Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Work is ongoing at the Buffalo Outer Harbor to prepare for another year of concerts and other events throughout the spring and into the summer. The first scheduled event to take place this year comes on Sunday, May 29 when T-Pain returns to Buffalo for a concert at Lakeside Events Lawn.
With the weather finally clearing and the temperatures starting to rise across the region, it's all starting together for the folks along the Outer Harbor.
"Standing out here on such a beautiful day like this, you can tell what it's going to be like to have a concert, come down for a festival or a 5k run, just to be a part of something on the waterfront," said President of Erie Canal Harbor Development, Steve Ranalli. "The setting is absolutely beautiful, and we're just really excited to move a bunch of these things to the Outer Harbor and see how the entire Buffalo Waterfront continues to evolve."
This will be the second year that concerts will take place at the Buffalo Outer Harbor, replacing years of concerts down at Canalside, which is also a Buffalo Waterfront property. What Ranalli and the rest of his group found over the last few years was that events for Canalside were starting to outgrow that space along the Buffalo River.
"The long-term goal at Canalside is to build a neighborhood, get people living down there, get more shops and offices. So we know it's going to fill in. Even still, a lot of the events; Breast Cancer Awareness is a great event that we've hosted at Canalside for years, that just completely outgrew that space. It needed to come to a place like the Outer Harbor," Ranalli said. "So when we have a dedicated lawn and we have a dedicated trail system, and soon we'll have a wonderful stage, you can put all those pieces together and you can see how easily it will be to bring groups out here and just do all kinds of different things on the Buffalo Waterfront."
For those heading down to the Outer Harbor and the Lakeside Event Lawn, people may notice the construction of "Terminal B" out by the waterfront on Lake Erie. What will eventually be known as the "Lakeside Event Center" is a former abandoned warehouse that is being stripped down to the bones and being converted into the future home of an entertainment center for the Outer Harbor.
"We'll be building a large stage off of that, and then adding a sloped lawn and some [other things], again, to just enhance this whole area," Ranalli said. "That will be, then, the event center that we'll know in 2024."
With less than three weeks before the opening concert of the Seneca Casinos Concert Series at the Outer Harbor, Ranalli says there's a laundry list of items they need to take care of before welcoming concertgoers. This also includes getting other areas of the Buffalo Waterfront up to par for the upcoming season.
"We have a very long list of things, like still switching over the rink Downtown and filling that with water and getting paddle boats. Things like Clinton's Dish opened to this past weekend, we'll be getting food and beverage at Wilkeson Pointe open in the next couple of weeks. It's just getting each of these places up to speed, and getting the bicycles out, the boats ready. Boy, it's an endless list, frankly, to get stuff done in a short period of time," Ranalli said. "But we're excited about this year, and we're really looking forward to everybody being back. It really does feel like we're going to be back to those pre-pandemic numbers, in terms of people coming down here. It's exciting too, we just got such a commitment from the Governor's office, to be honest, in keeping the momentum going on the Waterfront and adding new things all the time. It's fantastic to have that kind of push behind you."
Over the last several months, we've heard from local elected leaders like Congressman Brian Higgins and others speak of the importance of connecting the City of Buffalo and its surrounding areas to areas across the City like the Outer Harbor. Ranalli feels the City is already well-connected to places like Canalside and the Outer Harbor, and it was something that he and the Erie Canal Harbor Development group anticipated coming.
"It was our agency that moved forward with the Ohio Street project, where we narrowed down that old industrial street and put a multi-use pathway from Canalside right out to Buffalo Harbor State Park. We saw a lot of people using that," Ranalli said. "We also implemented the bike ferry. Seasonal, but from Memorial Day to Labor Day, you can get on that bike ferry for $1 - with your bike or without - and you can find yourself connected to the trail system here on the Outer Harbor. We think there are already ways; if you don't want to drive, you certainly can, but if you don't want to - you want to walk, you want to bike - you can get from Canalside to here. That's starting to connect all those other parts. We've seen the growth out on Ganson Street with RiverWorks, we've seen what Billy Paladino has done on Ohio Street and just announced here this week even more development along that corridor.
"I think a big part of knitting the two together is also to be smart and see some economic development return. Ohio Street in that [Old] First Ward neighborhood, we've been saying for a long time, it's going to slowly turn over, and we're starting to see that. I think that's really exciting. It's not just connecting the two with the road or a trail, but seeing things fill in in-between, and that's what we're getting is a complete waterfront."
Perhaps the biggest question surrounding the viability of the Buffalo Outer Harbor with big events or concerts going forward will be with the traffic flowing in and out of the area along Fuhrmann Boulevard. While it may seem like a complicated process to get in and out of the Outer Harbor, Ranalli is confident in the site's capability to be not only accessible, but navigable for bigger events.
"The site is completely accessible from Route 5 coming north and south right off the Skyway, or Route 5 in from the Southtowns, Ohio Street from the city. And, of course, all the improvements that were made over the last decade to the street network, I think we're past issues there," Ranalli said. "I know people are concerned when we have larger events that there'll be backups, but we have three large parking lots already on site that can handle thousands of cars. There are about 700-750 on-street parking spaces, and I think we're past the days where people don't know how to get out here. And if you don't, you just plug it into your phone and it tells you where to go. Accessibility, I don't think, is as much an issue. I think it's the concern over these large events, and frankly, we're going to be ready for that. We're implementing more traffic protocols this year. We'll work very closely with Buffalo City Police and Traffic to ensure that things move slowly, and we're excited.
"If people work with us to just file out in a reasonable way, we'll get you out at a reasonable time. It really won't be any different than seeing a show Downtown at KeyBank Center or going to a show out of Darien Lake or Art Park. Any of these places, I think, comes with a small expectation of a slow leave, so we'll work that out."
Meanwhile, the weather is always a concern for events right next to the waters of Lake Erie. While inclement weather is always a factor during these times, it is the winds off the lake that could some issues throughout the year.
"We do watch that closely," Ranalli said of the weather. "If and when there's inclement weather, we'll monitor that. And as has been done in the past, a concert or an event will be canceled. It's safety first at all times, so we'll monitor that as we get closer to the events."
More of our conversation with Ranalli can be heard in the player below: