The past few years have seen a surge in development within Buffalo’s city limits. A great deal of attention has been paid to the action (or inaction) down on the waterfront, but there has been a plethora or projects popping up around the city.

I would never claim to be an expert on urban development. But I’ve certainly made my way around North America enough to know what I like, what I hate, what works and what doesn’t in various cities. No I’d like to lend my experiences to some big picture concepts for projects around Buffalo. I have always wanted to use this space to start conversation and this Buffalo Pipe Dream series is designed to do just that. None of the thoughts I have come up with are attached to any sort of development plan and they shouldn’t be considered in that light. Each idea has been conceived with no concern for cost or how obstructionists or conservationists may view them.

Again, the point of this exercise is to share some thoughts and create conversation. I encourage you to use Twitter or the comments section to tell me how terrible my ideas are, what you like, what you hate or what could be improved on. Maybe you just want to chat about what could be done one day, share your thoughts. If there is one thing this city needs it is fresh ideas. Hopefully we can come up with a few during the series. Project number one? The Central Terminal.

The Central Terminal, to me, stands as one of the beacons of opportunity in the city. While there is little more than houses in the immediate vicinity; the Central Terminal sits in an interesting spot along a number of rail lines. Namely, the right-of-ways owned by NFTA that connect up to the airport and UB North. Developing the Central Terminal could work in concert with extending the Metro Rail. Continue reading →