Isn't Larry Quinn the guy who thinks that there will be 100,000 living on the Outer Harbor in a couple of decades????

Bass Pro deal up in the air, but it's said to be 'closer'
By SHARON LINSTEDT
News Staff Reporter
4/19/2006
Buffalo's long courtship of Bass Pro Shops continues, but still no wedding date has been set.

What's the holdup?

The next step appears to be a pre-development contract, probably signed by the end of this month. And in the same way that a prenuptial agreement stipulates the financial aspects of a marriage, a predevelopment contract outlines what role Bass Pro will play and what the local development corporation will do.

But it does not guarantee that Bass Pro will consummate with a binding contract to set up shop in the former Memorial Auditorium.

The groom isn't worried, though. "Could they still walk away? Sure. Do I feel in my heart that will happen? No," said Larry Quinn, vice chairman of Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp., the public agency steering the Bass Pro project. "I'm getting a little tired of saying this, but we are closer than ever before to having a firm deal."

"This isn't the parade and fireworks event a lot of people were expecting to come next, but it's absolutely essential to get us to that final, final contract," said Anthony H. Gioia, chairman of the harbor development panel.

Bass Pro President Jim Hagale was not available to comment, but he said last month that standing between the retailer and a binding contract is "documentation." The predevelopment agreement sets in motion formal environmental and structural evaluations of the former sports arena.
It also defines the roles of Bass Pro and the 7-month-old waterfront development panel in the design and overhaul of the Aud, as well as the first phase of the $1.4 billion Main Street redevelopment plan unveiled last month.

It also will address who will pay for which aspects of the site review and how any necessary remediation of the Aud will be funded. "When this document is signed, Bass Pro will begin spending real money on this project," Quinn said. Unlike the memorandum of understanding announced with much fanfare in November 2004, the predevelopment document will result in "palpable progress," Quinn added.

Richard M. Tobe, Buffalo's development chief, also said he is not worried that the retailer would turn its back on Buffalo. "They're not talking to us to be polite," said Tobe, who met last month with Bass Pro executives at their Springfield, Mo., headquarters. "They are trying to do a deal, and we believe they will. There is an active exchange of questions and answers."
A key element of the predevelopment agreement is an environmental and structural analysis of the 66-year-old sports arena. The price tag for giving the building new life as a retail complex depends heavily on its condition.
Past estimates of gutting the Aud to make it ready for its new life as an Outdoor World store - plus a 200-room hotel, Great Lakes/Erie Canal Museum and restaurants - were in the range of $10 million to $16 million. That price tag could rise dramatically if issues such as asbestos, mold and structural integrity are worse than previously assumed.
Depending on what engineering and environmental assessments uncover, it might be necessary to consider demolition instead of reuse, said Erie County Executive Joel A. Giambra. "I'm anxious to see the results and determine if retrofitting is cost-effective compared to tearing it down and building from scratch," he said.
Demolition estimates dating from the 1990s put the price tag to level the entire building at between $4.8 million and $8 million.
"Depending on how the numbers play out, we might have to put aside the dream of converting the Aud and focus on the bigger goal, which is to get a Bass Pro store," Giambra said.

Quinn, though, said demolition is not an option. "The Aud is the project, the project is the Aud," he said, noting that the massive building with soaring, highly visible rooflines is what drew Bass Pro Chairman Johnny Morris to Buffalo's waterfront in the first place.

If Bass Pro Shops proceeds as planned and reinvents the Aud as a retail complex, it would mark the first time the company has put a store in a building that was not either a new structure or former retail space.
The harbor development panel and Bass Pro are eyeing federal incentives earmarked for economic revitalization of depressed urban areas as a potential way to supplement the mix of $66 million in local, state and federal funding, plus a minimum of $57 million that Bass Pro previously pledged to the project.

The predevelopment phase, which is expected to take the rest of 2006, also will result in preliminary designs for the retrofitted Aud, as well as parking ramps, market-type building akin to Boston's Faneuil Hall, and other physical elements of a redone lower Main Street.
Buffalo's courting of Bass Pro dates back nearly five years, and nearly 18 months have passed since the retailer publicly proclaimed its interest in converting the Aud into a 250,000-square-foot outdoor store and hotel. Still, there were no detailed project talks until late last fall.
"We essentially started from scratch," Quinn said of the harbor development corporation's progress since its inception last October. "It is very realistic to say that for a project of this enormity and complexity, we're now moving at breakneck speed."

The expected timetable under the predevelopment agreement would see a binding contract with Bass Pro in hand by the end of the year, and construction would begin in early 2007. The store would debut in 2008.