Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - If you're heading down to KeyBank Center for an upcoming Buffalo Sabres game, or visiting some local businesses in-and-around the vicinity, you may notice the construction efforts ongoing along South Park Avenue near the parking ramp adjacent to the arena.
That's because crews with the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA) continue their work to create a new rail stop at the DL&W Terminal, which is the first phase in an $87 million project that will transform the terminal into a commercial hub.
"What you're seeing on South Park is access from South Park to get you over to the station," said John Schaefer, Vice President of Engineering and Facilities Management at the NFTA. "There'll be two ways to get to the station that's on the river side of the formerly DL&W station: One will be a crosswalk not far from the carousel at South Park and Main, and another will be on South Park near Illinois, a stair and elevator tower that'll get you to the second floor of the DL&W building, and then a path to get you over to the station, which has an elevator as well as stairs to get you down to the station platform."
When it comes to the timing of the entrances to the new DL&W Terminal station, Schaefer says the crosswalk will likely be wrapped up come the spring, while the stair tower is planned to be completed in October of 2024.
That means construction efforts along South Park Avenue, although keeping the roadway somewhat accessible to the arena for hockey games, will be ongoing through the remainder of the winter and well-into 2024.
"As you may know, the winter does have certain slowdowns. Weather does have an impact on construction, but there'll be an ability to keep some of these activities going," Schaefer said in an interview with WBEN. "Right now, we're focused on the foundation so they're excavating and ready to pour foundation, but some of these things are temperature sensitive. And then as you work further on to the stair tower, of course, there will be structural steel. Of course, it's another one that's weather dependent, you don't want to be hanging structural steel on windy days, it could be dangerous. So we'll be having those in mind, but we'll be still continuing to move at a much slower pace, depending on the weather."
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While a project of this magnitude may have been, ideally, wanted to get started in the warmer summer months, where there isn't as much activity going on down around the arena, Schaefer says there was a delay that required some necessary elements to get sorted out before shovels could hit the ground for construction.
"We had some coordinations that needed to work out with the City of Buffalo," he said. "Of course, some of that property is the NFTA's, and some of it is the City of Buffalo's. They had to work out some right away concerns and work out some agreements to make sure we can continue with that. That took a little bit of time, more than planned.
"That needed an OK, and then the activities of construction do impede traffic areas. Our contractor had to put together, what they call, a traffic diversion plan to show the city how people can get in-and-around. We also call that, in the NFTA, 'maintenance and protection of traffic'. Basically to allow people to get around and function while you're doing your work activities."
So how will the project proceed once the DL&W Terminal station is completed come October? As far as development on the second floor of the terminal, which is expected to see 80,000 square feet of covered space with an additional 40,000 square feet of uncovered space on a deck overlooking the Buffalo River, Schaefer says things are a bit more complicated at this time.
"We had a development agreement with a developer, things have slowed down for different reasons, and now we're reassessing what that looks like," he said. "In the meantime, we are doing some engineering work on preparing that second floor for development, and setting up parameters for what the development looks like, and really getting a handle on what costs are going to [be to] help rehab the building itself, and to prep it for the developer."
It is unclear, at this time, when the entirety of the DL&W Terminal project is set to be completed.