Keepin’ it Local – Make Local Business the Anchor Tenant at Canal Side: Part One
Buffalo First intern Hannah Hanover details the community’s case for local and independent businesses at Canal Side in this two-part article. Part One, published here, focuses on why local business should be considered the “anchor tenant” at Canal Side, rather than a big-box gamble that won’t best meet the needs of the local economy, local history, and most importantly, us locals ourselves. Part Two will look to examples of successful, local economy-focused, and character-driven redevelopment to provide useful insights for how best to spend the region’s redevelopment dollars.
By Hannah Hanover, Buffalo First!
The results of Canal Side redevelopment are not predestined to sport large neon signs advertising goods from sweatshops across the globe, nor does the revenue resulting from the project even need to spread past Western New York. There is an alternative. By refusing to allow Canal Side to be anchored by large businesses whose profit and revenue is thrown into a pool of resources benefitting high-paid executives around the country, Western New York residents can ensure that local entrepreneurs are given the opportunity to bring their innovation and passion to the Buffalo-Niagara region with tangible, revenue-producing, and community capital-building methods.
Canal Side’s historical and economic significance
The redevelopment of an historic area such as Canal Side is no small task, and must encompass economic development within the important frame of the area’s history and community context. Buffalo’s history is not one of big-business success or the benefits of big box commercialism. In Buffalo’s golden age of a century ago, the district we now refer to as “Canal Side” was a hub of hardworking local entrepreneurship. Today, Buffalo’s thriving business districts and residential neighborhoods are continuing examples of this legacy; a walk down Elmwood or Hertel or Grant Street confirms this. What makes Buffalo a city worth living in is its diversity and flexibility, its strong sense of locality, and the historic sense of place inherent in its bars, cafes, eateries, bookstores, and residential districts.
Inviting a large commercial business to be the anchor tenant for the Canal Side shifts the tone of the entire project from one of historic pride and sustainable diversity to one of conformity and fungible culture.
The goal of mega-retailers is revenue, not relationship
If the goal of Canal Side redevelopment is to boost economic growth and sustainability in the Buffalo-Niagara region, promoting local business as the economic and cultural foundation for this regional project is the best and most practical approach. Larger retailers may successfully contribute to a city’s culture, but they cannot truly be part of such culture, and are an insufficient economic engine. They cannot contribute meaningfully because their business decisions cannot focus on the city or region itself and its residents, and their profits are often leaked right back out of the local economy. The goal of mega-retailers is revenue, not relationship.
By seeking ample room and accommodations for local business, the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation (ECHDC) could increase the economic sustainability of the harbor. If money is spent at a local restaurant whose own supplies are regionally sourced and produced, this keeps three times as much money within the area. The profits circulate and continue to grow, until the relationships between consumer, servicer, supplier, and producer become a network of productivity within Buffalo and the WNY region. This guarantees that the owners of your favorite eatery, and in turn their favorite suppliers and the suppliers’ favorite producers, can continue to earn a robust livelihood.
Buffalo business, not big business
Through a focus on local business at Canal Side rather than outsourcing past Western New York, we can also ensure we’re meeting our own unique needs and sense of place. Local establishments invariably supply goods and services that have value to the city of Buffalo specifically, as their owners and suppliers live and work in the area. These goods and services are what attract visitors desiring a shopping, eating, drinking and touring experience unique to Buffalo, rather than a blandly commercial inundation of mass-produced souvenirs and chain restaurants. And it is this uniqueness, and the jobs created through it for local entrepreneurs and labor, that is needed for Canal Side.
A local business creates jobs for local people – the founders, owners, managers, and employees are personally vested in the company, and work hard to provide services of value to Buffalonians and to visitors of Buffalo.
For all these reasons, Buffalo First is emphatically petitioning ECHDC to make local business the anchor tenant at Canal Side, in a precise effort to preserve Buffalo’s identity, local economy and community capital. We are demanding that Canal Side business be Buffalo business, not big business.
Sign the petition today and please join us in solidarity at Canal Side (95 Perry St) on Thursday, January 26th, 1pm, when we demand ECHDC put Buffalo businesses first at Canal Side. For more information, call 716-725-6100 or visit www.buffalofirst.org.
