Buffalo River Landing was built on a site formerly occupied by Erie Freight House, a historic building first constructed in the 1860s on the Buffalo River in Buffalo, N.Y. CJS Architects designed the exterior with weathering steel panels and aluminum-clad windows to create an industrial appearance, which fits with surrounding buildings and adjacent railroad tracks.
Flat, corrugated and corrugated panels with perforations break up the building’s large mass. The panels’ contrasting textures also mark the eave and roof heights of the Erie Freight House. There are flat panels at the top, corrugated panels at the middle and perforated panels at the ground parking level.
Savarino Companies LLC, the owner and developer of Buffalo River Landing, served as general contractor and installer for the project. At the top of the building, Savarino Companies installed 13,000 square feet of Western States Metal Roofing’s 1 1/2-inch-deep, 18-inch-wide formed, interlocking Rust Wall Corten flat panels. In the middle, it installed 13,000 square feet of Western States Metal Roofing’s 1 1/2-inch-deep A606-4 Western Rib Corten panels. At the ground-floor parking area, it installed 6,700 square feet of 1 1/2-inch-deep A606-4 Western Rib Corten panels perforated with 30 percent open area. Weather Shield Manufacturing Inc. supplied its Signature Series Casement 8205 windows.
Another part of the design where CJS Architects took cues from Buffalo River Landing’s industrial surroundings is the vertical stair towers on its main façades. Their proportions mimic nearby grain elevators.
The stair towers help mitigate the building’s overall scale and length. They are clad with masonry walls and Duo-Gard Industries Inc.’s 40-mm tongue-and-groove polycarbonate translucent panels in Opal White. At night, the stair towers are backlit with LED lighting, marking the building’s presence on the riverside.
The five-story, 93,500-square-foot Buffalo River Landing houses 64 one-bedroom units and 14 two-bedroom units on the second through fifth floors.
The project was completed in 2017. It won the AIA Western N.Y.’s Local Firm Local Project award and NAIOP Commercial Real Estate Development Association’s Best Urban Multi-Family award.
