Statler City (Buffalo, New York) | office building, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, apartment building, 1923_construction

 office building, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, apartment building, 1923_construction

The second of two revolutionary hotels built in Buffalo by E. M. Statler, the Statler Hotel on Delaware Avenue was designed to be bigger and more refined than the original Statler Hotel, located where the present-day Coca-Cola Field stands.

Continuing Statler's original theme of providing clean, comfortable and moderately priced rooms for the average business traveler or tourist, the new hotel also carried over such innovations as private bathrooms in each room, closet lighting and correspondence stock from the original Statler Hotel in its design. With its exterior designed by George B. Post & Sons in a Renaissance Revival style and its interior designed by Louis Rorimer to a contemporary style, construction on the second Statler Hotel began in 1921 and completed with the hotel's opening in 1923.

Remaining very popular with cost-conscious travelers as Statler had intended, the second hotel eventually proved to be too big for guest demand and by 1948 portions of the hotel were converted into office space. This trend continued after the The Statler Hotels Company was purchased by Hilton in 1954 and by the 1980's only a portion of a single tower was still being used as hotel space.

In 1984 the last hotel rooms at the Statler were closed and the building was totally converted for commercial office use, with its primary tenant being State Government offices. Renamed Statler Towers, the building's lobbies and grand rooms became public use spaces and saw heavy use for catered events and banquets for the next two decades, however a failed renovation in the late 2000s sent the building owner's into a financial tailspin. When coupled with a drawdown in State Government occupancy, the loss of revenue caused the Statler's owners to declare bankruptcy and shutter the building in January 2010.

Offered for public auction in August 2010, the Statler Towers were purchased on March 15, 2011 by developer Mark D. Croce who has begun renovations on the building into multi-purpose commercial/residential/public space. The public rooms on the lower floors were reopened on December 31, 2011. the upper floors were set to follow, but difficulties were encountered, and Croce was killed in a helicopter crash in 2020. Developer Douglas Jemal bought the property and plans to convert the lower levels to a casino and the upper levels to apartments, while retaining the popular ballrooms on the main level.

www.statlercity.com/
usmodernist.org/AF/AF-1923-07.pdf
buffaloah.com/a/del/107/hp.html