Coffey Modica expands Western New York presence with new Buffalo office in historic Delaware Ave. building

Buffalo, NY Coffey Modica LLP, a defense litigation firm, has further solidified its presence in Western New York with the leasing of new, expanded offices bordering the downtown business district. 

Located at 525 Delaware Ave., the 6,100 s/f building is in the Millionaires’ Row district with accessibility to all major downtown courthouses, including Buffalo City Court, Erie County Family Court, and Erie County Courthouse.

The three-story office space, which doubles the size of the firm’s prior office, previously housed the law firm owned by former Erie County district attorney Edward Cosgrove, who served as the district attorney from 1974 to 1981. With a legal career spanning more than six decades, he was recognized as one of the city’s Legal Elites Lifetime Achievement honorees in 2017.

“525 Delaware Ave. is the ideal location to meaningfully continue Coffey Modica’s Western and Central New York expansion,” said firm managing partner Maxwell Bottini. “Not only does this building have deep historical ties to one of the most storied legal experts in the city, but it is situated in a strategic location allowing easy access to all the major downtown Buffalo courthouses.”

The office space was designed in 1896 by E.B. Green, one of the leading architects in Buffalo during the early 20^th Century. Many of the prominent buildings he designed in the area are still in use today, including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery building, home to the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. Green also played a prominent role in the development of Delaware Avenue into the prestigious location for mansions at the time.

Building features include multiple large conference rooms for meetings and collaboration, a Victorian staircase, refurbished oak floors, five fireplaces, and a marbled bathroom. The property also includes an additional attached parcel, providing parking for 37 cars, accessible from both Delaware Ave. and Virginia Place, along with a detached 2-car garage.

Coffey Modica’s Buffalo office has experienced significant growth in number of attorneys, cases and corporate clients across New York’s upstate region, from Albany to Niagara Falls, being called in to both handle matters directly and advise as counsel on behalf of some of the biggest insurers and corporate entities in the region.

The law firm leased the entire building from an LLC that recently acquired the property in a $1.25 million transaction brokered by Leah Curione and Heidi Nuessle of Hunt Commercial Real Estate. The firm’s 11-member Buffalo team will move into this new office space, with room for expansion as the firm plans to continue to grow in the Western and Central New York regions.

“As our presence in Western and Central New York continues to expand and we take on a larger case load, it is exciting for our team to move into such a beautiful and historically significant building,” said Patricia Mooney, New York managing partner. “We have no doubt that this move will help Coffey Modica to continue to provide the best legal teams and outstanding results for our clients.” 

Coffey Modica has a history of selecting historic buildings for their office locations. Its Westport, Connecticut office was built in 1882 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1977. The firm’s Tarrytown, New York office is also located in a historic neoclassical structure overlooking the Hudson River, which dates back to the early 1900s.