Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - In what is one of this year's largest Downtown Buffalo commercial real estate deals, a Manhattan-based investment group is poised to acquire the New Buffalo School of Culinary Arts & Hospitality Management building on W. Huron Street.
Mercer Street Partners is expected to close on the $32.4 million deal on Sept. 25, buying the historic landmark building from a local investment group, including business and civic leader James McGuire and the estate of the late Mark Croce.
"We had it listed and they approached us," McGuire said.
The Buffalo Public School (PS 355) will remain as the building's sole tenant, with its lease running for another decade. The lengthy, long-term lease was one of the key selling points, McGuire said.
He adds some of the proceeds from the sale will be used by his company, McGuire Development, to build a new commissary for the Buffalo Public Schools. McGuire Development will be starting construction at the East Delavan Avenue site this fall.
The six-story, 100,000-square-foot building was in poor shape when the local investors acquired it in 2017. The investment group spent two years renovating the building to make way for the culinary and hospitality-based high school. It serves as the companion for the Emerson culinary high school on West Chippewa Street.
Built in 1887, originally serving as the home of the C.W. Miller Livery - considered by many as an equine palace, the building is on the federal National Register of Historic Places.
After serving as a livery, the building was primarily used as an indoor parking lot and a Hertz car rental location. It was vacant and in disrepair when the Croce/McGuire-led partnership acquired the property.