With a parking ramp on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus about 60 percent demolished, the i's are being dotted and the t's crossed on a much larger replacement. The 900-car parking ramp at Ellicott and Goodrich is being turned into concrete chunks with rebar sticking out. The more than two times larger replacement is currently pretty pictures on architect renderings and lots of words on expensive legal papers.
The completion date is scheduled for November of next year, timed to the opening of the new U.B. Medical School and the John R. Oishei Children's Hospital.
Senior Project Manager Mark McGovern said the old one was worn. "The one that we are in the process of designing and building is 1,825 spaces to accommodate growth on the medical campus, employee and patient-based, both with Oishei Children's Hospital, Conventus and Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences."
McGovern admitted the ramp may not solve the parking problems on the medical campus and around it, but there are other attempts underway to ease the parking problems that have cars overflowing into the Fruit Belt, taking up street space.
The new parking ramp is designed to fit in with the futuristic buildings of the medical campus. It is supposed to cost $45 million, with a construction loan paid back from the fees to park.
