509 Michigan Avenue: City-Owned (for sale?)
8 Comments Published by fixBuffalo on 4/28/2012 at 10:30 PM.
The Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency (BURA) owns 509 Michigan (google map). It's right next door to the Michigan Street Baptist Church and the Nash House is behind it. 509 Michigan is located in the middle of Buffalo's African American Heritage Corridor.
According to City records this mixed-use building, with a second floor apartment, is assessed for $20,000. It was purchased by BURA in 2005 for $350,000 from a private owner.
Since the opening of the Nash House in 2007, the completion of street improvements in the Heritage Corridor on Michigan Avenue and the more recent completion of renovations at the Michigan Street Baptist Church I thought 509 Michigan was next in line for renovations. I spotted this sun faded poster in the front window the other day.
I first photographed 509 Michigan in 2006 and have seen the deteriorating conditions of the building for the last six years. This is a building that must be saved. The City's Real Estate Division does not list the building for sale. There are no known plans for the building and under BURA's ownership the fate of the building remains unknown.
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"This is a building which must be saved." Why? Because it's an example of how to cut a brick building in half. Or is it the beautiful "N'Awlinz" style balcony which overhangs the buildings front. Oh, I get it......must be the $350,000.00 price tag which the nincompoops at BURA paid for it.
Granted, $350K would otherwise get you a house in the elmwood village, but the reason to save it is that it is the last vestige of the urban density that this street once had.
350k? Am I missing something here?
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It was sold 11/5/04 for $1, then for $350,000 five months later according to the City property information site. In 1992 it was sold for $20,000, in 1997 it was sold for $1, then in 2002 it was sold for $1, then the 2004 transaction and the 2005 one. This sounds incredibly fishy to me.
The sale included the parking lot. Remember the blue brick building that was in the middle of that parking lot. We tried to save that too. They started the demo on a Saturday morning and we were there, it got pretty heated. Then it sat half demo for a few months. Only to be funished off later.
At one time this building was 2 to 3 times as long as it is now. It used to be a rooming house, whore house and parking attendant office all at the same time. Ahhh, those were the glory days. I used alot of the bricks from the blue building next door, That was a Saturday morning special, I remember.....
I think it was actually Brian Davis who was critical in saving that building at all. I don't remember the details, but Anonymous above is right that there was a permitless-demo started and then stopped before the whole building was gone. I think Brian was pushing the City to stop the demo.