What’s New in Buffalo, New York

Buffalo is gearing up for its most exciting year yet in 2025. A series of attraction openings, renovations and expansions rooted in the city’s rich waterfront history and African American Heritage will keep Buffalo abuzz throughout the year ahead. These developments come on the heels of the 2023 reopening of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum following a $230 million expansion and transformation, and other new amenities, restaurants, hotels, and architectural restorations that have transformed our destination in recent years. Discover what’s new in Buffalo in 2025 and beyond.

In early 2025, two iconic attractions within the Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor have reopened or will reopen following an extended closure for restorations and upgrades.

The Colored Musicians Club & Jazz Museum, one of the oldest Black-owned clubs in the United States, is set to celebrate its 90th year and reopen after $2.95 million renovation and expansion in summer 2025. New features include a visitor center addition, an elevator, renovations of the second floor club and bar, and an upgraded ground-floor museum with new interactive exhibits. The jazz museum shares  the story of the club and the musicians union, founded in 1917, that was headquartered here. Famous musicians like Aretha Franklin and Miles Davis came through during segregation, stopped to eat, drink and play music, and paid dues to the club as part of the protocol when they came to Buffalo for a gig.

The Historic Michigan Street Baptist Church, once a stop on the Underground Railroad, following an extensive $1.6 million restoration, reopened in February 2025. The reopening marks a new beginning for the church, which dates back to the 1840s and hosted luminaries like Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.

In the spring of 2025, there will be a groundbreaking for a new $2.4 million church annex that will feature an elevator, restrooms and a new garden honoring Mary Talbert, whose house was once next door. Talbert was instrumental in the founding of the Niagara Movement, which had its first meeting in her house, and was the precursor to the NAACP.

Two centuries ago, the completion of the Erie Canal at the Buffalo harbor ushered in a new era of prosperity for our city – and for America. Just in time for the bicentennial, volunteers at the Buffalo Maritime Center are completing the construction of the Seneca Chief, the first boat to travel the length of the canal in 1825. The interior exhibit space, set to debut in the summer of 2025, will demonstrate its role as a “line” boat, so named because it carried people and cargo. In September, the boat will travel the canal route from Buffalo to New York City and mirror the original boat’s journey as it floats down the canal with help from a tug boat and “push” boat. The boat leaves Buffalo Sept. 24 during the 2025 World Canals Conference, which Buffalo will host as part of canal’s anniversary year.

Near the boat’s docking place, a new exhibit “Waterway of Change: A Complex Legacy of the Erie Canal” will open at the beginning of the summer season and showcase Canalside’s history and timeline, with interactive multimedia exhibits, short films, and historic artifacts.

In the summer of 2026, one of the NFL’s hottest teams will move into a new home. The $2.2 billion, 62,000 seat New Highmark Stadium will open in time for the Buffalo Bills’ 2026 season, replacing the half-century old stadium of the same name across the street. The new stadium will remain open-air,  ensuring that those fan-favorite “snow bowl” games will still captivate the country in December and January. By staying in Orchard Park, the new stadium will continue to be surrounded by one of the most renowned tailgate scenes in the NFL.

Visitors to Buffalo will soon explore a new signature park along the waterfront thanks to one of the largest philanthropic gifts ever made in Buffalo’s history. The Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Park, a 100-acre greenspace on the city’s Lake Erie shoreline just northwest of downtown, is named after the late Buffalo Bills owner whose foundation donated approximately half of the $110 million required for its creation. The project broke ground in 2023 with a goal of creating a world-class public space that creates a destination for play, recreation and relaxation. The first phase of the park will open in 2026.

Find more: Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Centennial Park

Long admired for its late 19th and early 20th century architecture, Buffalo will debut a new way to explore that legacy in fall 2026. The Lipsey Architecture Center will open in an 11,000-square-foot former kitchen building, an original Henry Hobson Richardson design built in the 1880s. On the Richardson Olmsted Campus, a National Historic Landmark, the new museum will feature state-of-the-art exhibits will spotlight the visionary architects who shaped the city—Richardson, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, and Frederick Law Olmsted among them.

Buffalo’s Art Deco train station has been searching for new purpose and use since the last Amtrak passengers disembarked in 1979. After decades of neglect, the restoration of the massive property is finally underway, fueled in part by a $61 million development investment by New York State. The Central Terminal Restoration Corp. (CTRC) is overseeing an ambitious multi-year transformation of the massive complex that includes the reopening of its main passenger concourse into an event space in the summer of 2027. Beyond that, the CTRC will ultimately reimagine the complex as an arts, entertainment and economic hub.

Find more: Buffalo Central Terminal

A new $4 million visitor center at the Frank Lloyd Wright’s Graycliff, featuring a café and exhibit space, will open in the summer of 2026 and cap off more than a quarter-century of architectural restorations and improvements to the architect’s Buffalo designs.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s legacy can be found all over Buffalo. The architect’s decades-long friendship with Buffalo businessman Darwin Martin, the man who may have been his most important patron, led to the construction of more than a half dozen designs here – and made Buffalo one of the premiere destinations to tour Wright’s work more than a century later. Wright’s “Buffalo Venture” led to the creation of the largest residence he ever designed, the magnificent Darwin Martin House, one of the masterworks of his Prairie Style period of the early 1900s, and Graycliff, a summer home Wright designed for the Martins on the shores of Lake Erie.

Graycliff’s cantilevered balconies and organic elements have led scholars to regard it as a precursor to Fallingwater. Both the Martin House and Graycliff have recently completed dramatic restorations and are enjoying second lives as not-for-profit house museums.

The new Hispanic Heritage Cultural Institute on Niagara Street is expected to open in the summer of 2026 and will promote awareness and appreciation of the contributions made by the Hispanic community in Western New York. The facility, which is located in the heart of Buffalo’s Hispanic Heritage District, will serve as a dynamic hub for artistic and cultural programming while addressing critical community needs. The expanded programming will include Raíces Theater, with approximately seven shows annually, as well as a speaker series, traveling performances, and showcases by local artists.

Buffalo’s Art Deco train station has been searching for new purpose and use since the last Amtrak passengers disembarked in 1979. After decades of neglect, the restoration of the massive property is finally underway, fueled in part by a $61 million development investment by New York State. The Central Terminal Restoration Corp. (CTRC) is overseeing an ambitious multi-year transformation of the massive complex that includes the reopening of its main passenger concourse into an event space in the summer of 2027. Beyond that, the CTRC will ultimately reimagine the complex as an arts, entertainment and economic hub.

Find more: Buffalo Central Terminal