BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) - Talks about developing the parking lot at 201 Ellicott Street, between the NFTA bus station and the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, began almost four years ago.
City of Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown hoped that development there would move just as quick as one of Canalside's major projects.
"We're going to try to index the timeline to what we did with HarborCenter," Mayor Brown said in May 2015. "It's going to be an accelerated timeline. This is going to be an aggressive and competitive process."
Ciminelli Real Estate was selected as the designated developer in 2016 but there weren't any concrete announcements about the site until Tuesday, when Braymiller Market was announced as the grocery store tenant at the site. Prior to that, there was only hopes that there would be an 18-story residential building with parking and a grocery tenant on on the site. Instead, the latest rendering showed a five-story building adjacent to the Braymiller Market.
Officials anticipate an April 2021 opening for both the 201 housing units and the Braymiller Market. However, the site is also a brownfield project, meaning there needs to be cleanup of hazardous waste at the site in order to spur its development.
