Over recent years, there have been a series of fights about development along Elmwood Avenue in the Elmwood Village. Some of the standard issues surfaced again last night as details of a major project at Elmwood and Delavan were explained at a public meeting at the Buffalo History Museum sponsored by the Elmwood Village Association.Developer Carl Paladino's Ellicott Development wants to take down a gas station and an adjacent house on the corner used to store tires and replace them with an $8 million, four-story structure. The mixed-use building would have a restaurant and store on the first floor, 21 units of market rate apartments on the upper three floors, and interior parking.
During Monday night's meeting, people made comments that echoed those directed at other projects in the past: that the rents would be too high, that the building would block the sun, that the plan looked good, and that the corner needed something besides a gas station.
Councilmember Michael LoCurto says this mixed-use proposal gets into major planning issues.
"That's what the Elmwood Village has been asking for and desiring for in new developments," he said. "That kind of old, walkable dense neighborhood that we see a lot of on Elmwood Avenue and one of the reasons that it's been so successful, but on this particular corner, it's kind of a dead zone."
LoCurto says he expects parts of this project will eventually come to the Council, with the overall proposal going to the Planning Board September 6. Ellicott Development says if they get approval from City Hall in September, the building should be done at the end of next year or by early in 2016.
