The former Buffalo News headquarters at 125 Washington Street is being converted into a downtown campus for the Golisano Institute for Business and Entrepreneurship, an 83,700-square-foot adaptive reuse that targets the building's first, fourth and fifth floors. CJS Architects is the architect of record and puts the project at $10 million, with completion timed to the Institute's inaugural Buffalo class (CJS Architects).

What happened

Billionaire philanthropist Tom Golisano purchased the former Buffalo News building for $10 million, and the Golisano Institute for Business and Entrepreneurship announced plans to operate a Buffalo campus center there. The school said it planned to welcome 75 students and 15 faculty and staff members in fall 2026 (WKBW). The Institute opened its original location in Rochester in 2023, and the Buffalo News moved its operations out of the Washington Street building in late 2022 (WKBW).

Design work advanced through the winter. Institute President Ian Mortimer said in a walkthrough that "the designs are just about done, so we're working with the city to make sure that all the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted. We have a vision for the 1st floor, the 4th floor and the 5th floor" (Golisano Institute).

The conversion scope

According to the architect, the renovation covers the first, fourth and fifth floors and adds high-tech classrooms, collaboration zones and a new forum with stadium seating. The design deliberately retains the building's original precast concrete, windows and distinctive ceiling elements, preserving what CJS describes as a Brutalist landmark with its original 1970s character (CJS Architects).

The Institute has described the program floor by floor: a first-floor student and faculty entry area known as "the forum," a fourth floor of classrooms and business-education space, and a fifth floor with a cafe and informal gathering areas. Mortimer described the forum this way: "If you can imagine a stage sitting right there with seating for about 600 people" (Golisano Institute).

Two figures, one number: a discrepancy worth noting

The same $10 million figure appears in two different roles across the available sources. CJS Architects lists $10 million as the project cost for the adaptive reuse (CJS Architects), while WKBW reports $10 million as the purchase price Golisano paid for the building (WKBW). These are not necessarily the same dollars, and neither source reconciles the two. Anyone benchmarking Buffalo conversion costs per square foot should treat the construction value as unconfirmed rather than assume $10 million covers acquisition and construction together.

Schedule reporting is similarly split. CJS listed completion as slated for "this August" in a January 2026 article (CJS Architects), while the school's stated goal was to welcome students in fall 2026 (WKBW). Those are compatible, but a construction completion roughly a month before occupancy is a tight furniture, fixtures and equipment window for an academic fit-out.

Why it matters to construction professionals

Buffalo's downtown conversion pipeline has been dominated by office-to-residential work. This project is a different template: a partial-floor institutional fit-out inside a heavy, purpose-built 1970s industrial-office structure that was never designed for classroom occupancy. Three characteristics make it instructive.

• Selective floor activation. Renovating three of the building's floors rather than the whole envelope limits the capital exposure and lets the owner phase future floors. It also complicates life-safety, egress and mechanical zoning, because unoccupied floors still sit inside the same shell and shafts.
• Preservation of existing finishes as a cost strategy. Retaining precast concrete, windows and ceilings avoids the demolition and replacement scope that usually drives conversion budgets. It also means the design must work around, not through, the structure.
• An assembly space carved into an existing frame. A forum with stadium seating for roughly 600 people implies floor-loading, acoustics, sightline and egress work well beyond a standard tenant improvement.

Implications for owners, developers, contractors and subcontractors

For owners and developers, the project is a reminder that institutional users are now credible tenants for large-floorplate downtown buildings that residential conversion cannot easily absorb. Deep floor plates with limited window-to-core ratios are a liability for apartments and an asset for classrooms, labs and assembly space.

For general contractors, the work sits in the category that has held up best through the current cycle: interior renovation with a fixed academic deadline. The risk is schedule, not volume. An occupancy target tied to a semester start leaves no float, which typically pushes teams toward early procurement of long-lead mechanical and audiovisual equipment and toward multiple concurrent work fronts on separate floors.

For subcontractors, the highest-value packages in a project of this type are usually mechanical and electrical distribution to floors that were served for a different use, low-voltage and AV for the forum and classrooms, millwork, and acoustic and ceiling work in a building whose existing ceilings are being preserved in places. Abatement and selective demolition scopes in 1970s precast structures also carry real unknowns until walls are opened.

What to watch next

• Confirmation of the general contractor and the actual construction value, which have not been published in the sources reviewed here.
• Whether the Institute activates additional floors beyond the first, fourth and fifth after the first cohort arrives.
• Enrollment growth against the initial target of 75 students and 15 faculty and staff, which will drive any second-phase build-out (WKBW).
• Spillover demand on surrounding blocks as roughly 90 students, faculty and staff establish a daytime presence on Washington Street, a building that has been largely vacant since the Buffalo News moved out in late 2022 (WKBW).

Bottom line

An 83,700-square-foot Brutalist office building that lost its anchor tenant in late 2022 is being re-tenanted as a campus rather than demolished or converted to apartments. The design approach is conservative and preservation-minded, the scope is concentrated on three floors, and the schedule is driven by an academic calendar. The construction value remains ambiguous in public sources, so treat the $10 million figure with care. What is clear is the template: in Buffalo's downtown, institutional reuse is now a live alternative to residential conversion for buildings with the wrong geometry for housing.

Sources

• CJS Architects, "Here's how the Golisano Institute plans to transform the former Buffalo News building" (January 20, 2026) — https://cjsarchitects.com/news/article:01-20-2026-12-00am-here-s-how-the-golisano-institute-plans-to-transform-the-former-buffalo-news-building/
• WKBW, "Golisano Institute to transform former Buffalo News building into downtown campus center" (October 17, 2025) — https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/buffalo/golisano-institute-to-transform-former-buffalo-news-building-into-downtown-campus-center
• Golisano Institute for Business and Entrepreneurship, "First look at Golisano Institute inside former Buffalo News building" — https://golisanoinstitute.org/news/in-the-news-first-look-at-golisano-institute-inside-former-buffalo-news-building/