Naming Rights Tower
What the imminent emptying of the tower-soon-to-be-formerly-known-as-HSBC-Tower underscores is that Bashar Issa wasn’t just a charlatan, but a transparently obvious one. Here is our archive of what we’ve written about Issa over the years.
Now that HSBC, Phillips Lytle, and the Canadian consulate are vacating Buffalo’s tallest building, what is to be done with it? It seems that the building’s owners should have seen the writing on the wall as far back as a few years ago, but seem to be caught without a plan “B”. To the Buffalo News, Seneca One Realty explains that it’s bringing in the Urban Land Institute to help it decide what to do with 38 empty stories’ worth of building at the foot of Main Street.
One more vacant office building creates a sudden and dramatic glut of not-quite-class-A office space that will likely depress values throughout downtown Buffalo. For all intents and purposes, it joins the I-190 as a wall that separates Buffalo’s waterfront from its downtown.
Now, more than ever, it’s time to consider transforming downtown into a sales tax-free zone in order to stimulate economic activity there.
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