Inside Downtown Tour 2018 – High Falls & Beyond
Friday, October 5th 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM & Saturday, October 6th 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Tickets: Advance tickets are available now through Thursday, October 4th and are $29, or $25 for Landmark Members. Tickets are available here online below; through our office by calling (585) 546-7029 x11 or visiting in person (133 S. Fitzhugh Street); or in person at Parkleigh (215 Park Avenue), though please note that the membership discount is not available for tickets purchased at Parkleigh.
If tickets are available the days of the tour, they will be $35 for all, at tour headquarters, Monroe Community College Downtown Campus – please enter on Morrie Silver Way (between State Street and Plymouth Avenue).
Purchase tickets online using this module:
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First-time Member Bundle Deal: Use the module below to get two Inside Downtown Tour tickets plus a year-long membership for $53, less than the cost of two non-member price tickets! Limit one bundle per customer, but feel free to purchase additional tickets beyond the two included using the member price in the module above… and thank you for your support!
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Our annual Inside Downtown Tour opens up historic urban environments where people are re-creating exciting spaces to live and work. We visit re-purposed spaces, renovated homes, lovingly preserved places, and newly built sites that are designed with sensitivity to the overall built environment. We get you “in” on the latest urban living and design trends!
This year’s tour will take us to High Falls and adjacent neighborhoods – you can think of this region as the cradle of Rochester, since it’s the area that nurtured a village, transforming it into a city. You will see the ancestral “roots” of buildings that served industrial purposes and now house loft apartments, high tech companies and more.
Our city grew from a 100-acre parcel west of the falls of the Genesee River, acquired in 1803 by three speculators from the south: Colonel Nathaniel Rochester, William Fitzhugh and Charles Carroll. We might have stayed a village except for two factors: the canal and the waterfalls. The waterfalls on the Genesee River provided a plentiful power source. Once the Erie Canal was completed in 1825, our town had a way to get products out to a wider market and settlers in to our city. Thanks to the abundant waterpower and access to both the river and the canal, Rochester began a period of incredibly rapid growth in the 1820s, earning it the nickname “Young Lion of the West.” The area now known as High Falls continued to be a center of commerce, as flour mills in the early 19th century gave way to manufacturing and other industries through the 1850s.
Today, new uses are bringing life to the former industrial buildings in and around High Falls. This area, once humming with the activity of dozens of mills and factories, has reinvented itself as a center for high tech industries, design and architectural firms, and other creative workers. On the tour, you’ll explore the newest and most interesting residential and commercial spaces in the High Falls area and adjacent neighborhoods with amazing adaptively reused buildings.
More tour sites are being added, but the ones that have been confirmed include:
- Loft and Design Studio in the heart of High Falls
- Expansive loft over a kitchen and bath showroom, with surprising artistic details.
- Lofts in the Buckingham Commons Building, including a visit to the rooftop deck overlooking Frontier Field and the entire High Falls area.
- Eastman Kodak World Headquarters, including the rarely seen boardroom, president’s meeting room, and the “Experience Kodak” space
- Stantec engineering and design, with a jaw dropping vaulted ceiling.
- The “new kid on the block” – LiveTiles, renovating a historic space on Commercial Street, complete with all the creature comforts that high tech creatives expect in their work environment. We will be among the first to see the new space.
- WXXI will also offer tours during the event.
Our tour headquarters will also be a tour stop in its on right: MCC’s Downtown Campus has been adapted from former Eastman Kodak buildings. This will give you a chance to see this LEEDS Gold building, meaning it achieved high standards in energy efficiency. You’ll see the criminal justice program’s loss prevention lab; the green roofs covered with plants; the “Collaboratory” spaces designed for student interactions, and more.
Tour and Ticket Details: Your tour ticket will be good both Friday evening October 5th and Saturday during the day of October 6th. You may visit each tour stop one time, in any order that you desire
Thank you to our sponsors for this event:
