There is another major development project that has just been announced for downtown Rochester.
The iconic Chase Tower Building on Main Street has been acquired by Gallina Development, and that company plans to redevelop the 26 story tower into a mixed use building that will include apartments, office space, retail and restaurants.
President of the company, Andrew Gallina, tells WXXI News he's been looking at this building for some time. Recently Chase announced that they plan to cut 350 jobs in their mortgage banking business in that tower building.
Gallina says his company's plans call for having apartments and condos on the upper floors, with office space below that, and retail and restaurant space on the lower, concourse level.
Despite the Midtown project not being too far away, and other residential and mixed use development that has cropped up in recent months, Gallina believes there will be a good market for the kind of housing he wants to put in the Chase Tower.
"The units in the upper areas will provide tremendous views, our units will be spectacular , the windows and the views will be spectacular, I assure you."
He also wants to reinvigorate the lower-level concourse area, “with some retail, restaurants, cafes, we need to reinvigorate the plaza, it's a big park, so we need to reinvigorate that and energize that whole plaza area."
Gallina says Chase will continue to have some office space in that building including its bank branch on the first floor. He hopes to start work on re-developing the building within the next few months.
He is not asking for government help with the project yet, but expects his company will request some help in the future.
Heidi Zimmer-Meyer, president of the Rochester Downtown Development Corporation, was quoted in a news release from Gallina as saying that “The housing mix in this project is right on the mark given the pent-up demand for downtown for sale units. And downtown’s rental housing is still hot, recording extremely low vacancy rates year over year.”
