Kreiner Malt House & Grain Elevator
Preservation Studios worked with the partners at Young + Wright Architectural on the first grain elevator rehabilitation to include housing in Buffalo. The building sat dormant and neglected for decades before the architects brought their unique vision to the space, serving as both developer and designer with a portion of the Malt House becoming their office. In addition to the apartments several commercial spaces are spread across the first floor including a brewery, pizzeria, and barbershop.
Address
50 Elk Street - Buffalo, NY
Estimated Rehabilitation Costs (QRE)
$3.3 million
Total Project Cost (QRE + Non-QRE)
$3.6 million
Square Footage
22,800
HTCs
$1.3 million
Timeframe
2016 to 2021
The building is composed of five sections built in stage between 1891 and 1936. Barley and grain arrived via rail lines, where it was dumped onto basement-level conveyors that that traveled underneath the elevators. This grain would be stored in a silo, traveling up via the Work House or the second tower attached to Elevator B. Grain and barley would then travel back to the Work House, travelling to the top of the tower before being sent to the Malt House, where it was stored in the large tower atop of the building.
Conveyors atop the building dropped the grain into the large germination vats on the second floor where they would steep for a period of two days in order to get the proper moisture content, before dropping into the long Saladin-box troughs on the first floor below. Here, large augers churned the germinating barley for a period of two-to-four days, whereupon it traveled back to the Work House via a basement conveyor. The lift carried the germinating grains up to the top floor of the work house, before sending it down a hopper to the Drying House. In the drying house, it descended through two different floors where augers travelled back and forth along large metal slats that could turn to drop drying grain to the floor below, ultimately ending up at the basement, where it traveled back to the Work House for storage before shipping out.
Preservation Studios facilitated the complete historic tax credit application process, including the National Register listing.
