ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- County Executive Maggie Brooks announced during her State of the County address that Monroe County is finalizing a deal with CGI to purchase the long-vacant Gateway and Atrium buildings on Main Street in Rochester.
Bob Bartosiewicz, CEO of CGI Communications, will be taking ownership of two buildings that are adjacent to his company's headquarters in the Granite Building.
Bartosiewicz said his plan is to take a negative and turn it into something positive.
"That seems to be going on in downtown right now. This is probably one of the straws that's really going to break the camel's back when people start to think 'oh, downtown's nothing,'" Bartosiewicz said. "Downtown's here, downtown is more than just rising, it's here."
Acquisition of the buildings gives Bartosiewicz ownership of nearly a half a block of real estate on East Main Street, part of which at one time was designated for Renaissance Square, a $230 million project that would have housed a new Monroe Community College downtown campus, a performing arts center and indoor transit center. The plans for that fell apart.
Bartosiewicz said his idea is to turn part of the basement and first floors of the Atrium and Gateway Buildings into indoor parking. He plans on relocating CGI Communications and its more than 300 employees into a renovated Gateway Building, then turn the Granite and Atrium Buildings into luxury condominiums.
"We're not doing it for the condos, we're doing it for the city. We're doing it to move ourselves into the Gateway Building, which is to resurrect the commercial building that deserves commercial space," Bartosiewicz said. "The Granite Building is a very diversified space so you can really make it either residential or commercial."
Bartosiewicz would not reveal what he paid for the buildings.
Renovations will begin in February and Bartosiewicz plans to move CGI into the Gateway Building within 18 months. He believes the entire project will be complete by 2019.