Planners for the reuse of the historic and decrepit Trico plant on the edge of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus will come back to the Preservation Board with more details on demolition and construction. The board tabled the plan Thursday, saying there were just too many unsettled details.
The Krog Corp. wants to turn the 600,000 square foot former industrial building into a 480,000 square foot complex of hotel, residential and commercial space.
The oldest section of the complex would go, replaced with some new construction and an entrance into a new courtyard.
Architect Michael DeLuca says the building is in rough shape.
"It's been vacant for 17 years with the roof off of it for 14 years. So, when you walk up on the roof, it's just all the concrete kind of spalling all over. It was removed when the Century Group was going to do the redevelopment back then. Unfortunately, he passed away and then it went on to the next phase and it was looking to be demoed," DeLuca.
Preservation Board member Tim Tielman was a strong advocate of saving the complex from demolition. Tielman says the plan needs some work on street life along Goodell Street.
"The entrance to the building and everything where you are actually going to see living, breathing people using the building, it's not visible from the sidewalk," Tielman said.
"It's a good plan, I think, but it would be nice if we could actually get street life on both of these corners."
The current design of the $50 million plan calls for the main entrance to be off Ellicott and into an interior courtyard created by demolishing the collapsing Ice House, the oldest part of the building, and putting in driveways to the courtyard and parking.
