What to do with a White Elephant?

Buffalo is trying to rebuild and re-brand itself. It has sunk an incredible amount of money into the infamous “medical corridor” to bring business in. It is also trying to use the “43 North” competition to bring in entrepreneurs.

To accommodate all this potential influx of new people with money to spend (they hope) developers are looking to renovate abandoned properties, old stores, and factories and turn them into apartments of various styles. (If I hear “loft apartment” one more time I'll be a permanent fixture in the Prison Radio Project.

The one property no one really wants to touch is the old HSBC building, now named “One Seneca.” Anything to get away from the name of a downsized bank I guess. I used to call it the "Hot Sauce & Blue Cheese" building. I had no idea what HSBC really meant. Neither did most of WNY anyway.

So, what to do with this large building that is an ugly eyesore? Architecturally it from the 1970's with a style that says nothing. It is a boring skyscraper. Then again I have not seen an interesting looking skyscraper. This includes the new World Trade Center tower.

Some want to see it demolished. That would cost quite a bit because of the size of it and the asbestos that is in it. Others want to see it rehabilitated and have tax credits normally used for historic buildings and preservation used on it.

Now, I didn't get to attend the anti-Nazi rally today because a friend I was going to take got a little to worked up and that's not good for his heart and I would up sitting in an emergency room waiting on him being treated.

Now he always comes out of these situations a little loopy. (I'll be kind.) And on the drive home he began talking about the tower and he almost made sense this time.

The tower is very high up – what if the windows on the top fifteen to twenty floors or so were taken our and replaced with small wind turbines? With new developments in turbine technology, wouldn't that produce a significant amount of electricity and we wouldn't have those hideous tall turbines like the Steel Winds project. If they rotated with the wind, even better.

And what about all the homeless people? How many apartments could be made out of all those empty offices? Or apartments for use by the people that will be working in the medical corridor?

And then there are all those medical buildings going up. And this building isn't being rehabilitated for use in the corridor? Structurally it is very sound and the lower levels would be ideal for the various entities that would be involved in that enterprise.

And it's always in the sun – Could there be solar panels mounted on it somehow so that solar electricity could be generated?

I had an hour plus of this type of talk. And some of it made sense.

Especially over the Amish made cinnamon bread and pumpkin bars that I was treated to. We passed by an Amish family selling their wares on the way home. For all my trouble, free coffee and Amish treats sort of make up for telling a bunch of skinheads to take a hike across Lake Erie. I was forced to stop and buy some. I would never have heard the end of it if I didn't.

Maybe we can hear the end of all this talk about an abandoned tower and start to see something done with it that will benefit the community.