By Jennifer Tebo
Currently there are 20 improvement projects ongoing along the outer harbor in Buffalo. Members of the Western New York community have been lobbying for years for development on Buffalo’s waterfront. Now developers prepare to urbanize the lakefront in order to bring back the worldwide cultural appeal and the economy for Buffalo.
In a 2005 press release Sen. Charles E. Schumersaid Buffalo’s waterfront should be accessible with adequate green space and contributing to plenty of commercial space, because the number one priority should be jobs for people in this community.
David A. Stebbins, the waterfront projects coordinator for the Buffalo Urban Development Corp., said theBuffalo Boat Harbor project, started in 2004 and previously controlled by theNFTA, will now be in the hands of the New York State Parks, and will continue a transformation of the boat harbor into a state park.
“Since there are over 72 miles of shoreline along Buffalo’s waterfront, I assume that there will always be new projects planned and under construction somewhere along the waterfront; future plans will be constantly evolving,” Stebbins said.
Stebbins said developing the waterfront is significant to reduce the dissipation of the population. He said with all the colleges and universities in the area and the number of graduates who don’t stay in Buffalo; that brainpower is what our economy could use.
William J. Maggio, president of the West Side Rowing Club, said the Frank Lloyd Wright Boathouse, locatedon the Black Rock Channelright next to theWest Side Rowing Club, began construction earlier in September and is scheduled for completion by the summer of 2007. The facility will serve as a tourist attraction and an operational boathouse, set and managed by the rowing club.
The $5.4 million facility will attract new members and students from area schools that have not had the opportunity to join the club’s rowing programs, because the present rowing club is at its capacity, Maggio said.
Tom Fontana, a graduate of Buffalo State College and TV producer, supported funding for the boathouse and encouraged many film and TV stars to donate.
The list of stars includes:
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Mary Tyler Moore
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Blythe Danner
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Dana Delany
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Edie Falco
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Olympia Dukakis
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David Morse
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Billy Baldwin
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Jerry Stiller
Funding for the boathouse:
Other projects in the making are:
John Montague, director of the Maritime Center, said the Maritime Center is for BSC students who minor in boat building and boat design. It also provides a maritime museum, which presents boat architecture and boat history. This facility also promotes tourism as an attraction to bring people back into the city.
The Dick Smith Teaching Pavilion broke ground also earlier in September, which is right across from the Maritime Center; it will serve as a community teaching facility for Buffalo State College students and many other schools.
In a Buffalo News article, “Changing the tide”, published in 2005, Phil Fairbanks, a news staff reporter, said to understand the publics high hopes for waterfront development the public first has to understand the failures, one example would be the amusement park proposed by Erie County Executive Joel A. Giambra, which never happened.
These failures have left the community with low standards and the belief that Buffalo’s waterfront would never become anything more than it is. That is now in the past because Buffalo’s waterfront development is now thriving.
“There are close to 20 different projects on Buffalo’s waterfront. Some have been completed, some are under construction, and will be completed in the next year or so; some have not yet started,” Stebbins said.
Jennifer Tebo can be reached at teboj27@verizon.net
Photos courtesy of www.buffalowaterfront.com
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