For more information, contact: Robert Krueger at 202-624-7051; [email protected]

BUFFALO (March 27, 2011) – Today an advisory services panel from the Urban Land Institute (ULI) arrives in Buffalo to examine the Millard Fillmore Gates Circle Hospital to provide recommendations and alternatives for the project’s redevelopment. Kaleida Health is sponsoring the panel.

The panel is tasked with providing advice about how to best position the hospital’s site for a future sale. Due to continued growth of the facility’s neurovascular and cardiac programs, Kaleida Health has decided to relocate its services to Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus by early next year. The panel will offer recommendations on how to best re-use the 10-acre, 800,000 sq. ft. site, which has been occupied by the hospital since 1911.

Kaleida Health is seeking recommendations from the panel on revitalizing the site, including advice on the appropriate goals and objectives for Kaleida Health, the City of Buffalo, and other stakeholders; the role the city could play in the sale and redevelopment of the hospital; and the key issues involving planning, design, transportation and historical preservation.

This week’s 10-member panel will spend five days touring the subject area as well as meeting with stakeholders and members of the local community. After carefully analyzing the area and interviewing up to 100 individuals, the panel will then spend two days framing their recommendations and drafting a report that will be presented to the public at 8:00 a.m. on April 1, 2011 at Millard Fillmore Gates Hospital’s Webster Hall.

Through the advisory services program, ULI assembles experts in the fields of real estate and land use planning to participate on panels worldwide, offering recommendations for complex planning and development projects, programs and policies. According to Tom Eitler, vice president of advisory services, the strength of the program lies in ULI’s unique ability to draw on the knowledge and experience of its nearly 30,000 members, including land developers, public officials, academics, lenders, architects, planners and urban designers.

This analysis from a wide variety of land use experts, coupled with substantial input from representatives of the communities, produces excellent results “time after time,” Eitler says. “The panel process helps build consensus to support an effort that benefits the entire community. It’s often the fresh, outside view provided by the panel that achieves these results. We seek possibilities and opportunities that might have been overlooked. The advisory services panel program is all about seeing things a different way.”

ULI teams approach the project from all perspectives, including market potential, land use and design, financing and development strategies, and organizing for implementation. Each team proposes practical solutions that serve as a blueprint to move the project forward. Panelists have developed strategies for a broad range of land uses, including downtown revitalization; retail/entertainment development, inner-city neighborhood revival, affordable housing, brownfields development, public facility sites such as stadiums, arenas and convention centers, transit-oriented development, resort and master-planned communities, and military base reuse.

Past sponsors of ULI advisory services panels include: federal, state and local government agencies; regional councils of government; chambers of commerce; redevelopment authorities; private developers and property owners; community development corporations; lenders; historic preservation groups; non-profit community groups; environmental organizations; and economic development agencies.

About the Urban Land Institute
The Urban Land Institute (uli.org) is a global nonprofit education and research institute supported by its members. Its mission is to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide. Established in 1936, the Institute has nearly 30,000 members representing all aspects of land use and development disciplines.