The long-delayed redevelopment of the LaSalle Metro Rail Station and surrounding properties is getting bigger, as the city has agreed to buy another 2.25 acres on Main Street with a closed former day care center.
The Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency has approved the $1.6 million purchase of 3012 Main, a property that sits behind the deep Park & Ride lot next to the train station on Main. It is zoned as mixed-use, and contains a single building that housed a closed day care.
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But it is the additional land around it and the proximity to the rest of the LaSalle site that makes it critical to the overall redevelopment project, which now totals nearly 10 acres – bigger in total land than Canalside.
And the purchase removes a legal impediment that has hindered the effort for months.
“It’s incredible for us. The potential for the site is really growing, in terms of what we can achieve for the community,” said Brendan Mehaffy, the city’s economic development commissioner, and executive director of the Office of Strategic Planning.
The city and the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority have been eagerly seeking to identify a developer to reuse the sprawling site near Shoshone Park, just north of Hertel Avenue and south of the University at Buffalo’s South Campus.
Their goal is to put the land – which is owned by both the city and transit agency – to better and more active use by creating an…
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