Demolition signals start of linchpin project on downtown's edge

Demolition of the old center wing of Genesee Hospital has begun as the long-stalled next stage of Alexander Park gets underway.

"Within a month, I would say, that site is going to look very different, and that building will be down," said Rich Finley, president and COO with Buckingham Properties.

The eight-acre site envisioned to be filled with apartments, offices and retail has been described as a linchpin to downtown development and a gateway linking the Park Avenue neighborhood to the center city. But plans stalled after Buckingham patriarch Larry Glazer died in a plan crash in September 2014.

Now it is moving again, with Finley expecting to break ground on construction in March 2018.

Details of what's to come have yet to be released, as plans still are being worked through. The overall plan remains a mixed-use development but Finley said developers have scrapped a lot of the earlier designs and started over. At last report, those plans called for a $110 million investment with upwards of 300 apartments, to include both trendy micro units and expansive floor plans, office users big and small, and retail spots along Alexander Street and within the site as well.

Buckingham is working with "a few tenants" and has signed an out-of-town firm, Finley said Thursday, but declined to say whether it was an office tenant or retailer.

That firm would be in addition to Mindex Technologies, a Henrietta-based software development company awarded $350,000 in state assistance on Thursday to expand to Alexander Park. Mindex would move about 50 employees to a first-floor space in a yet-to-be-built four-story building with apartments filling the upper floors, records show.

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Separately, the state awarded $500,000 to assist with the building's construction. That award went to Alexander Park owner Tracy Street Realty, the limited liability company involving Buckingham, developer Robert Morgan and his Morgan Management company.

Mindex hopes to move into its new space in early 2019, said company President Marc Fiore. He expects to add between five and 15 employees over the next couple of years. The local firm employs 175 overall across its operations, with most of those being consultants who work in the field with customers.

For Fiore, it will be a return to where his time in Rochester began. He lived in the Park Avenue neighborhood when he first moved to Rochester from Utica in 1991, arriving in March of that year — on the night of the Ice Storm.

"You have that city feeling but you are not kind of right in the middle of downtown," Fiore said, explaining what attracted him to Alexander Park. "And there is a lot to do in that Park Avenue area, where you could walk to different restaurants and donut shops.

"The Alexander Park space, we think, is perfect for us."

BDSHARP@Gannett.com