At 401 Delaware (across the street from the Buffalo Club) that means stripping off old paint to reveal original bricks, restoring the 1910-era storefronts, and fabricating a match for a missing cornice from a 70-year-old photo. Mostly, Kissling’s apartments bring moderate rents, typically under a $1,000 a month. He likes to take five percent below the maximum the market would allow because it’s more important to keep his buildings full than to squeeze every last dollar out of each unit. More recently, though, Kissling has produced products that meet the diversifying appetites of Buffalo renters for space, and with those come higher rents. Former Buffalo Bills head coach Chan Gailey paid $3,000 a month for his loft apartment in the converted National Casket Company building on Virginia Street. The Remington Lofts in an old factory building on the canal in North Tonawanda (aided by historic preservation tax credits and brownfields financing) bring similar rents for the volumes, views and industrial materials that many tenants find so chic these days. And the former Lake Hotel, just completed at 201 West Huron Street, demonstrates how the definition of a desirable location in Buffalo has expanded as young professionals and medical campus employees have flocked to urban digs. The city market has to expand now, Kissling says, because everything in the neighborhoods where he invested has already been bought up. There’s nothing left between Richmond and Main Street. Only pioneers need apply. / ABOVE Kissling had a vision for urban living that took root in the old Remington Rand factory along the canal in North Tonawanda. Photo by Kissling Interests
Kissling gives thanks to his banker, who had confidence in his judgment when he was a pioneer. Michael DeWitt is Vice President and Relationship Manager for First Niagara. “He had a view for the potential of the properties he purchased,” DeWitt said, “when other people were looking to have nothing to do with downtown.” “Tony’s challenging in a good way,” said Jon Morris, principal at Carmina Wood Morris, who has done much of Kissling’s design and historic tax credit work recently.
“He’s a visionary kind of person. He saw the Remington Rand building in the condition it was in and imagined what’s there now. He has a vision for urban living and he brought his New York City mindset to bear here in Buffalo.” For Kissling it was simply a matter of appreciating the value in properties — and the city where they stand — that other people couldn’t see.
“You have to have the conviction that the city is getting better and better,” Kissling said. “Why would you invest in a city you think was going down?”