Buffalo Central Terminal

New Owner Treasures Old Terminal
Buffalo News, November 11, 1986
Tom Dolan

The man who bought Buffalo’s Central Terminal at a city tax auction this week says he is so excited his feet have not touched the ground.

“Where else but in Buffalo could you buy a building like this, that cost $13 million to build in 1929, for $100,000?” Thomas J. Telesco, 34, asked Friday.

Telesco is a former hospital rehabilitation counselor, nightclub owner, and general contractor with his roots in Buffalo’s West Side. He said he fell in love with the terminal years ago and tried earlier this year to buy it. But he finally became the owner Tuesday, when he placed the only bid on the property at the city auction.

Now he is bursting with ideas about bringing it back to life.

“Look at those lights over there. They’re all brass,” Telesco said Friday as he toured his acquisition and discussed his plans. “We’re going to relight all those lights.”

Long vacant, the landmark, art deco terminal at 495 Paderewski Drive was nearly $300,000 in arrears on city and county taxes. Its former owner is in bankruptcy court after years of struggles and schemes to find economic uses for the property, which has been the site for such diverse happenings as a Police Athletic League boxing tournament, and the filming of “The Natural.”

Its roofs leak. The furnace is ancient. One of the main train concourses has been chopped off from the rest of the building where it spanned Curtiss Street, and the broad overhanging marquees in front need work.

But where others see decay and dirt, Telesco sees only beauty, and potential.

“Look at that,” he said, leading the way onto the 17,000 square foot main concourse and pointing to the vaulted ceilings that rise almost six stories above the original ornate terrazzo floors. “Isn’t that beautiful?”

“Look up there,” he continued, pointing to one of the two balconies that flank the main concourse. “I can just see a big band up there playing away.”

Telesco started his general contracting firm about eight years ago, after stints as a rehabilitation counselor at Children’s Hospital and as the operator of the former Jack Daniels nightclub.

He said he went back to contracting “because as a West Side kid, that was the family business.” His clients have included a mobile telephone company, the State Thruway Authority, Buffalo Public Schools, and other businesses. But he continued, “This is a big, big move for us.” Telesco said he first saw the building when he was running the nightclub and “fell in love with it.” Then, earlier this year, he made an offer to former owner Anthony Fedele, but the asking price was too high. He said he was not aware at the time that the property was in tax trouble, and he gave up on the idea of owning it.

“I never thought in a million years that I could have bought it,” he said.

“About a week before the auction, I was reading the paper, and I found out that it was in the tax auction,” Telesco said. “We talked about it, and we had already had some plans for the building, so we decided to bid for it.”

Lynn Telesco sees the new venture as a way for her to work with her husband and to get back into the working world after serving as a housewife and mother of three children. “We have been staying up at night talking for five days in a row,” she said.

The structure is so vast that they don’t know yet what they have purchased. There may be two or three complete restaurants in the building. There is a 20 story tower that Telesco has hardly seen, and he said he once got lost in the underground garage.

Their new company has no name, and they have not received title or keys to the property, yet they are already lining up tenants.

They also are busy selling a West Side building and planning to move the family business, Telesco Associates, to the East Side site.

“Our plans are to continue planning,” Telesco said. “We will begin making a profit there immediately with some of our ideas, and later we will write a complete business plan for the future.”

They have taken Mrs. Telesco’s brother, contractor Fred Saia, as a business partner, and the group will begin by cleaning and restoring the main concourse and adjoining rooms.

One cavernous side room that once was a bar and restaurant will become a banquet hall. Other rooms will be used for bars, office space or other possible tenants, Telesco said.

For the concourse itself, the Telescos have several plans: a huge New Year’s Party, a possible boat show, and weekend rentals to antique dealers and other vendors who would draw in shoppers looking for bargains and second-hand items.

“I don’t think the words ‘flea market’ are quite right,” Telesco said. “We are trying to find the right description for the idea.”

He said the vendors would be able to rent space in roll-away booths that his company would set up.

“We want to gather some crowds on Saturdays and Sundays,” Telesco explained, saying the group intends to stay flexible about future uses for the terminal, which are likely to include recreation, retail, office and restaurant facilities.

Telesco also said he intends to reach out for all the help he can get, including assistance from business students at area colleges, who he said will hopefully provide design work, marketing and planning in return for college credits.

One immediate goal is to make a market survey of the residents within a mile of the terminal, asking them for suggestions about what they want and do not want at the building.

The biggest problem is heating the main concourse. But Telesco said Saia, a heating and air-conditioning contractor, will work on that immediately.

“I don’t want people to associate the building with being cold,” Telesco said.

In the meantime, he and his wife will travel to Indianapolis and St. Louis, where they will meet with developers who have converted train stations to thriving retail malls.

“We had been planning to invest in building some condominiums along Sheridan…but that has been put off,” he said. “We now consider this a much better investment.”