BUFFALO (WBEN - Brendan Keany) - When it comes to the much anticipated and highly reviewed Elmwood Crossing project that aims to redevelop the former Children's Hospital site in Buffalo, no news appears to be good news. The process appears to be 'on track'.
"If I'm hearing anything from the community, it has shifted from what are they going to put there to when are they going to get going," said New York State Assemblyman Sean Ryan. "I've been explaining to the community that there's a series of processes that have to be gone through before they can actually start real aggressive building on the site."
Amy Nagy is the director of development for Sinatra Real Estate, and she explained what exactly the redevelopment project is going to look like.
"It is still going to be predominantly mixed use," said Nagy. "We've really proposed minimal demolition; we're looking to retain those historic structures, and it will be predominantly residential in nature. There will be a mix of market-rate rental housing, affordable rental housing as well as homes for purchase."
Nagy says they have just finished the public hearing on the draft generic environmental impact statement, and the public comment period closes before the end of the month. The project is an agenda item on Monday's Buffalo Planning Board meeting.
"When the comment period closes, we will then review all comments and work with the city as they complete their final environmental impact statement," Nagy added.
That process will likely go into September depending on the number of comments that are received.
"Once that happens, we can proceed with the next steps, which would be pursuing a PUD, and after the completion of that, it would;d hopefully allow us to start a site plan approval process," she said. "We would be allowed to get some projects moving forward."
Nagy outlined a tentative timeline for when we can begin to anticipate tangible results.
"We've always moved along a trajectory that would take us where project work would be happening into 2022, and that is still the case," she said. "It will be a phased project, so as we complete negotiations with users who would be on site - the market, hotel user other commercial users - we'll certainly look to bring those projects online."