This beautiful and
historic 42,000 square foot building is one of the most frequently overlooked
commercial real estate opportunities in the City of Buffalo. It is zoned in
the downtown Buffalo Central Business District and offers
Empire Zone tax abatement and utilities reduction privileges.
It is steam boiler heated,
air conditioned, fully wired and alarmed and has a working sprinkler system. It
also offers a straight-ahead drive down Broadway to the downtown core and easy
access to routes 33 and 190. It is on a main bus line and has a 50 car fenced
parking lot in the rear.
“Eckhardt’s/Kobacker’s
Department Store at
950 Broadway (1940, Bley & Lyman, architects) is architecturally significant as
an excellent example of a largely-intact, early Art Moderne commercial building.
Designed by local firm Bley & Lyman for John H. Eckhardt, this sleek building is
one of the most significant early Modern buildings surviving in Buffalo. A
similar style department store building, the W. T. Grant department store
(1939), once stood at Main and Huron Streets in downtown Buffalo (demolished
1980). The building’s curved façade stands out for its design and materials,
which include granite, light cream terra cotta and stainless steel. Eckhardt had
operated a store at the principal commercial intersection of the
Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood since the 1880’s. Former tenants of the building
include Kobacker’s and Sears department stores. The building is now vacant.”
In contrast to the
“largely-intact” reference above, you will see by viewing the photographs we
took for this article that the only things that are not intact on this building
are the proud displays of a new tenant’s corporate logo and the American flag.
Minor cosmetic freshening and light cleaning is all that is needed to make it
look brand new again.
If you
are interested in obtaining complete specifications of the building and the
demographics of the area, please visit the following
commercial real estate web site listing.
Interested parties may also contact the owners or submit inquiries through us
here at
Broadway Fillmore Alive!.
For
more information and current photographs of this property, please visit the
following links:
Long-time
Broadway merchant John H. Eckhardt commissioned the famed Buffalo architectural
firm of
Lawrence Bley and Duane Lyman to design a modern structure to house his
growing retail business,
Eckhardt’s Department Store, at the northwest corner of Broadway and
Fillmore, Buffalo’s thriving shopping district.
Photo courtesy of Robert
Sienkiewicz – Broadway Fillmore NHS
Built in 1940 by noted
local builders, Metzger Bros. Construction, its architectural style has been
recently classified as
Art Moderne, an evolution of the Art Deco and Bauhaus movements of the
1920’s and 1930’s.
The Eckhardt family had
owned this corner and operated general/department stores there since the late
1880’s. As noteworthy in local history as that is, it is especially exceptional
that the direct descendants of the Eckhardt family still own and lovingly
maintain this beautiful building.
The last two tenants
moved out of this building in 2004. The New York State Department of Labor
configured the 1st floor for its regional office, and a neighborhood
based education and job training program, 78 Restoration Corporation, configured
the 2nd floor for its
offices and
classrooms. The finished basement and unfinished 3rd
floor (originally used for inventory/storage) have not been used for decades
and are in pristine condition.
In homage to their fine
family heritage, the current owners are sincerely interested in protecting the
integrity of this building and have turned down offers that would have
threatened its survival. Their dedication to this effort is extremely rare and
must be commended. It is solely because of them that we still have this
important part of Buffalo’s history, and living example of great design and
craftsmanship to appreciate and admire.
Coming home to Buffalo
after the war,
Duane Lyman formed a partnership with Lawrence Bley that lasted twenty
years. The new
Tudor Revival
Saturn Club was one of the first commissions to come their way. Many would
list it as the best building Lyman designed (see also
Bley Lyman & Lansing). Among other works are over 100 school buildings, many
churches, and numerous large city and suburban houses.
At a time when earnest
modernist architects of the
International Style sought to express the new age in buildings inspired by
industrial design and made of the new materials of plate glass and steel, Lyman
celebrated the warm textures of the traditional materials of brick, stone and
wood and the reassuring feeling of the past. A talented conservative, Lyman
could design in a variety of historical styles with finesse; his buildings
always display fine craftsmanship and good taste.
Buildings designed by Lyman
in Buffalo include the following:
84 flush mounted
sidewalk windows begin at the Broadway edge and wrap around the graceful
corner curve to the complete length of the Fillmore side, and include 1 large,
4 window-pane length sidewalk display room facing each street. The windows are
trimmed below with beautiful brown polished granite tiling.
To add visual
interest to the tall, smooth walls, a row of 16 split level windows face
Broadway on each of the 2nd and 3rd floors, and a row
of 60 triple paned
windows face Fillmore on each of the 2nd and 3rd
floors. The sashes are made of cast iron.
Above the sidewalks
on both streets and around the corner is a lighted, protective
canopy trimmed in ribbed stainless steel. The canopy extends further out
on the rounded corner, emphasizing the circular shape and protecting the
window shoppers who used to check out the merchandise that filled the corner
display windows.
A main stainless
steel trimmed 4 door (double-doored) entrance foyer faces Broadway and there
is another entrance foyer on
Fillmore. The foyers are trimmed in brown polished granite and each
feature decorative brass radiator grills.
Above the canopy, the
exterior façade is trimmed in light cream terra cotta tiles, with light pink
terra cotta tiles inlaid in a horizontal stripe rising to form a tall loop on
the rounded corner and a smaller loop on the Fillmore side. The corner loop is
a feature that is specifically designed to attract the eye to the applicable
company logo/name.
There are 3 other
single door entranceways: 1 on the north side of Fillmore, and 2 on each side
of the 50’ X 50 service garage.
The rear façade of
the building and the service garage are constructed of
red brick and cement.
There are 2 cement
planter boxes, each containing trees on the Broadway and Fillmore sidewalks.
INTERIOR
The center portion of
the 1st floor is carpeted and is sectioned off for
office cubicles and conference rooms (all walls are removable).
Visible on the
perimeter of the 1st floor and underneath the carpeting is the
original pink and gray speckled
linoleum floor. There are linoleum floors on the 2nd floor and
in the basement. The 3rd floor’s concrete flooring remains
unfinished. All floors are in remarkable, original condition.
The large sidewalk
display rooms both having locking doors.
There are single
basement to 3rd floor concrete/steel staircases: 1 at the southwest
corner, 1 at the northwest corner, 1 at the middle of the Fillmore side and 1
at the southeast corner. There is a working elevator towards the southwest
corner.
In the middle of the
west wall, there is a beautiful marble, double wraparound
staircase that runs from the basement (stainless steel doors form the
basement
foyer) to the 3rd floor. There is a stainless steel
railing topping the stairs’ sides. Currently enclosed by temporary walls
on the 1st and 2nd floors, these walls can easily be
removed. The staircase is also in remarkable condition, having been unused for
decades.
There are 10 tiled
bathrooms, 2 in the basement, 2 each on the 2nd and 3rd
floors and 4 on the 1st floor. All tiling and fixtures are in
pristine condition
