Bass Pro landed — at last
Central Wharf site will be the location of multilevel store
After six years of casting its line, Buffalo has finally hooked a Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World store for the downtown waterfront.
The long-sought retailer has signed a predevelopment agreement for a multilevel, period- style store on the former Central Wharf site along the Buffalo River.
The 100,000-square-foot store … about half the size of the Bass Pro store originally proposed for the nearby Memorial Auditorium site … will be flanked by an Erie Canal Museum, 50-foot-wide waterside boardwalk, a public plaza, marketplace and a 300-car parking ramp.
Bass Pro President Jim Hagale said the retailer intends to be "respectful of the historical significance" of what he called a "very special location."
"Our store design will pay tribute to the heritage and national importance of the Erie Canal Terminus," he said.
"I can't think of a more appropriate type of retail business to be located on the water's edge than Bass Pro Shops," said Anthony Gioia, chairman of the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp., which brokered the deal. "Bass Pro loves the idea of being on the water, and we feel the same way."
The Bass Pro store will serve as anchor tenant for Canal Side, which is billed as a $275 million mixed-use development that will fill the Erie Canal Harbor neighborhood with a mix of shops, restaurants, entertainment venues, museums, a hotel, and residential and office space. Planners are predicting the reborn haborfront will attract 5 million visitors a year.
The agreement also provides the City of Buffalo $10 million in state money to demolish the idle Aud, with promises of additional funding to meet costs in excess of that allotment.
"What started as a one-dimensional project in the Aud has evolved into a visionary and far- reaching development plan that will finally allow for Buffalo's waterfront to reach its potential," Gioia said.
The harbor development board approved the agreement in a special session this morning.That vote sets in motion a final design and environmental review process aimed at a spring 2008 construction start. The Bass Pro store and related venues could be open by mid-2009.
"This is a significant project that will both energize development in Buffalo and connect the downtown area to the waterfront," Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer said.
Mayor Byron W. Brown called the project blueprints "very appealing."
"They are in keeping with the historic nature of the inner harbor," Brown said. "I think for the most part, the public and the community will be pleased."
Under terms of the agreement, the harbor development corporation will invest $25 million in public funds to prepare the riverfront site and construct the shell of a three-story retail building, designed to resemble the original Central Wharf terminal that stood on the property in the mid-1800s.
Bass Pro Shops will spend approximately $15 million to build out the interior of the store and also will pay $300,000 a year in fees to support Canal Side.
Over the course of the proposed 20-year lease, those fees would total $6 million. And if Bass Pro exercises all lease renewals, that sum would climb to $15 million over 50 years.
The store, which will employ about 1,000 full- and part-time staffers, is expected to generate $3 million annually in sales tax. The agreement also calls on the harbor development corporation to construct a 20,000-square-foot Erie Canal Museum and a 30,000-square-foot public market.
Bass Pro and the development agency are thrilled about putting Bass Pro on the Central Wharf … adjacent to the historic, rewatered Commercial Slip and other artifacts of Buffalo's Erie Canal heyday.
But preservationists have serious concerns.
Tim Tielman, of the Campaign for Greater Buffalo History, Architecture & Culture, called the plan "an abomination."
"This couldn't be farther from an homage to the Central Wharf. It's a themed retail environment designed by bureaucrats gone wild," he said.
Tielman predicted the battle to retain the historic site as a public plaza with small-scale development will be fought beyond the preservation community.
"Anyone who loves the waterfront will hate this," he added.
Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, who is a champion the area's waterfront redevelopment efforts, disagrees with that assessment.
"[The proposal] preserves the integrity of our city's great history and maintains public access for residents and tourists in a setting that draws people downtown seven days a week," Higgins said.
Sen. Charles M. Schumer, D-N.Y., who also has pressed for a rebirth of the city's waterfront, said the project "pays homage to Buffalo's past even as it builds for the future."
Harbor District Associates, LLC, an affiliate of Buffalo-born Benderson Development Co., also has signed onto the deal and will act as Canal Side's master developer. In addition to overseeing the projects on the Central Wharf site, it will lead a mix of private and public developments on the site of the Donovan State Office Building, the Aud and the vacant Webster Block in front of HSBC Arena.
Buffalo's fishing expedition to land Bass Pro began in July 2001, when former Mayor Anthony M. Masiello went to Washington, D.C., to lobby the federal delegation for funds to create something then called the Erie Canal Harbor Urban Entertainment District.
He told lawmakers the city might be able to attract the up-and-coming retailer to the empty Aud if he had $7.5 million in transportation funds to build a massive parking facility.
In November 2004, Masiello's dream appeared to have come true, when Bass Pro announced it would turn the Aud into a 250,000-square-foot store with a museum, restaurant and hotel. But by mid-2005, those promises had produced no plans and negotiations toward a binding lease were at a standstill.
The Bass Pro drive took on new life in August 2005, when the local harbor development panel was established to put a finer point on talks with the retailer. While success seemed likely through fall 2006, updated information on the physical state of the Aud and cost estimates associated with its conversion caused the ambitious plan to go belly up.
On Dec. 18, 2006, Bass Pro was given 30 days to fish or cut bait, but as the deadline expired, the planners shifted their focus to the Central Wharf site, a fresh idea that kept the retailer talking.
