Original article written by Newell Nussbaumer @ Buffalo Rising | Read the full article @ Buffalo Rising
For years, a storefront located at 218 Lexington Avenue sat empty and completely underutilized, which was unfortunate considering its prime location – close to Elmwood Avenue and bounded by a series of nearby thriving businesses.
It wasn’t until developer Nick Sinatra bought the building that the future of the space began to look bright. Coincidentally, another nearby parcel was also part of Sinatra’s acquisition – 616 Elmwood Avenue. The small Elmwood building was home to Relle Organic Salon, owned by Dawn and Brandon Kline. “When Nick bought the Elmwood building he asked us if we wanted to move over to Lexington Avenue, where he would build out a larger custom space for us,” Brandon told me. “The move allowed us to take an already gutted space and move forward with an (almost) cart blanch design. The Lexington space was a vacant frame shop for many, many years. Now we have three chairs and we’re expanding upstairs. We incorporated many reuse elements into the space, including lumber from Buffalo ReUse and The Foundry. We also incorporated scrap metal in the hand forged metal brackets which were fabricated by local artisan Mike Thomset.”