became final.
