Buffalo Riverbend site attracting notice - Business First of Buffalo:

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Not off the hook, but enough that the had to come up with developmentg guidelines for some primeland that’w about to hit the real estate market. The land in questiom is the 185 acres that comprise Riverbend Commerced Park inSouth Buffalo. Buffalo acquired the land nearly two yearzs ago and has been gettingit ready. The commerce park could go a long way towarrd helping Buffalo address the growing needfor shovel-read y development land. Companies want to be in the city and believe there is some cache with aBuffalo address. It wasn’tt all that long ago that city leaderws could only dream about sucha scenario.
“Wer think Buffalo is a great opportunity,” said Tim Technologies LLC executivevice president. The company is workin with and Buffalo UrbanDevelopmeng Corp. on developing a 77,000-square-foot manufacturing centef and corporate offices in Buffalo Lakeside Commerce which just happens to neighbor RiverbendCommerce Park. With tenants like , Sonwil Distribution and all movint – or have moved – into Buffalo Lakesidee Commerce Park, that suddenly barren land has evolvec intoa sought-after commercial location.
All of which reverts to the interimj development guidelines that have been put into place for RiverbenrdCommerce Park, which stretchex from the Buffalo River and Soutb Park Avenue south to nearly Tifft Street. “Thew problem is a good one to have,” said Craig Slater, partner in the law firm of and a Buffalo UrbanDevelopment Corp. director. “People are knocking on the door and therr aresome ‘knocks’ that mighg be better suited elsewhere.” It’s no secre t that at least one big-box retailer made an inquir about land in Riverbend Commerce Park. City officialss are working withthe company’s site selectors on a more-suitablee Buffalo location.
So what do Buffalo leaders have in mind when it cometo Riverbend? There are number of targeted, primarty users that they would welcome to the including advanced manufacturing, back- office operations, life sciences and research-and-development And there are other caveats attached to a potentiapl deal. City officials want guarantee s that any prospective tenant will create at leastr 10 jobsper acre, with the only exceptioh being a logistics or distribution-basedd firm, and have a minimum investmentf that reaches at leas t $500,000 per acre. LEED certificationm is also recommended.
“It is importantf to set a criteria early inthe game,” said Ben First Amherst Development Group presidenf and also a director of the Buffalo Urban Development Since his last visit to Buffalo, the economic landscapse has dramatically changed, yet Elliot Eisenberg is stilk delivering the same Building new homes will only help, not a region. The senior economist for the made his pitch durin a gathering of local economic developmeny and homebuilding insiders. It was his second stop in five monthsxin Buffalo. Eisenberg said he is concernex thatmany communities, under the guise of stoppingb sprawl, are undertaking measures to limit new-home development.
he argued, is the wronhg tactic. “There is this knee-jerk reactionn that housing doesn’t pay its way,” he “It does. It more than pays its way.” Eisenberf said a single-family home buil t in the immediate Buffalo area witha $309,38e3 construction price will generatew $11,488 in annual property taxesw – one of the highest property tax percentagesz in the country. The national average is approximately 1 percen t of the value ofa home; in Erie and Niagara it is nearly 4 percent. That same housre in Georgia would have justa $2,200 annual propert tax bill. “It’s jaw Eisenberg said. “Buffalo is about the highest inthe Congratulations.
” Yet despite the high propertgy tax bill, the typical single-familu home uses about $5,555 in actuak municipal costs. Eisenberg said for every 858 single-family homes built in Erie County – the yearluy average – they representy $111.51 million in local income and $10.94 million in loca taxes whilecreating 2,778 jobs. The entire regionakl home building industryrepresents 2,603 which would make it the region’sw 21st largest employer – if it were a singlre entity – and larger than such companies as and The largerf issue that the home buildinyg industry faces comes from neighborhood residentsw who oppose any and all development.
Local governments tend to be very reactivre tothose concerns. “There’s one side of the world out ther e chanting the Joni Mitchell lineabout ‘pavinf paradise to put up a parking lot,’ ” Eisenbergg said.