ROAR Logistics‘ revised plan for 535 Exchange Street is officially moving forward. The need for an updated plan actually turned out to be a stroke of luck for the third party logistics provider (3PL) and global freight forwarder.

Back in May, it was discovered that a previously unknown Conrail property easement was in place, which meant that it had to be dealt with before the project could commence. It took upwards of six months to remove the blanket easement – instead ROAR carved out a strip of land on the property so that Conrail could still run cable/data if the need ever arose. During the time that the property was reworked and the new easement was drawn up, ROAR continued to grow, which meant that the revised plan had to be bigger. The building would have to accommodate room for 52 dispatchers, and support staff for international. Ultimately they needed a structure that could handle 90 employees, which is ROAR’s foreseen employee goal for its headquarters. Therefore, the design went from two to three stories, and the overall square footage increased from 12,020 to 14,900.

“The big news is that the easement had been released which gave us the green light to purchase the property and move forward,” said company President, Bob Rich III. “The easement was the only thing holding us back from purchasing the property and proceeding with the development of the property. Without a release on the ConRail easement, we really wouldn’t be able to have done anything. In the end, we were lucky – dealing with the easement could have taken two years. But the unexpected six month timeline provided us with the ability to design a bigger building. Our new headquarters in Buffalo will give us the room that we need to grow. The building needs to be completed by end of August, which is when we will be moving out of the Adam’s Mark. There are a lot of great things happening at the Adam’s Mark, but the space no longer fit our needs. There was no question that the ROAR Logistics headquarters would remain in Buffalo. We have been approached by other states to relocate our main office – we could be based anywhere – but it was never a consideration. Buffalo is home. The city is a source of pride.”

Carmina Wood Morris is the project architect and engineer, and Lamparelli is the contractor.

Founded in 2003, ROAR Logistics offers Rail, Ocean, Air, and Road services to aid clients in the delivery of their products around the world. It has operations in Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Pekin, IL and is a subsidiary of Rich Products Corporation.