BUFFALO (WBEN) - The Gates Circle area will once again be receiving a facelift, as TM Montante Development has announced the beginning of its 1275 Delaware project at Lancaster Square.
The vision for the project is a six-story development that includes a cafe, commercial space and roughly 30 residential units.
"The Lancaster Square at Gates Circle project is a project that TM Montante Development has been working on for the last five years to convert what was the old Millard Fillmore Gates Circle Hospital into Lancaster Square, which is going to be a vibrant, mixed-use and urban place that connects the neighborhoods on either side of that site," said Montante President Chris Campos.
He then specifically described what we can expect at 1275 Delaware.
"It's a medical office building that we acquired in 2017; it is adjacent to the site just south of the former hospital site, and it is a mid-century modern medical office building that was constructed in the 1950's," said Campos. "We are going to adaptively reuse that and convert it into approximately 30 residential apartments with a commercial space on the ground floor."
One of the major components for the momentum of this project was the recent acquisition of a formerly city-owned parking garage near the site.
"We acquired a 750-space parking garage from the City of Buffalo a couple of months ago, and that is critical for the overall project primarily because it will satisfy the substantial majority of all of the parking demands for the overall project - for the residential tenants, the commercial tenants and customers of the retail operation. Without that, we really would not have been to effectively satisfy parking."
Campos explained that they are currently in the design and pre-development phase, which means they're moving forward with the design of the of the residential units and the commercial space to put together the necessary construction documents. They will soon begin the approval process including the various required permits, which starts with site plan approval from the Buffalo Planning Board later this year.
Montante is expecting to break ground at the site beginning in the spring of next year.
