Outer Harbor
The Outer Harbor will cost millions to environmentally remediate, but has tons of potential once this place starts getting its act together again. Here’s something I wrote about it in 2004.
Personally, I think that the outer harbor should be designed as a mixed-use urban village, incorporating the ideas of New Urbanism. It shouldn’t be another office park. It should have character – cobblestone streets and brick fronts. It should have integrated, convenient underground parking. The NFTA should without a doubt extend Metro Rail to this new community. There should be ample retail and restaurant space. There should be easy access to a waterfront promenade/boardwalk & fishing pier. The possibilities are limitless.
Somewhat unfortunately, they still are.
Yeah, it’s too bad its another area with an absentee landlord
Best plan for the Outer Harbor? Here (combined with adaptive reuse of the existing megabuildings, and a few other things in the immediate vicinity of Dug’s Dive/Small Boat Harbor):
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VldGUdDl5YoJ:wnymedia.net/the-answer-lady/2011/01/a-buffalo-outer-harbor-plan/+outer+harbor+wind+farm+site:wnymedia.net&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Thanks for the link RaChaCha – Buffalo has worldclass wind resources. Its time we celebrated this and put the wind to work for us. Wind energy = JOBS and clean, cost efficient, cost predictable energy.
Wind and recreation co-exist well together. This wind park I visited in Prince Edward Island (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBazB5SrKhU) combined wind energy, beautiful views and outdoor recreation together in one gorgeous package. Buffalo could do this too.
The big missing piece to all of this is a surface bridge connecting the foot of Main Street to the rebuilt Fuhrmann Blvd and the Outer Harbor. Have this key piece of infrastructure in place, which would include not only auto access but bike/pedestrian access and a metrorail path, and look out… thousand of acres of developable land will now be in easy access to the downtown core. Fingers crossed that Higgins lands the moneys in the 2012 federal budget.
I admittedly do not know the details of any waterfront projects or plans, but will attempt to ask a question here that is meant to be serious but might set some people off. I recall a few years back that a certain potential Federal Appropriations project was dubbed the “bridge to nowhere” (in Alaska if memory serves). For people in Washington and those of us not familiar with the logistics or plan for our local waterfront development, how is this bridge “a bridge to somewhere” and what other local DOT – fundable projects are below this one on the priority list when seeking Federal funding?