off topic Sabres HARBORcenter updates

[dEnnis the Menace]

But don't you see? All of those people employed within the organization are just drones and they don't actually do anything. He just hires them to look good in the eyes of the public, like he's creating jobs. The truth is that he does everything completely on his own. If you go back and look at those videos of the locker room construction, it was him laying every single brick. Take a close look the next time you buy a beer at the game. Terry will be pouring it.

 

I would love for T-Pegs to pour me a beer. I think he'd be rather good at it ;)

[shrader]

I would love for T-Pegs to pour me a beer. I think he'd be rather good at it ;)

 

He just raised the prices though, so not only will that beer cost a little extra, it will also be mostly head.

[dEnnis the Menace]

He just raised the prices though, so not only will that beer cost a little extra, it will also be mostly head.

 

Everyone is so negative around here. There's probably plenty of people who wouldn't mind T-Pegs giving them head... :angel:

 

I still want my beer though :ph34r:

 

 

EDIT: yeah...I know I probably just crossed the line...

Edited August 2, 2012 by dEnnis the Menace

[Stoner]

Yes, surely he is incapable of running the Sabres at the same time he does other things. In fact, I think he should move his residence into the F'nC and never leave, not even for dinner, as to not distract from Job One. :rolleyes:

Nice distortion. I'd actually like the polar opposite, or continental opposite. I want Terry to stay in Florida. Set the mission, hire good hockey people, sign the checks, sit back and evaluate. I don't want him anywhere close to "running" the team.

[TrueBlueGED]

Nice distortion. I'd actually like the polar opposite, or continental opposite. I want Terry to stay in Florida. Set the mission, hire good hockey people, sign the checks, sit back and evaluate. I don't want him anywhere close to "running" the team.

A little perspective here. Terry and Ted said on day one they didn't want to get into the development business, that if positive things happened on the waterfront, they'd settle for an assist — not a goal. Terry also said on Day One he wasn't interested in buying the Amerks and that he didn't want to raise ticket prices. After Benson said in this video that Terry said, before he bought the Sabres, that he wanted to do something to develop the waterfront, I kind of wonder how much I'm supposed to believe from these guys.

 

Show of hands. Who'd like to see Terry and company concentrate on Job One in Buffalo before moving on to this and that? Dude needs some ADD meds.

 

So you want him to focus on Job One (presumably winning a Cup?), criticize him for focusing on other things, yet you only want him to hire people and get out of the way? So he hired people, he's letting them do their jobs (as you wanted him to do), and then you still see fit to criticize him for doing something else? Why not just come out and say "I'll hate him and crap on everything he does until he fires people" since that's what you obviously are getting at.

[Stoner]

i can't recall that. he may have intimated it. but i don't think he pledged to run the franchise at a loss. the fact that ticket prices went up is not of great concern to me. yet.

He flat out said he didn't want to raise ticket prices. He said at the News editorial board meeting that he would be worried about the public's perception of such a move. And why shouldn't he have been, after clearly giving the impression that he didn't care about money?

[Stoner]

So you want him to focus on Job One (presumably winning a Cup?), criticize him for focusing on other things, yet you only want him to hire people and get out of the way? So he hired people, he's letting them do their jobs (as you wanted him to do), and then you still see fit to criticize him for doing something else? Why not just come out and say "I'll hate him and crap on everything he does until he fires people" since that's what you obviously are getting at.

That's why I italicized the word hockey. Terry hasn't hired a hockey man yet. He hired an accountant, a former financial officer of the league and in the league, and a lawyer who ran a sports network briefly, among other non-hockey credentials. And he retained another accountant, DiPofi, the former minority owner, who may or may not still be around.

 

Maybe now it's becoming clearer as to why so many "money guys" are in upper management.

 

Where are the hockey guys in this franchise? Why isn't a hockey guy in the team president role to evaluate Darcy, if you don't want to fire Darcy right away? Why didn't Darcy hire an assistant GM? Why didn't Lindy really beef up his coaching staff? Money was no object.

 

Whatever... it probably has little to do with the Webster Block. And I did contradict myself. I shouldn't have implied I want them to focus on the Sabres, and not redeveloping the waterfront. I don't want them focusing on the Sabres, beyond putting smart hockey people in place.

[Eleven]

So, back around to the topic...

 

I'm not sure this is a great proposal, actually. Will two rinks downtown be used? (Consider the parking expense and the corresponding burden on parents of young players...I think they'd rather play in the suburbs where parking is free.)

 

And while I really love the idea of a 200 bed hotel there, I think that means that the Adam's Mark becomes another vacant property that we have to worry about. The newer downtown hotels are doing very well, as is the refurbished Hyatt, but I think one more 200 bed hotel downtown will kill the Adam's Mark (even with current plans to renovate and rebrand as a Crowne Plaza). That property isn't convenient to much, and I think it's become a hotel of last resort downtown. (I think some fans stay there on game nights--but they'd stay across the street from FNC if offered the option. And I don't think the hotel is used much for anything else anymore.)

 

So I'm not sure it's the winner. Drane, of course the process will be affected by politics; it always is. But Carl Paladino doesn't have too many friends in City Hall. It is very much the opposite. I'd expect the battle to be between Pegula and the company in Corning that owns the Adam's Mark.

 

EDIT: As for the retail portion of the space, there is PLENTY of unused retail space still available downtown. There is a whole mall! Let's fill that up before building more.

Edited August 5, 2012 by Eleven

[That Aud Smell]

I think one more 200 bed hotel downtown will kill the Adam's Mark

 

EDIT: As for the retail portion of the space, there is PLENTY of unused retail space still available downtown. There is a whole mall! Let's fill that up before building more.

 

I'm not a developer, nor am I an urban planner. But, from where I sit, a desire to save or rehab long-foundering properties isn't a reason to nix a plan that challenges or threatens to hasten the demise of such properties.

 

The Adams Mark property has struggled because it's historically been a below average hotel with a poor location. The Main Place Mall has struggled for decades despite having a decent market as a captive audience; if that property failed to make it under those conditions, then perhaps it's time to move on.

 

It also bears mentioning here that the Donovan Building rehab (a few hundred feet from the site on which Pegula is bidding) will include a hotel.

[Robviously]

I'm not a developer, nor am I an urban planner. But, from where I sit, a desire to save or rehab long-foundering properties isn't a reason to nix a plan that challenges or threatens to hasten the demise of such properties.

 

The Adams Mark property has struggled because it's historically been a below average hotel with a poor location. The Main Place Mall has struggled for decades despite having a decent market as a captive audience; if that property failed to make it under those conditions, then perhaps it's time to move on.

 

It also bears mentioning here that the Donovan Building rehab (a few hundred feet from the site on which Pegula is bidding) will include a hotel.

Agreed. If our big plan for moving the city into the 21st century requires waiting for failing attractions and buildings to somehow turn around, we might as well throw in the towel now.

 

The city's best hope for renewal is the Inner Harbor. We should build it up as much as we can and hope the rest of the city can follow. I just wish we could get these new hotels and attractions built faster so that we'd have them the next time we host March Madness or (hopefully) another World Juniors.

[LabattBlue]

The city's best hope for renewal is the Inner Harbor. We should build it up as much as we can and hope the rest of the city can follow. I just wish we could get these new hotels and attractions built faster so that we'd have them the next time we host March Madness or (hopefully) another World Juniors.

I remember after it was announced that the world juniors were coming here(late 2008??), how awesome it would be if the casino/hotel and canalside were done by that time. :( While the canals are being done this summer, I am nervous about how long it will be before anything is built around them. After all, putting a few colored adirondack chairs was the "heralded" progress for 2011.

[SabresBillsBraves]

Hearing that the Sabres Proposal for the Webstor block has been picked!!!

[SabresBillsBraves]

Here it is: http://www.buffalonews.com/city/communities/buffalo/article1028591.ece

[apuszczalowski]

Let's be honest about the new hotel at the Donovan and the proposed new hotel on the Webster block. The visiting team is going to take a big chunk of one of them every game day/night. In the summer I'd wager that the visiting team at Coca Cola Field will take a chunk of rooms there as well. They will both be extremely expensive on any event nights. That's not a bad thing but it is setting more of a new niche in the market, not necessarily replacing one for the other.

 

As for retail space, you have to put the retail where the people are and where they are going. Main Place Mall was a terrible idea in 1965 and it's not a better idea now as malls around the country are going belly up. IMO, the idea of the Canalside project is to reestablish a commercial district downtown that has basically been killed off over the last 25 years. As the commercial/retail core is restablished, pieces of the old retail core on Main St. can be converted to other purposes such as residential and/or just flat out removed. Albatrosses such as Main Place Mall and the Convention Ctr will probably have to be razed but that's ok because they were mistakes that shouldnt have been built in the first place. If we want a small convention/event center it would make sense down the line to attach it to the FnC - especially with the new commercial district that will have been established (however convention centers are losers and we should really just get rid of it)

At the most, less then 1/4 of the proposed 200 rooms would be for the visiting NHL team for 41 nights a year (If all teams that come in to play stay atleast one night in town and don't leave right away, and if each player, coach, and employee of that team is given their own room and don't have to share rooms). I highly doubt that any of the traveling teams coming in to play the Bisons are going to stay at somewhere expensive, triple A teams don't have huge budgets and spend alot on accomodations on the road, so if this hotel is more of an "upper scale" place, like one an NHL franchise would use for its players, I doubt a Triple A baseball team will be spending the same.

[SabresBillsBraves]

Live stream of the press conference at 11

http://www.wgrz.com/news/article/179694/37/Sources-City-Picks-Sabres-for-Webster-Block-Developmenting

[darksabre]

This is gonna be so awesome.

[MattPie]

Buffalo could actually be building something cool, starting from the canal on out. Interesting.

[Eleven]

At the most, less then 1/4 of the proposed 200 rooms would be for the visiting NHL team for 41 nights a year (If all teams that come in to play stay atleast one night in town and don't leave right away, and if each player, coach, and employee of that team is given their own room and don't have to share rooms). I highly doubt that any of the traveling teams coming in to play the Bisons are going to stay at somewhere expensive, triple A teams don't have huge budgets and spend alot on accomodations on the road, so if this hotel is more of an "upper scale" place, like one an NHL franchise would use for its players, I doubt a Triple A baseball team will be spending the same.

 

Here's what I know about teams and hotel rooms and retail space:

 

1. Everyone at the NHL level gets his/her (in the case of employees) own room; they may or may not want to stay directly across the street from the FNC. (They would still likely bus it around the FNC because the entrance to the team areas is at the rear (they are not going to walk through hostile fans en route to either the game-day skate or the game itself), and they may want more quiet than what a hotel right across from FNC can provide.) They usually leave town as soon as the game is over and do not generally stay overnight after a game. They come in the day before.

 

2. AAA baseball teams: players do share rooms, and they do not stay in hotels of the same caliber; I think the Best Western on Delaware is a popular destination for many of them.

 

3. The hotel at Donovan may not have enough rooms for NHL teams, but the Webster hotel will.

 

4. The Adam's Mark is toast. Good thing the buyer didn't pay much for it. The Embassy Suites, Hampton, and the less expensive hotel at Washington and Chippewa (brand name escapes me) will be just fine, and the Hyatt had better pull its ###### together.

 

5. If retail space at the Main Place Mall isn't in the right location, I fail to see how retail space five blocks away is, especially in winter. The Main Place Mall is close to so many workers and should be full of shoppers from roughly 11-2 on weekdays, but is not. That may be because it's nothing but dollar stores now; does anyone who lived here in the 90s/early 00s remember what types of stores were in that building then?

 

Buffalo could actually be building something cool, starting from the canal on out. Interesting.

 

The development here in the last eight years has been nothing short of amazing.

[IKnowPhysics]

The development here in the last eight years has been nothing short of amazing.

 

Among many reasons I'm keeping an eye on opportunities to return home.

 

The decision today marks a significantly right decision by city leadership, a welcome sign of continued improvement after so many decades of significantly wrong decisions. I look forward to playing and watching games, and eating and drinking at the restaurants there.

[MattPie]

If retail space at the Main Place Mall isn't in the right location, I fail to see how retail space five blocks away is, especially in winter. The Main Place Mall is close to so many workers and should be full of shoppers from roughly 11-2 on weekdays, but is not. That may be because it's nothing but dollar stores now; does anyone who lived here in the 90s/early 00s remember what types of stores were in that building then? The development here in the last eight years has been nothing short of amazing.

The decision today marks a significantly right decision by city leadership, a welcome sign of continued improvement after so many decades of significantly wrong decisions. I look forward to playing and watching games, and eating and drinking at the restaurants there.

 

I'd hope much of that retail space is restaurant/bar related. I think the older generation (which I say starts around 35 (me)) may not come no matter what. Build something that the kids want to hang out at, shops will follow, and the dominos may start to fall. Trying to drag the suburbanites downtown probably won't work, as people upthread have already stated ("Why would I go downtown when I can go to the Galleria?").

[That Aud Smell]

5. If retail space at the Main Place Mall isn't in the right location, I fail to see how retail space five blocks away is, especially in winter. The Main Place Mall is close to so many workers and should be full of shoppers from roughly 11-2 on weekdays, but is not. That may be because it's nothing but dollar stores now; does anyone who lived here in the 90s/early 00s remember what types of stores were in that building then?

 

i take your point, but it's also fair to say that the retail model that pegula's project is shooting for is of a different stripe and variety than the main place mall's. i also submit that there's just a certain "stank" that has evolved around the main place mall -- the surrounding work force just hasn't taken the place seriously for years, even decades.

 

as for your question about stores/tenants of that mall, the google gave me this fascinating site:

 

http://deadmalls.com/malls/main_place_mall.html

 

which says that the main place mall " was once anchored by Kobacker's, which later changed to Sattler's, but that space was turned into a food court on the upper level, and more stores on the lower level. The mall is now basically anchored by office space. There are some traditional stores left such as Payless Shoes, and Waldenbooks. Other mall tenants such as The Limited, Thom McChan shoes, and others, are all gone. Still, the mall continues to struggle forward."

 

Trying to drag the suburbanites downtown probably won't work, as people upthread have already stated ("Why would I go downtown when I can go to the Galleria?").

 

right or wrong, i am not worried about the people who are saying "meh, i can get about the same experience at the galleria." if the project succeeds, it won't be because those folks poured through the doors early and often -- those folks will be/need to be drawn in eventually, based on early success (generated by other demographics).

 

one last thought: aren't rinks terrifically expensive to maintain? i got the sense that they have been black holes for municipalities and not-for-profits alike. i'm sure the people who ran the numbers for this project know what they're doing -- it's just a thought.

[apuszczalowski]

Here's what I know about teams and hotel rooms and retail space:

 

1. Everyone at the NHL level gets his/her (in the case of employees) own room; they may or may not want to stay directly across the street from the FNC. (They would still likely bus it around the FNC because the entrance to the team areas is at the rear (they are not going to walk through hostile fans en route to either the game-day skate or the game itself), and they may want more quiet than what a hotel right across from FNC can provide.) They usually leave town as soon as the game is over and do not generally stay overnight after a game. They come in the day before.

 

2. AAA baseball teams: players do share rooms, and they do not stay in hotels of the same caliber; I think the Best Western on Delaware is a popular destination for many of them.

 

3. The hotel at Donovan may not have enough rooms for NHL teams, but the Webster hotel will.

 

4. The Adam's Mark is toast. Good thing the buyer didn't pay much for it. The Embassy Suites, Hampton, and the less expensive hotel at Washington and Chippewa (brand name escapes me) will be just fine, and the Hyatt had better pull its ###### together.

 

5. If retail space at the Main Place Mall isn't in the right location, I fail to see how retail space five blocks away is, especially in winter. The Main Place Mall is close to so many workers and should be full of shoppers from roughly 11-2 on weekdays, but is not. That may be because it's nothing but dollar stores now; does anyone who lived here in the 90s/early 00s remember what types of stores were in that building then?

 

 

 

The development here in the last eight years has been nothing short of amazing.

I thought I had seen/heard before of players sharing rooms sometimes for away games. Either way, at the most, thats what, 30-40 rooms 41 nights out of the year?

As for the Mall, the other issue is that development and retail is getting away from the "Mall" format and more into 'Strip Malls' where each business is located in a strip of stores with all of their access coming from the outside, instead of inside a main corridor. I think one of the issues is that people don't want to park, get out of their car and walk around inside a building to get to only one store, they want to be able to get in and get out of the store quickly and be on there way (of course this is only my opinion on the matter).

 

And yes, Rinks can be expensive to maintain if they aren't booked up. I know alot of local multi-pad rinks that are struggling to break even or keep ice on all the pads because they don't have the demand to keep them filled. There really has to be a demand for Ice time to keep it profitable, if there is a shortage of rinks in Buffalo, then there shouldn't be a problem filling ice time outside of prime hours.

The problem with hotels is that the are something thats needed when there is a demand due to an attraction to bring people to the area. You don't build a hotel because you have the occasional hockey tournament once in a while or a one time event. To keep it from struggling, you need something to bring people to the area year round, and thats the one thing Buffalo is lacking right now. Addining more restaurants and Bars to the area isn't going to bring many more people in to the area, there are plenty of dining and drinking establishments in the area for visitors. This could be the start of some good development, but its not going to be something to bring people to the area, thats still whats needed there

[Happy Days]

Ted Black said he wants to create somewhere that people would want to come back to over and over again.

 

They should put a world class luxury/health spa in there.

[darksabre]

Ted Black said he wants to create somewhere that people would want to come back to over and over again.

 

They should put a world class luxury/health spa in there.

 

Or a bowling alley.

[SwampD]

Or a bowling alley.

:lol: