By James Fink
Buffalo Business First Reporter- Business First
A 102-room Staybridge Inn will help anchor a $15 million mixed-use development that virtually neighbors the University at Buffalo’s Amherst campus.
Documents filed with the Amherst Planning Department indicate that the Staybridge Inn is a central part of the project.
The Amherst Planning Board is scheduled to review the project when it meets on June 21.
The project is being developed jointly by Bevilaqua Development L.P. along with Ellicott Development Co. Ellicott Development is handling the Staybridge portion of the project.
“It’s a great addition, bringing in a nationally-known brand name hotel,” said Jonathan Bevilaqua, vice president of the Amherst-based development company.
Bevilaqua said his company and Ellicott Development are both ready to start work on the Sweet Home Road project as soon as they obtain all the necessary approvals from the Town of Amherst.
Bevilaqua, through its 1280 Sweet Home LLC affiliate, last year purchased a nearly four-acre parcel from the Center for Inquiry as the first move in its proposed development. Bevilaqua paid $500,000 for the property, according to documents filed in the Erie County Clerk’s office.
Bevilaqua hopes to have the project completed by 2013. The Buffalo architecture and engineering firm of Carmina Wood & Morris P.C. has been retained to work on the project as well.
If all of the phases are completed, the development cost could approach $15 million, making it the most expensive one undertaken by Bevilaqua Development.
Development plans call a pair of four-story buildings and the hotel to be developed on the property. One of the buildings is slated to be 44,000-square-feet and feature first floor retail along with 24 apartments on its upper three floors.
The second building, a 30,000-square-foot structure, will also have retail on its first floor and 18 apartments. The apartments in both buildings will average between 1,200-square-feet and 1,300-square-feet.
In all, 42 apartments are proposed for the site.
The retailers and restaurants will be smaller in nature, most occupying between 1,000-square-feet and 2,000-square-feet of the first floor space in each building. The apartments will feature such upscale finishes as hardwood floors and marble and granite countertops.
The entire complex is being designed in a town square motif found in such communities as South Bend, Ind., near the University of Notre Dame campus and also in Reston, Va. It would be the region’s first town square-themed development complex.
Besides the buildings, which will carry an early American design motif, Bevilaqua said it will feature replica brick-like street pavers, landscaping and benches.
The Sweet Home project comes after Bevilaqua Development last year welcomed the Commons on North French mixed-use complex to its portfolio of suburban real estate holdings. The Commons on North French, located at North French and Transit roads, features a mix of small, first floor retail tenants and a dozen upscale apartments. The apartments are all leased, most with two-year and three-year contracts, and 18,000-square-feet of the retail space has also been lease. Bevilaqua said approximately 6,000-square-feet of retail space remains available.
Ellicott Development is in the early stages of constructing a mixed-use $28 million hotel/apartment complex on Main Street and S. Forest Road in Amherst that will be anchored by a 120-Wyndham Garden Hotel & Suites.
Concept Construction Corp. is building the complex for Ellicott Development.
