About

MOVED BY PROGRESS

The Buffalo Central Terminal first opened its doors to the public in the summer of 1929. More than 10,000 people moved through every day—venturing out, returning home, connecting. Nearly a century later, this living landmark and former train station is ready to become a new kind of connective force.

At once one of Buffalo’s most loved historic places and the city’s last legacy building to receive the attention it deserves, Buffalo Central Terminal is a comprehensive and consequential adaptive reuse initiative. As the highest peak of the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood, the Central Terminal looks out over our entire city.

Through community-driven planning on the ground, this project brings together diverse individuals, from longtime Terminal champions and neighborhood residents to new Americans, local business owners to government allies, preservationists to pioneers.

The Central Terminal Restoration Corporation emerges as the organizational engine, driving all aspects of the project. As amplifiers of the people’s interests and guardians of this living landmark, our leadership is strategic, determined, and unflinching, always boldly rising to the challenge of skepticism—changing the doubt of “this will never happen” to the firm belief that “this is already happening.”

The Central Terminal is a generational investment, and momentum is building. Together, a mobilized community propelling a collaborative vision has secured placemaking grants and significant public and private funding.

Work is already underway on the Civic Commons—multi-faceted, all-season spaces that will welcome all people to the Great Lawn and the ground-floor of the Central Terminal. Still, foundational opportunities remain for investors and people-centric developers to help realize a community-architected reuse of this prime location, primed for a powerful future.

But this is much more than the reinvention of a destination.

These are the first steps of many on a path to realizing the audacious inspirations for a fully reimagined Buffalo Central Terminal—a vibrant hub reborn in the heart of an already vital community at the center of a city with the courage to acknowledge its blind spots and make certain its resurgence is shared by all.

Rededicated to inclusion, equity, and the fullest possibilities of place, Buffalo’s Central Terminal is forever our monument to progress—proof that the destination is indeed our journey together.

MOVED BY A MISSION

The Central Terminal Restoration Corporation (CTRC) is a 501c3c non-profit organization driven by a mission to develop the Buffalo Central Terminal – a majestic historic landmark – as a lasting cultural and economic hub for the community. Founded in 1997 by dedicated preservationists, the CTRC has cared for this living landmark for 20 years with the steadfast and generous support of scores of volunteers.

Our future is in motion. Game changing investment from the East Side Avenues initiative in 2019 has enabled the CTRC to grow organizational capacity and build unprecedented momentum for the future of the Buffalo Central Terminal.

Years of planning with the community have shaped a shared vision to transform Buffalo Central Terminal into a new kind of connective force. In the coming year, we will take a monumental step forward to engage like-minded partners who put people first—architects, engineers, developers—to help realize aspirations that are central to this initiative.