Sinatra on Thursday closed on his purchase of the former Phoenix Brewery Co. building at 835 Washington St., at Virginia Street, securing a piece of real estate at the coveted Medical Campus.

The well-funded developer – whose backers include members of the Hyatt hotel chain’s Pritzker family – now plans to spend about $3.5 million on top of the purchase price to renovate the structure into 35 to 40 high-end, market-rate apartments, aimed squarely at well-paid Medical Campus employees who want to be able to walk to work.

The historic building is located next to the hulking Trico Building, which Krog Corp. of Orchard Park is planning to redevelop into a mixture of two hotels, apartments and some commercial and retail space.

Sinatra, who is also in the midst of buying the Market Arcade Building in downtown Buffalo, paid $1.78 million to buy the 55,000-square-foot warehouse from Joseph Parlato, an antiques dealer who has been using it for 30 years to store antiques before selling them at shows and online

Most will be large two-bedroom, two-bathroom units of at least 1,000 square feet. He said he’s planning to incorporate special details such as old beer barrels and the Phoenix logo into the finishes, perhaps as part of a centerpiece in units, or in the lobby, or even as part of a breakfast bar in each apartment. “It’s just going to be a fantastic project. The building is in really great shape,” he said.
http://www.buffalonews.com/business/...ampus-20140424