Its official now-the Bills will indeed be playing a regular season game a season in Toronto for five years

I’m not sure how much of an impact it will have on luxury-suite sales-the raison d’etre of NFL franchises nowadays. Sure, it could easily create new fans in Toronto since we already see an estimate of 10,000 Canadians a game at Ralph Wilson Stadium but I don’t imagine many wealthy executives considering a 1.5 hour drive + a wait at the border to Orchard Park to enjoy a few hours in a mildly-expensive toy.

Merchandise sales will go up, perhaps Torontonians will become curious about their old neighbor and pay a visit to non-Bills related things, and maybe a couple extra suites will get sold but I’m not sure if these efforts will help the Bills cope with the rising salary cap as revenues go up across the league and as other teams’ cities grow tax bases and help give their NFL franchises new shiny stadiums that provide 1st class facilities and the potential to host Super Bowls.

But maybe it will work. In fact-if the day ever came where the US and Canada entered some sort of Schengen-Zone agreement you would see not only the Tor-Buf-Chester Bills do quite well for themselves but you’d see the regions of Buf and Chester do quite well for themselves too.

Toronto Globe and Mail coverage

The fencing is off and now the current phase of the Inner Harbor revitalization project is nearing a close. I mentioned before that the overall urban design is very good and it should be a really popular spot when the weather warms up and when retail arrives (heh.)


The museum looks pretty good, and there seems to be a 3rd floor patio…I remember reading something about a cafe being part of the museum. And the interior of the museum itself looks pretty good too. Small…but good.

I’ve gotten different stories on whether or not the remaining land that is fenced off (all on the HSBC arena side of the Inner Harbor) is about to begin the laying out of the infrastructure (streets, central wharf, etc) or its contingent on other factors related to the Bass Pro development. I’d love to see that massive amount of land get done with already.

You might have come across the news that Spot Coffee is planning to expand into Toronto and in fact already has a location next to the Rogers Center. They already have a location in Rochester and they’re really starting to grow where it all started-in Buffalo.

Richard Florida’s theories are already coming into effect…kinda.

Construction keeps chuggin’ along at Waterfront Place as there is only one more floor of to add to the condo tower.

The first few of the townhomes are done and although they’re not great they are at least less anti-social than their older neighbors aka the properties are right up to the sidewalks and not hidden by common surface lots and shrubbery.

Really excited to see how depressing the CBD side of the condo tower looks. So far so good…

Yeah, yeah…BRO beat me to it but I took the time to take the darn pictures so I might as well post them.

It looks like it will be a great addition to the area especially with 1st floor retail. Morissey’s could use some visible competition to send some people down that block.

Still sad that we waited all this time for construction to start because Savarino was awaiting state approval for condos and then there ended up just being 1 floor of apartments.

Nonetheless…it will be great to see this block complete and really start to see a flow (albeit still lackluster) in the urban fabric from the Inner Harbor down to the Cobblestone District.

I finally got around to looking at Artspace for the 1st time in about 11 months. Needless to say it has made quite a bit of progress. Although the rehab on Main street looks great the real gems are hidden behind the big brown structure on Northampton.


HHL hooked Buffalo up with some incredibly sleek, beautifully designed, 21st century lofts that look like something you’d see in the Netherlands. Maybe I’m overreacting like I usually do but if HHL continues to improve upon things like 285 Delaware and this…perhaps they can become a nationally-renown firm in the near future.

I left thinking the same thing I think upon leaving the Albright-Knox everytime I visit…

“I can’t believe these things are in Buffalo.”

Sorry for the small renderings…I’ll try to get some bigger ones later but there is some pretty exciting news for the dreary and desolate UB North Campus- a new, contemporary, large and physically appealing building will be under construction starting the Fall of 2009 if all the funding is covered. Somehow UB has held up a solid reputation for its Engineering school despite sticking grad students in trailers for almost 30 years…soon enough that will no longer be a problem.

The building looks fantastic. It will be weird so see some red and white against the sea of dark brown.

Also looks EXTREMELY influenced by the Engineering Building of a school in Munich that my friend studies at. Imitation is the most sincerest form of flattery though.

*Renderings courtesy of the UB Spectrum.

I’m sure many of you have started to hear about one of the Albright-Knox’s prized and recently sold-off posessions-”Artemis and the Stag” being a possible fake. Here is the whole Der Spiegel article in English…pretty interesting stuff. It would cause quite the stir if it is proven to be fake and could very well lead to an extensive re-authentication of artwork all over the world.

Although it was proven in the past to be authentic it is interesting to note its seemingly pristine condition for an ancient work and Artemis’ clothing doesn’t look particularly Roman but I couldn’t even finish a semester of Art History 101 so what do I know.

Although not officially announce on the school’s website yet, it looks as if this semester’s lecture series will be absolutely star-studded! Just looking real quick at a poster in Hayes Hall I noticed these three big ones…

Thom Mayne of Morphosis whose work I have mentioned more than a few times. An extremely fascinating mind and I will not miss this one for the world.

Diller, Scofidio and Renfro who are probably most famous for their Boston ICA which I briefly blogged about in the late spring. A very interesting firm although some might consider them a bit flashy…it will be interesting to see what they’re up to.

The other one that stood out was Kenneth Frampton, who has a lot of great writings on architecture and is one of the foremost experts on modern architecture.

Usually one or two names stand out on the semester list…I can’t wait for these three to come. I’ll link to the official list when its released online

I saw ‘The Savages’ last night at the Amherst Theatre on Main Street.

Its a depressing yet very good movie but what stood out to me so much was that Buffalo was the perfect setting for the movie. As two siblings pursue their own struggling careers while failing miserably in their personal lives as well they attempt to take care of their angry, senile, dying father who is subjected to the depressing lifestyle of a nursing home. The backdrop for all this is the quirky, awkward, decaying, gray and precipitous Buffalo. The combination is perfect.

NYtimes review
Rotten Tomatoes