Strictly Business

From Business Today:

And then there was one... Local restaurateur Mark Croce is alone in his quest to develop the abandoned Statler Towers since his partner James Egan exited the team. Eagan, reportedly frustrated by the pace of the project had Croce buy him out for an unspecified amount. Now Croce vows to press on. It appears the end-game in this sad saga of 'Who wants the Statler?' is for the city to take ownership, and Croce, or someone else, to lead a development effort largely funded with public money. But a dark cloud could be approaching: if HSBC Bank decides to leave its 40-story tower downtown for a new building, it could create a huge glut of office space downtown. Developer Rocco Termini told a lunch gathering that such a scenario would push down rent prices all over the city and depress real estate values. Simply put, Buffalo will have too much space and not enough businesses to fill it.

People in the Buffalo and Rochester areas appear to be watching their budgets more closely. The number of personal bankruptcies were down 18 percent from a year ago.

Business is all about making money, but when prices rise abruptly with little economic reason, it can be gouging. That is what some area parking lot owners are being accused of. Some parking lots were charging up to $60 for aa day of parking for the World Junior Hockey Championships. This is wrong on so many levels, but the longest lasting impact may be a chilling of visitors desire to come to Buffalo. No shrewd business person burns his customer base so badly they never come back. That's just greedy... and dumb.

Who is getting hired, promoted or honored?

Here's another hotel saga...