Last night at Buffalo’s Waterfront School, the New York State Urban Development Corporation (ESDC), as Lead Agency on behalf of its subsidiary corporation, the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation (ECHDC) held a scoping hearing in preparation of the General Environmental Impact Study (GEIS) for the Canalside Project.
Once the public scoping period is complete, NY ESD will publish the Draft GEIS in the summer of 2009 with more public hearings to follow. Once that process is complete, the Final GEIS will be published and work can begin, likely in late 2009 or early 2010. That timeline assumes this project sails through the process and there are no legal challenges or negative impacts found.
Damn, that was a mouthful.
If you’d like to read the Draft Scoping Document, click here.
This is the first step in the process of getting the project ready for construction. If you want a refresher on what the Canalside project looks like, I’ll direct you to this post from December.
My analysis after that press conference is summed up as follows:
What I’d like to talk about is that this whole presentation was a steaming pile of horseshit. It’s a pie in the sky conceptualization of what the ECHDC would like to do with a plot of land in Buffalo. A plot of land, mind you, that already has an approved master plan that was codified into law in 2004.
Photos of the current design:
Last night, we heard from several people who are concerned that the original 2004 master plan is being ignored and they feel the design is antithetical to a cultural tourist destination on the waterfront.
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The crowd seemed to rally around the idea that the ECHDC needs to be more senstitive to the historic district of the waterfront. There was also a lot of support from the community that there needs to be a fallback option in the event that Bass Pro does not sign a contract to place a store in the Canalside District. As of now, if Bass Pro does not eventually sign on the dotted line, we have no alternative.
Angelo Coniglio has an alternative plan that could be incorporated, but to date he has had little success getting traction on the idea.
Oh, if you didn’t catch my allusion to it, Bass Pro has still not signed any formal agreement to place a store on Buffalo’s Waterfront. Eleven years and counting on that one…
The Buffalo Record 
When I moved to Buffalo 32 years ago, started a career and a family, I thought the potential to rebuild a once world class city had only to be exploited. Like most everyone else, I have now given up on that idea. The harbor restoration plan that I thought was progressing behind the scenes is apparently on the same shelf with all the other interesting development schemes. Apparently the waterfront is only good at providing work for design consultants and lawyers.
The only reason for Yet Another Waterfront Development Plan is the string-pullers aren’t getting enough from this one. It so sad to see this waste condoned by voters and developers and pols who apparently like this. No wonder other communities laugh when they hear “Buffalo”. We wrote the joke.
I don’t know who your friends are, but when I talk about Buffalo to my friends they are impressed that we have wonderful architecture and parks, a beautiful zoo, and beautiful neighborhoods. They don’t laugh. Those that visit think it’s a great place.
Sure, the waterfront has a ways to go, but there are already many improvements.
The Erie Basin, Naval Park, and the Central Wharf/Commercial Slip are already finished. The Aud is being demolished, and lots more stuff is about to happen.
Buffalo has a lot of hope but is forever short on resource and leadership. Since I did not want my daughter to share in this burden of conscience, we moved 735 miles west. When I see the lack of progress, it’s always the same thing—4 tires, all out of alignment, all going flat. Good luck Buffalo, I couldn’t take that ride anymore and did not want my daughter in that car.
Will you people ever stop getting in the way of progress?!
You have lived in a declining area for so long it doesn’t just affect your mood, it has become a part of your culture. Your rust belt thinking looks backward at an idealized past – a nostalgia for the good old days – that simply didn’t exist.
Don’t you realize there would be no Erie Canal if it were proposed today? Government money to destroy farms and cut through cities just to help a few businesses? Sounds like a lawsuit!
It took bold thinking and action then – it will take bolder thinking and action to turn this City around. And yes, an entertainment district in the CBD is ONE item that will help.
I have nothing against commercial development or entertainment. But they could be developed anywhere. They should be a part of the Erie Canal plans, but other important aspects, the Canal’s history and its impact on Buffalo and the nation, are getting short shrift. Ellis Island and Buffalo were this nation’s two great nexuses of immigration. The world knows about and visits Ellis Island; it’s time to let them know about BUFFALO, the Western Terminus of the Erie Canal.
have been trying to get the State, County, City, or anyone else to recognize that heritage by initiating plans for a Buffalo Erie Canal Museum. ECHDC says they have “consered museum space”, but no specific theme has yet been established for this museum. Duh! vHow about an Ellis Island-class “Buffalo Erie Canal Museum”, that will draw visitors from the American West and the world?
My proposed Buffalo Erie Canal Museum at Canal Side would include the following, either as physical attributes of the museum or as activities managed by it:
• Displays showing the history of the planning, design, alignment and construction of the Erie Canal, using photographs, drawings and film/video.
• Physical models of Canal elements including working models of locks, and a full-size reproduction of an early Canal packet boat, fitted out so that visitors may walk through it.
• A scale model of the “Canal District” in its heyday, showing locations of famous buildings, streets and waterways.
• Walking tours of the present site of the Canal District, at Canal Side and in the nearby Marine Drive and Naval Park area, appropriately marked with descriptive signs or displays; and acknowledgement of the village of the Seneca Nation, directly adjacent to the original Canal District.
• Maintenance of signage at major land, water, and air entries to Buffalo, proclaiming “BUFFALO ~ Western Terminus of the Erie Canal”.
• Management of water-based tours of the Erie Canal, starting at the Commercial Slip, exiting to Buffalo Creek and the Inner Harbor, following the Black Rock Channel and the Niagara River to Tonawanda, and the present New York State Barge Canal to Lockport, Henrietta, Albany, etc. and return.
• Maintenance of signage and statuary outside the Canal but in the Commercial Slip, commemorating events such as the “Wedding of the Waters” and the Mormon “Miracle at Buffalo”.
• An Erie Canal Wall of Honor showing names of those who built, traveled on, and lived near the Erie Canal in Buffalo.
• A Buffalo Erie Canal Library dedicated to the history of the Western Terminus, and recording the names of those associated with it.
• A compilation of names of builders of, travelers on and neighbors of the Canal, in computerized format, developed by a not-for-profit Foundation from research into public and private records from Western New York and around the nation.
• A Buffalo Erie Canal Foundation website which would permit descendants of those associated with Canal or Canal District construction, travel or residency to research their ancestors’ Canal-related activity.
• A gift shop where items for sale would include: models and mementoes of the Canal era: packet boats, longshoremen’s hooks, descriptive books; and plaques and certificates commemorating ancestors’ association with the Canal or Canal District.
In short, the Buffalo Erie Canal Museum would be the Ellis Island-class facility envisioned sixteen years ago, by the historian Dr. Marvin Rapp in his foreword to Mike Vogel’s book “Crossroads of America”. Is anyone listening?
http://www.conigliofamily.com/BuffaloErieCanalFoundation.htm