The push is on to save a large piece of Buffalo's industrial heritage. Preservationists are urging city lawmakers to give the Trico building landmark status.
The Buffalo Common Council could vote Tuesday on protecting the iconic Trico Building at Goodell and Washington Streets downtown. On the steps of City Hall Monday, Preservation Buffalo-Niagara Executive Director Tom Yots urged the Council to follow the law, which only requires a building meet one out of nine criteria to gain landmark status.
"This building has been determined twice by unanimous votes in the Preservation Board to be eligible for seven of the nine criteria. So this building is clearly eligible and it's...on the state and national registers of historic places, which tells you something about its historic significance," said Yots.
Yots says landmark status would allow developers historic tax credits needed to make a reuse project economically feasible. Dana Saylor says there is a lot of misinformation being spread about the former Trico plant.
"It's a matter of perspective...Nobody thought that a place like Hotel Lafayette could be redeveloped and that there would be a demand for a place with so little parking. Yet Trico has the opposite problem. It has so much space you could use the first two floors for parking. So...it solves a lot of the parking issues in the Buffalo-Niagara Medical Campus," said Saylor.
Opponents of preservation say the old vacant factory is too large for reuse and beyond repair.
The Common Council meets at 2 p.m. Tuesday.
