Parking Concern Spurs Possible Lawsuit From Buffalo Developer

Last week the announcement was made that Braymiller Markets would be adding a new grocery store downtown. It seems like good news, but one developer feels it might create a huge problem.

Where is everyone going to park?

That's the question that Rocco Termini is asking the City of Buffalo administrators an a strategic planning committee who did the study to determine if parking would be an issue.

"How about people that work at NFTA? How about people that work at M&T Bank? How about for the future development of the old AM&A's Department Store? Where do all of those people park?" - Rocco Termini

Termini is also the owner of the recently redeveloped Hotel Lafayette which would be right next to the market.

According to Spectrum News, Termini plans to challenge the State Environmental Quality Review, in court if nothing is changed.

While the rendering shows parking spots for 30 cars, Strategic Planning Director Brendan Mehaffy anticipates that many of the people who will frequent the store will probably walk there or use other public transit.

"Here, you're next to literally the center of the bus system for the region next door with the NFTA. You're two blocks away from the Metro Rail station, and you have a growing residential population, which this is focused on, that growing residential population, which many we would expect would be able to walk to that site."

It's definitely something that shouldn't be overlooked, however. These are parts of the process that shouldn't be easily overlooked. It is a valid concern. However, maybe discouraging new business isn't a good practice.

I've often said, if I have a house that's too small to hold all of my friends then I'm a pretty lucky guy. It seems like a good problem to have. If Buffalo is getting to the point that it's such a busy city that we are running out of places to park everyone then maybe putting a halt to it isn't what we should do. Instead, maybe we should look at other options of how we could fit them all here. Where could we put more ramps? Where is there opportunity? Are there buildings that aren't being used that could be replaced?