Zooropa

A friend of mine had posted a status on facebook about the greatness of U2’s Zooropa -an album proclaimed by many as their worst-I agreed… when I was 10 (and it creeped me out when I was 7). As time has passed, and as U2 has become more comfortable making the same generic/pseudo-spiritual/commercial music, Zooropa gets better with age.

So while avoiding studying for a bit I took a stroll down memory lane via YouTube and enjoyed not only the music but even the videos. I don’t remember seeing a music video with such artistic integrity. It reminded me of early European modernist views of the human form through photography.

Lemon, Stay (Faraway So Close), Numb, and Zooropa are all catchy classics that cap off the artistic/experimental phase of the band.

I guess if the album had a message, for me it always seemed to be about Europe after the fall of Communism and rise of the commodity-oriented Western World of the 1990’s. It is a message that is no longer of much interest or relevance but its always great to blow the dust of the cassette and give it a spin.

Artistically I’d say they’ve been irrelevant since Pop, maybe even since Zooropa but they still pull out a catchy tune or two every album. I’ve learned to accept the fact that every great band peaks and then spends another 10-20 years milking it.

11.01.09

Perhaps because it is personal, but this weekend’s fatal crash involving four Amherst teenagers has received a heavy amount of attention from the local media, especially the Buffalo News.

The driver, Viktor Shapiro, was my girlfriend’s cousin who I met a couple of times. He was a good kid but there were qualities he had that could only come with being a teenager. He had the kind of obsession with cars many young guys have and the over-confidence that comes with it.

For the record, he purchased his own car, so assuming the parents were naive or lacked authority over him is unfounded. To blame it on America’s “increasing liberalism” at home is also unfounded. He comes from a traditional Russian family-its hard to be more overprotective than that.

The immediate assumption that he was drunk is insulting. People who have that kind of passion for cars and racing don’t do it drunk. They go fast because thats what they get a rush out of.

No one in their right mind would knowingly risk his friends’ lives. No 18 year old who lives for his car has the sense of mortality to be safer because he doesn’t understand how possible it is for it all to come to an end in a second.

Country roads in Clarence are raced on for a reason, and the main one is that there is no traffic, and few cops to ever be found. The fact that there have been five accidents at that intersection in recent years is enough cause for concern for everyone-not just fast drivers.

And lastly, for those of you who sit around, detached, commenting about his death in a poor impression of Ayn Rand or Charles Darwin-I wish you could see his parents shoveling dirt onto his grave in front of over 100 people who loved and cared about him. If your child had a love for speed and it led to his death, you would not be commenting on different news forums saying how “the kid got what was coming to him”. There is blame to go around but there is also reflection and mourning as well for someone whose life was more than just a kid driving too fast for his own good. These things will always happen because there are psychological elements of people that age that no legislation or “scared straight”-esque video can ever deter… sometimes you just have to hope that after all their mistakes, they make it to the next part of their lives okay with lessons learned.

So kudos to all of you who are so much better than him and prove it through your comments and writings. Thank you for the false allegations, and posting less-than-flattering photos of him. Thank you for your sense of relief that such a bad person is no longer around to harm everyone. You stay classy, Buffalo.

Fighting over the shrinking pie

Key Bank has, since the post-savings and loans scandle era (buying Goldome and Empire), had a strong hold of the #3 spot in local bank ranking but recently it has been knocked down to #4 due to the rapid ascent of First Niagara.

Like most big companies who start falling a bit after sitting comfortably for a while, they have began an ambitious plan to solidify themselves as #3 once more.

According to the Buffalo News:

The bank is opening six new branches locally over the next two years in its biggest expansion here in almost two decades. Key has already opened new locations, in the Wegmans Plaza on Orchard Park Road in West Seneca and in the Tops Plaza at North French and Transit roads in East Amherst.

Two more are planned for next year, at Union and Michael roads in Orchard Park and in the Tops Plaza on Grand Island Boulevard in Grand Island. The Orchard Park location is already under construction. Two more sites will be announced later. All six will be newly built and will create 45 new jobs.

This gets topped off with some landmark signage on their Fountain Plaza HQ’s

…it will put up a lighted sign on all four sides of 50 Fountain Plaza, known as KeyCenter, over the next month.

The new sign will be 5 feet high by 42 feet long and 8 inches deep, and will be lighted by long-lasting energy-efficient bulbs, the bank said. It will feature the bank’s red key logo.

This is a very ambitious attempt at company growth and market share but in a market like Buffalo-Niagara, what is the point of pursuing growth in a consistently declining region with already well established institutions?

HSBC has India and Asia. M&T has DC/Baltimore/Eastern Shore. Key has Seattle and New York City. Perhaps their long history in Cleveland makes them experts in rust belt success.

Coming soon: Great burritos

This slipped my radar but Chipotle is entering the Buffalo market next month as it opens up in Boulevard Consumer Square. Yogen Fruz, CiCi’s and Qdoba have all announced plans to enter the Buffalo market this year.

I still have hopes for a second location at Canal Side or Genesee Gateway in the future just as much as when I wrote them two summers ago.

And their new logo is fantastic to boot!

Famous visitors

I don’t have a thorough report for you but last night, former Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf quietly stopped in town. Contacts of mine from Kabab and Curry, a restaurant on Transit Road, said that Musharraf spoke at the restaurant to the local Pakistani community in an organized event.

Tony Blair and Pervez Musharraf visit here weeks apart? Impressive.

EDIT: It was not an organized event…Musharraf apparently has family in the area and was visiting but the meal involved a large party and him speaking at length eventually.

Tonight’s Canalside hearing

The Albright Knox hosted tonight’s Canalside hearing and perhaps this led to a far better attended session with far more important people and far less crazies than the last meeting at Waterfront School behind City Hall last winter.

It was a who’s who of local politicians and developers: Sam Hoyt, Mickey Kearns, Jim Pitts, Rocco Termini and Chris Jacobs were just a handful in attendance.

I had hope for at least some really crazy randoms to come to the microphone during public input time but everyone just thanked everyone else for all their great work and how wonderful it is. I really thought the Marine Drive residents were going to go insane and spew out nonsensical and irrational complaints about the project but everything was calm and polite…and a lot of talking about nothing-but that is Buffalo’s specialty.

The plan has advanced significantly since the last hearing, with Bass Pro designs far more advanced as well as having a far better perception of how the landscape around the canals and cobblestone streets in front of the store will take shape.

My critiques are minimal and easy to deal with:

Its reaching the point where its almost too planned out. Few districts are created by planners or developers or politicians… they form organically, so creating territorial boundaries for so many districts will only set up for disappointment in how those “districts” evolve in relation to the planners expectations. This probably stems from trying to make everyone happy in order to avoid lawsuits as well as over emphasizing its importance to the region.

It seems as if Bass Pro’s design has completely ignored Main Street (this sentiment was echoed by USRT’s Andrew Kulyk, also in attendance). BizJournals reported that Main will have a secondary entrance but no one is talking about Main Street, or the entrances of new buildings facing Main or new landscaping on Main. Bass Pro lives and dies with the canals (and the future parking garage to the west).

But honestly, from being so excited about it in 2004, 2005, 2006, a little less in 2007, and borderline apathetic in 2008 and 2009, I have nothing else to say. The content available is abundant so click around…

WCP’s post tonight
WCP’s post this morning
BizJournal’s coverage

Inertia

I, like everyone else, is happy to hear about CentriLogic, a Toronto based data service company taking up space downtown and adding between 50-75 jobs over the next few years. But then I had to be a Debbie Downer and come across an identical story printed almost a decade ago…

Buffalo Business Journal: July 14, 2000

WorldWide Fibers leased all 40,000 square feet of the former Jim Kelly’s Sports City Grill space and in the process is bringing 50 new workers to downtown.

Buffalo Business Journal: October 14, 2009

The new site, owner Robert Offley said, will play a major role in his company’s growth. He projected 50 to 75 people would be hired for jobs over the next three years…The Buffalo office location will occupy 23,000 square feet on the first floor.

According to WIVB,

CentriLogic will be occupying the former Jim Kelly’s Sports City Grill.

It is very good to see a Canadian company investing in tech infrastructure in downtown. Its too bad that its really only replacing a company that did the same services with the same amount of employees. Buffalo goes one step forward and one step back on a good day.

Remembering the boom

At the time it just seemed like Buffalo was about to start getting it’s piece of the pie but as it turned out Buffalo was experiencing unsustainable private sector wealth and growth; the national boom was so gosh-darn big that it even trickled down to little old Buffalo.

It is now 2009, in the last throes of a national recession, and Buffalo is back to its reserved spot of consistent decline in private sector job growth, small to decent public sector growth, and few development projects on the table outside of the occasional silver bullet.

Looking at basic labor statistics from 2003-2007:

The number of people employed in Buffalo increased in ‘03, ‘04, ‘05, ‘06 and ‘07

Unemployment rate dropped from 5.9 to 4.9 during that same span of time.

Labor force grew from ‘03-’05, dropped by 5,000 between ‘06 and ‘07, then increased 12,000 by 2009. That would probably be due to people leaving for major boom towns like Vegas, Phoenix, and Charlotte with some coming back after the bust along with more people looking for jobs that weren’t working during the boom (students and people now taking on a second job)

Development is a bit harder to look at on a year-to-year basis since projects take sometimes years to go from concept to completion. However, let’s look at the city’s 2006-2009 development data:

Money on private-sector construction projects was a little more than half the amount of public sector construction ($4.7mil to $8.4 mil)

In 2009, current under-construction projects add up to $159,594,420 for private-sector projects and $1,106,750,000 for public sector projects; which means money spent on private-sector construction is at 10% of public projects as opposed to 55% during the “boom”.

Planned projects give in to more optimism however with total cost of private projects being $1.4 billion as opposed to $2.0 billion from public projects.

Even just from an observation of the cityscape it is clear we saw a boom for Buffalo standards. A $100,000,000 new office building for Blue Cross Blue Shield, an $85,000,000 transformation of the Dulski Building into the Avant with an Embassy Suites, Class A office space, and condos that go for up to $1 million. We also saw a new condo tower on the waterfront with the penthouse going for $1mil. We just barely got our $137,000,000 Courthouse signed off on by Bush before DC starting saying no to excess pork. And these are only the big projects that impacted the skyline. We also saw a proposal for a $50,000,000 condo tower on Gates Circle, a proposed $300,000,000 casino and luxury hotel, a proposed $80,000,000 renovation of the Statler and a $300,000,000 40-story tower on S. Elmwood during the same period.

Thankfully some of the momentum is still leftover. Projects like the Avant and assorted residential projects downtown have created a consistent demand for a better downtown building inventory. The strongest sectors of development right now are medical-campus related and downtown residential projects. Genesee Gateway is the only significant class-A project underway and that is thanks to millions in grants from charitable contributions. But this happens as the Avant still only has one office tenant and Ellicott Development has really let the dust pile up on the 50 Court renderings because the demand for office space right now is paltry. Residences at Avant are officially 50% vacant and Ellicott has put the third and final waterfront village tower on the shelf.

There is a theory that planner William Whyte mentions in “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces”;

“Forms of transportation and their attendant cultures have historically produced their most elaborate manifestations just after they have entered the period of their obsolescense. So it may be with megastructure and the freeway era that bred them. They are the last convulsive embodiment of a time passing…”

I apply this theory to almost everything since I saw it. In this case, economic growth models being used in the private sector were creating more and more unsustainable wealth…it became so widespread that by the time it was realized by experts that things were going to collapse, it got big enough to trickle into Buffalo. We got to experience this period of unsustainable economic prosperity in our own small way at the very end of the national boom.

AM&A’s Lofts 10.09.09

Rocco Termini’s most recent residential project is moving along at a good rate on the corner of Washington and Eagle. The former AM&A’s warehouses are being converted into 48 apartments and office space for a call center while creating a new surface lot where there is currently a small structure circa 1960’s.

Here are some pics of the project…

An interesting aspect about this project is that it has a tunnel connection to the AM&A’s flagship store on the other side of the street. Rocco and Jake Schneider are apparently interested in joining up on the rehabilitation of the mammoth complex once financing and other obstacles are cleared (probably 3-5 years away)…having a physical connection between these two projects could make for some interesting usage of space or social connectivity between the two structures.

The AM&A’s lofts in combination with the Warehouse Lofts right next door create a very interesting block as it adds on to the block’s residential base at Hotel Lafayette…an equal amount of yuppies and grizzled veterans of low-income urban living collide to create a unique neighborhood.

Landscape paradox

Mark Croce has announced recently a very exciting project involving turning a vacant CBD structure between the Hyatt and Avant into a luxury, boutique hotel…a unique addition to the hotel inventory downtown.

Usually boutique hotels come to established districts that are already pretty nice but this one will be quite the catalyst for a fairly pathetic street.

Facing directly south lays a large surface lot, a small, one story structure.

To the west, a beautiful but poorly used structure of the same scale, a surface lot and auto repair shop.

To the northeast (its main entrance) a parking garage, and a couple small, vacant structures.

Somehow this is what we have in-between the heart of the financial district on Main and the hottest development area in the city-Delaware Ave. Hopefully, Croce’s project creates a more distinguished demand for the surrounding properties to fill in the gap that is Huron Street.