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Renovations to Begin at Convention Center

$7 million project to redo entrance, area for exhibits

By Jackie Smith

June 10, 2010

 A $7 million face-lift is scheduled to start Monday on the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center in hopes of attracting more business and boosting the region’s economy.

Plans for the Franklin Street building include a new entrance and electronic marquee, redesigned kitchen and a refurbished exhibit hall.

The renovation work will continue until Sept. 10.

“One of our economic development goals is to bring tourists here, which include convention-goers, who obviously spend money on hotels, visit our shops and the like,” Erie County Executive Chris Collins said following a ceremonial demolition Wednesday of the center’s marquee. “So if someone visits from Chicago, we want them to go back with a positive image of Buffalo.”

Collins said the renovation has been planned for three years but delayed because of financial issues.

The county Public Works Department is overseeing the project.

Paul Murphy, the Convention Center’s facility director, said long-term planning resulted in rescheduling several events.

“They were all moved or relocated last year,” he said. “Some of them we were able to move to the fall. Some of them moved to this spring. With one or two exceptions, we didn’t lose any business.”

Closing the structure for the renovations was considered more cost-effective, said Dottie Gallagher-Cohen, president and CEO of the Buffalo Niagara Convention & Visitors Bureau.

As a result, work that might have taken about 10 months has been compressed into about three, she said.

The building’s “very dead” exterior will undergo the most obvious changes, Gallagher-Cohen said.

“From my point of view, this really gets us into a position to be able to compete,” she said. “There was such a lack of investment over the past how ever many years, that we really lost our market position. We couldn’t compete. We now can get in there and go after some events that we haven’t been able to get for quite some time.”

Renovations will include floor resurfacing, fresh paint for the ceiling and the addition of wireless connectivity.

Collins said the changes are designed to make the 30-year-old, 110,000-square-foot facility more efficient and “look like 2010.”

“This was a tired, old facility,” he said. “It looked tired and presented itself as tired. It was not wireless. The kitchen is outdated. The flooring was not level, so when we brought in shows he had to put carpeting down.”

The Convention Center hosts such annual events as the Buffalo Auto Show, Home & Garden Show and the World’s Largest Disco.

jsmith@buffnews.com