Five years ago, a local nonprofit, Centro Cultural Italiano di Buffalo, expressed interest in converting an old unoccupied library into a cultural center for the group. The ball didn’t get rolling until Signature Development got involved, according to Joel P. Feroleto, a member of the city’s Delaware District Common Council, who has been involved in this conversion for more than two years.
Feroleto credits Rocco Termini, Signature’s CEO, for gathering support for the cultural center from both political parties. The state agreed to kick in $350,000 for the renovation, which was matched in February by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown. The city also donated the land for the center to the community.
After Brown’s announcement, says Feroleto, two buildings near the library were purchased by developers. They plan to convert one of the buildings, a restaurant that had been closed for a decade, into a wine bar, and the other, a church that had been closed for three years, into eight luxury apartments.
Termini, who will oversee construction of the cultural center, and Tomasso Briatico, whose architecture firm is designing it, are working pro bono. Briatico says his design has 4,000 sf of usable space on two floors, including a downstairs kitchen for cooking classes, plus classrooms for cultural preservation education.
“Buffalo is turning a corner, and becoming more of a financial center,” says Termini. His group recently purchased an entire street, where it is developing an incubator space under Start-Up NY, a program that allows new businesses to operate tax free for 10 years. He is also converting an 80,000-sf building in which a software development company and a ceramics manufacturer have each committed to taking 30,000 sf.
Related Stories
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction Sector Engineering Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Jacobs, URS, and Wiss, Janney, Elstner top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest reconstruction engineering and engineering/architecture firms in the U.S.
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction Sector Architecture Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Stantec, HDR, and HOK top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest reconstruction architecture and architecture/engineering firms in the U.S.
| Jul 25, 2014
Philip Johnson’s 'Tent of Tomorrow' vandalized, damaged with fire
Vandals set fire to a stolen van in the park, which in turn caught the tarp covering the pavilion's 50-year old Terrazzo Map on fire.
| Jul 23, 2014
Architecture Billings Index up nearly a point in June
AIA reported the June ABI score was 53.5, up from a mark of 52.6 in May.
| Jul 21, 2014
Economists ponder uneven recovery, weigh benefits of big infrastructure [2014 Giants 300 Report]
According to expert forecasters, multifamily projects, the Panama Canal expansion, and the petroleum industry’s “shale gale” could be saving graces for commercial AEC firms seeking growth opportunities in an economy that’s provided its share of recent disappointments.
| Jul 18, 2014
Contractors warm up to new technologies, invent new management schemes [2014 Giants 300 Report]
“UAV.” “LATISTA.” “CMST.” If BD+C Giants 300 contractors have anything to say about it, these new terms may someday be as well known as “BIM” or “LEED.” Here’s a sampling of what Giant GCs and CMs are doing by way of technological and managerial innovation.
| Jul 18, 2014
Top Construction Management Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Jacobs, Barton Malow, Hill International top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest construction management and project management firms in the United States.
| Jul 18, 2014
Top Contractors [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Turner, Whiting-Turner, Skanska top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest contractors in the United States.
| Jul 18, 2014
Engineering firms look to bolster growth through new services, technology [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Following solid revenue growth in 2013, the majority of U.S.-based engineering and engineering/architecture firms expect more of the same this year, according to BD+C’s 2014 Giants 300 report.
| Jul 18, 2014
Top Engineering/Architecture Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Jacobs, AECOM, Parsons Brinckerhoff top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest engineering/architecture firms in the United States.
