Downtown development is spreading ever wider and that's why a local businessman says his proposed store and gas station at Broadway and Jefferson will work.
Ahmed Saleh says he wants to put a store, a coffee drive-through and gas pumps into a neighborhood not filled with any of them. Once the regulatory hurdles are jumped, it's relatively easy to build the store because it would go on four vacant lots at the corner.
He and architect John Schenne are working their way through the city process.
"I think in general that Buffalo is doing great," Saleh said.
"You see a lot of development in East Side and in West Side or in South or Downtown. So, we try to reach the East Side."
Schenne says it's a complicated place to design the facility, to meet Planning Board issues on paint color and where the building will go on the land and how many driveways the Public Works Department will allow and trying to avoid cars overflowing onto the street if the drive through is busy and keeping customers who want gas and coffee in different lines.
