News Release - Mayor Thomas S. Richards Announces Real Estate Closing on Midtown Tower

City of Rochester

News Release

Site Renamed “The Tower at Midtown”

(Thursday, Dec. 26, 2013) – Mayor Thomas S. Richards today announced that the City transferred title to the former Midtown Tower to Midtown Tower, LLC, a partnership of Buckingham Properties and Morgan Management.

“The redevelopment of the Tower at Midtown is truly transformative for Downtown and the entire region,” said Mayor Richards. “Prior to the Midtown Rising project, the Midtown Plaza and Midtown Tower had been vacant for all intents and purposes. This will breathe new life into our Center City, bringing with it new residents and commercial development.”

The $59 million redevelopment project, now known as The Tower at Midtown, will create a focal point of commercial/retail, office and residential activity and is one of the centerpieces of the Midtown Rising redevelopment project. It will create 29 new permanent jobs, retain 316 permanent jobs and create 200 construction jobs. The project will get underway in spring 2014 and is comprised of 179 residential rental units and approximately 160,000 square feet of commercial space on the first three to five floors of the Tower and the former Plaza area.

Buckingham Properties owns and manages more than 50 properties comprising over 9 million square feet and has a successful history of re-development and adaptive re-use of existing properties.

“Our redevelopment of The Tower at Midtown is one of the most exciting opportunities that has ever been presented to Buckingham Properties. It represents over a year of very hard work by City officials, engineers, architects, and our private development group,” said Buckingham Properties CEO Larry Glazer. “The opportunity to transform an entire neighborhood and raise it to new heights does not occur very often. We are pleased and honored to be part of this opportunity. We are most grateful to the City of Rochester and the staff we have worked with to make this idea a reality. Two years from now, it will be hard to remember the skeletal remains that exist today.”

Morgan Management, based in Rochester, has extensive experience in the ownership and management of high quality, residential communities, owning and operating a residential and commercial real estate portfolio since 1976.

“We are excited about the revitalization of the Tower at Midtown for what it represents for Downtown Rochester,” said owner Robert Morgan. “We feel that this will be a major improvement in redeveloping a part of the city that was once thriving and will become thriving again, with a live-work-play lifestyle.”

Midtown Plaza consisted of approximately 1.4 million square feet of vacant office and retail buildings covering 8.6 acres. The Midtown Rising project involves the demolition of most of the Midtown buildings, the adaptive reuse of the former Seneca Building as the new Windstream office project, the adaptive reuse of the former Midtown Tower, the inclusion of new streets and open space and the creation of four additional development parcels.

The total investment in the Midtown Rising project – including acquisition, relocation, demolition, infrastructure improvements, rehabilitation of the Midtown Parking Garage, the redevelopment of the Windstream offices building and the redevelopment of the Midtown Tower – is more than $184 million.

New York State is providing a total of $5.2 million in funding for The Tower at Midtown, $1.2 million through the Upstate Regional Blueprint Program and $4 million through the 2012 Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council process.

The City approved $8.7 million in funding for the project and worked with the developer to secure approval for $18.6 million in incentives and property tax abatements through the County of Monroe Industrial Development Agency.

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News Media: For more information, contact Associate Administrative Analyst Mark Fitzstevens at 428-6153.