On the first day of Hispanic Heritage Month, a group of local Hispanic community leaders and elected officials gathered on Buffalo’s Lower West Side to break ground on a new Hispanic cultural center.
Construction will soon begin on the $30 million Hispanic Heritage Cultural Institute, a project spearheaded by Casimiro D. Rodriguez, the president of the Hispanic Heritage Council of Western New York.
“This project is very important,” Rodriguez said Friday during the ceremony. “Not only to this organization, but to this community.”
Friday was the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs through Oct. 15, and also coincides with the Heritage Council’s 13th anniversary.
The Hispanic Heritage Cultural Institute will be a place to celebrate Hispanic arts and culture. It will be a tourist destination, and an “economic engine” for the West Side community, which is home to a large Hispanic population, Rodriguez said.
“This is a community that matters,” said Gov. Kathy Hochul, who traveled to Buffalo for the groundbreaking. “It matters and it’s been overlooked.”
The cultural institute is designed to bring together Western New York’s disparate Hispanic community while sharing its history, culture and traditions, as well as its contributions to broader society. It is the first of its kind in Upstate New York.
Western New York has an estimated 75,000 Hispanics, with 45,000 in Buffalo, representing nearly two dozen countries and cultures.
The cultural institute will be built on a vacant lot at the corner of Niagara and Hudson streets. The three-story, 37,000-square-foot building will house a museum and art gallery, gift shop, cafeteria, 150-seat performing arts theater, large event space, media center for radio or television broadcasts, learning labs, artisan and teaching kitchen, rooftop gardens and administrative offices.
Rodriguez and the Hispanic Heritage Council began working on the project in 2019. Progress slowed in 2020 due to…
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