Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Where do we stand on the re-opening of the Buffalo Grand?
The 468-room hotel and event center on Church Street in Downtown Buffalo hasn't had a guest stay on the premises since a fire, ruled to be the work of an arsonist, broke out on Dec. 30, 2021, which caused millions of dollars worth of damages. This gave the owner, Harry Stinson, no choice but to shut down the property until funds were acquired to fix the damages.
Fast forward to today and Stinson is still in the lengthy process of negotiating with the insurance company for a claim, much to his frustration. However, he does note that there is some progress being made.
"The negotiations now seemed to be more focused on the quantity and the details of the claim, rather than the the obvious cloud of arson that is still hovering above it," Stinson told WBEN.
Despite the long battle, some work is being done and some passers by may have noticed a crane that was present on the site. Stinson says they are currently in the process of installing generators on the roof for the cell towers. He also adds they've cleaned the rooms and done everything that they could do that is economically possible.
Stinson highlights the work that will need to be done in order for the hotel to serve guests once again.
"Unfortunately, the damages that were inflicted in the fire that were, in hindsight the most significant, were to the mechanical systems of the building alarms, sprinklers of all the guts of what makes the building work and to the event space on the third floor. That is multi-million dollar costs, and that was that is just not an out of pocket thing that that we were able to do, and so that remains."
Fortunately, once the claim has been approved, Stinson says it's not a lengthy process to get the hotel back operational again.
"It won't take long once we know there's a resolution, we will move very quickly. I do believe that we can have the guestrooms open within a 30 to 90 day period of reactivating those systems, it'll probably be more challenging accumulating the staff than it will be fixing the systems."
This timeframe has Stinson potentially thinking of getting rooms available as early as the beginning months of next year.