BUFFALO, N.Y. — Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown delivered his State of the City address on Monday, and the venue was the Golden Ballroom inside the historic Statler building, which turns 100 this year.
The event marked a milestone of sorts, in the ongoing efforts to restore the landmark to its former glory.
It wasn't lost on some that there was significance to the event beyond a speech being given by the city's chief executive.
It was the first public event to be held there in about two years.
The Statler fell on hard times in the latter part of the last century, and plans to revitalize it came and went.
At one point, after one owner when bankrupt, it was thought the building might end up being demolished.
The late developer Mark Croce then acquired the structure and began to renovate it with the assistance of city and state grants and tax credits.
Croce, however, was killed in a helicopter accident and the building's fate once again became uncertain.
Washington D.C.-based developer Douglas Jemal, who by then had begun buying up and renovating numerous properties in Buffalo, acquired the building three years ago for $7.7 million.
His firm, Douglas Development, set to work on completing the work begun by Croce on the event spaces on the first and second floors of the building.
"The two ballrooms, the Terrace Room and the Golden Ballroom, as well as the lobby and the lobby bar, are now being opened back up to the public for events," said Operations Manager Sean Heidinger.
The goal of having the renovations completed enough to begin hosting events was almost set back by a pair of winter storms.
"We had two storms that hit us hard," said Heidinger. "We had a water leak that affected our ceilings both in the ballrooms and the lobby."
The bulk of what's going on with the building's interior rehabilitation is going on behind the scenes and out of public view.
"At the moment we're working on roughly 500 apartments, and 200 hotel rooms in the building, as well as parking underneath the building and really taking the building to the next level," Heidinger said.
They have a lot of work left to do, according to Heidinger, who estimated the entire project may not be finished for another two years or more.
Crews are working on the 18-story building from the top down, and the plan is to finish the apartments which will occupy the upper floors first, before moving to build out the hotel rooms which will be located on the middle floors.
"I think a year from now we will probably be leasing and getting the first cohort of people coming into the building, or at least being able to entertain them with a move-in date," said Heidinger. "But a year from now, in regard to the event spaces, we'll be doing events every night and weddings every weekend," he said.