Plans are in place to redevelop the Perry Projects east of the Cobblestone District. The Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority (BMHA) is working with the University at Buffalo Center for Urban Studies, architectural and planning firm WRT, and neighborhood residents and stakeholders on a reuse plan for the neighborhood. Planning started last year and Pennrose Properties of Philadelphia was selected as ‘master developer’ for the project after a request for proposals was released earlier this year.

The Commodore Perry housing project consists of 414 units in two-story townhouse and three-story walk-up apartment buildings. Over 150 of the units are vacant due to structural damage. The “Perry Choice” master planning effort seeks to rehabilitate or replace the public housing units and create a new mixed-income neighborhood consisting of public and market-rate housing units. The master plan includes over 800 units of new housing, four acres of new parks, and a community/recreation center to be constructed in phases.

The Perry Choice neighborhood is bounded by South Park Avenue on the south, Smith Street to the east, Sycamore Street to the north and Michigan Avenue to the west. The overall neighborhood design provides a wide range of mixed-use amenities on Perry Street and South Park Ave connected by tree-lined streets, including a new central park and a 105,000 SF Life Chances Center. THE project replaces 222 housing units with 495 mixed income units over five years; with a long term goal of 414 on and off-site public housing units along with approximately 415 mixed-income units over a period of ten years. If the units that get built look like what is currently planned (below), it could be the best new infill construction in the city in some time.

The proposed Perry neighborhood redesign will also emphasize the development of comprehensive support services and institutions essential to the well-being of residents. These neighborhood based services will be accessible, located in the community and will include education, workforce training, employment and social services.

New Perry Homes is designed to integrate into the existing neighborhood via new streets and parks in key areas where adjacent opportunity sites exist. Perry Street is envisioned as the corridor to connect new investments from the west to the east through a revitalized corridor lined with new parks, rehabbed residential towers, new loft apartments, and the Life Chances Center (LCC). The LCC is designed to be constructed in three phases, and will contain a wide range of programs including a pre-school, a field house and gym, a banquet room, and an aquatic facility (below).

South Park Avenue is envisioned as a commercial corridor with flexible live/work units that can respond to changing market demands. The preferred concept honors the industrial heritage of the site through a new Ohio Basin Slip Street and a new Ohio Basin Slip Park that mirrors Conway Park (former turning basin) to the south.

BMHA has submitted a final Transformation Plan and recently applied for a $30 million federal implementation grant.

For one area property owner, the changes cannot come soon enough. Developer Carl Paladino, who has amassed a number of properties in the South Park Avenue/Ohio Street corridor area, tells The Buffalo News that he will not develop his properties until the Perry Projects are improved.

Paladino recently took out demolition permits to knock down a gas station that looks like it was the victim of a zombie attack – with pumps whose covers are missing, exposing their inner components – on land he owns on Ohio, as well as a former pallet company behind that property he recently bought on Mackinaw Street. But he said those sites will remain undeveloped until the housing development up the street, whose occupants are predominately black and low-income, is addressed.

“These hollowed-out buildings are decrepit and all boarded up, and gives the area a gangrene atmosphere. It’s just terrible,” Paladino said. “Until it’s cleaned up, how can you actually put residents who will be concerned for their safety down there?” Paladino said.

University at Buffalo Center for Urban Studies’ Henry Taylor isn’t buying it:

Taylor said that he doesn’t understand how Paladino could object to building on Ohio Street when he’s doing the Creamery building blocks away.

“The logic doesn’t make sense, and it’s not even supported by his own activities,” Taylor said.