Building on strengths also means building on the over $500 million that have been and are continuing to be invested in stabilizing the inner ring of neighborhoods surrounding Buffalo’s central business district. Buffalo will not have a great Downtown unless its inner ring of neighborhoods is also great.

In the Lower West Side, housing developments under the Hope VI program of the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, a new Tops Supermarket, and a focus on Niagara Street as a gateway boulevard into Downtown will further improve the quality of life and property values in that neighborhood. Investments in Kleinhans Music Hall, the Allendale Theatre, and housing on Delaware Avenue further strengthen Allentown. Additional reinforcement in the inner ring has been provided by the Roswell Park Cancer Institute complex and will continue with implementation of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus plan and new plans for investment in the Fruit Belt. Investments in Willert Park and the Michigan Avenue historic area bolster other investments in new market rate and affordable housing to the south and east of the CBD. The same is true for other investments in the Home Ownership Zone on the near East Side of Downtown and past investments in neighborhood stabilization to the southeast.

Downtown as a regional center is bigger than the central business district. The vision demands that Downtown serve both the adjoining neighborhoods and the region. As such, the regional center we are calling Downtown is loosely defined on the north by Porter Avenue and North Street, on the east by Jefferson Avenue and on the south and west by the Buffalo River, Lake Erie and the Niagara River. It is a Downtown with a current population of about 18,000 residents and well over 60,000 workers. It has the spending power to help fuel residential services and regional attractions. It is the neighborhood of neighborhoods for the region.