Home > About BNE > Press Room > Current Articles > June > Queen City Landing takes off at Freezer Queen Site

Queen City Landing takes off at Freezer Queen site

The central Freezer Queen site could become a waterfront catalyst

Updated: 05/12/08 10:36 AM

Here’s hoping history repeats itself. Preliminary blueprints for a pioneering outer harbor residential/ hotel project have been submitted to the Buffalo Planning Board, marking the potential start of efforts to reclaim the largest undeveloped stretch of city waterfront. A similar private-enterprise start by developers a few years ago triggered a wave of downtown residential development; a similar role for the Queen City Landing project could mean a solid start for long-awaited shoreline reuse.

Orchard Park developer Gerald Buchheit and businessman Jon Williams hope to turn the old Freezer Queen plant and warehouse, right in the middle of the outer harbor shoreline, into a 150-unit condominium complex, a townhouse neighborhood and a five-star hotel. JCJ Architecture of Connecticut, designer of the Seneca Nation casinos and a specialist in designs for unique locations, has been hired to give shape to the concept.

The city, properly, has an oversight role in making sure this project fits with waterfront plans and is done well. But the bottom line is this: Private development is starting to take root in an area that desperately needs it.

The white (literally) elephant that was the vacant 273,000-square-foot Freezer Queen plant on Fuhrmann Boulevard was bought at auction for $3 million by Buchheit, owner of an asphalt-striping firm and developer of the Quaker Crossing retail complex, and Williams, owner of Ontario Specialty Contracting. Their plans call for upscale condominiums with balconies to take advantage of spectacular harbor views.

If they succeed, Queen City Landing would include the first outer harbor homes since World War II Coast Guard housing on Lighthouse Point, and the first neighborhood since the last of the commercial fishermen’s cottages in the “seawall shantytown” was torn down in the 1930s. But even more importantly, it could prove to be the catalyst for more outer harbor development that takes advantage of proximity to downtown and the natural beauty of Lake Erie.

To their credit, the developers also are planning a “green” project with interior demolition and reconstruction to follow Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design principles, using as much of the existing structure as possible and installing thermal heated windows.

They view added attention to “green” initiatives as worth the effort, a growing trend in the industry. Promised is ample opportunity for public input.

Buchheit said the project could prove to be an integral part in encouraging the building of new connecting bridges, as envisioned by Rep. Brian Higgins, and eventually get the city, state and federal government to look closely at the elimination of the Skyway for the development of the outer harbor. But for Buchheit, who is in favor of Higgins’ outer harbor parkway plan, it’s about moving forward and showing the federal government that this area is capable of getting something done on the waterfront.