For those who don’t know, Canisius college is carnivorous. This is not a bad thing. Canisius continues to purchase the surrounding Buffalo properties and integrate them into their campus. This has led to a safer Buffalo college community. It has also revitalized the area, not to mention property values. Not so long ago, the college arranged to purchase the Blue Cross/Blue Shield building at 1901 Main Street. In turn, Blue Cross /Blue Shield chose to erect a new office in downtown Buffalo and should be commended on choosing to stay in Buffalo.

The new Blue Cross/Blue Shield building, called HealthNow’s Headquarters, is currently being built at 249 West Genesee Street. This is great for Buffalo. However there is one major blunder that could have been avoided. The old Gaswork’s facade, the old brick wall seen in the photos, is not integrated. For historical purposes it has been left, but there is a lot of potential that will be forever unrealized.

There are many that will argue that Buffalo can not save all of its architecture and by trying to do so impedes progress. However a commonsense evaluation of this shows that the new HealthNow building could earn a tremendous amount of “Good Will” by taking adittional steps to not only preserve the past, but integrate it into something better.