By JAMES FINK
jfink@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1611

Local developer Mark Croce is expected to make a bid to acquire the mothballed Statler Towers.

Sources confirmed that Croce is leading a local partnership that wants to acquire and renovate the Buffalo landmark, which has been shuttered since January.

The sources said Amherst attorney Morris Horwitz, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court-appointed trustee, and his special counsel, Hodgson Russ partner Garry Graber, will file a motion with Western District Bankruptcy Court Chief Justice Carl Bucki to authorize the sale to Croce and his partnership. The motion could be heard within a few weeks.

Sale terms will be set during the hearing.

Croce, Horwitz and Graber could not be reached for comment.

Tentative plans call for a mixed-use development, although final details are being worked out, sources indicated.

Croce already has a stake in the Statler's fate.

Two years ago, a partnership led by him acquired a surface parking lot at Mohawk Street and South Elmwood Avenue from financially troubled Bashar Issa, a British investor. The lot was used as parking for Statler tenants and people attending special events there.

The building would add to Croce's vast downtown holdings, which include restaurants such as Buffalo Chophouse and Laughlin's in the city's central business district. He currently is in the middle of an $18 million conversion of the former Curtiss Building on Franklin Street to a boutique hotel scheduled to open next fall. He also owns several parking lots.

In April 2009, Bucki placed the 18-story Statler in involuntary Chapter 11 protection as part of legal actions filed against BSC Buffalo Development LLC, which was headed by Issa. That led to last summer's bankruptcy court-ordered auction of the building. It attracted lots of attention but only two bidders.

The winning bid came from a group led by William Koessler - owner of Park Lane Catering, the Statler's anchor tenant - but it was unable to close on the $1.3 million offer. In turn, Horwitz and Graber recommended the building be vacated and closed.

Koessler's group, New Buffalo Statler Redevelopment LLC, proposed a $100 million face-lift of the nearly 800,000-square-foot building that would have included a variety of tenants, including a hotel, apartments and a jazz club.

Issa bought the Statler in 2006 and immediately announced plans for a $100 million-plus redevelopment. He became an economic development rock star locally, attracting more than 1,000 people when he addressed an early 2007 Working for Downtown luncheon. In the end, however, only a small amount of renovation work was completed.

In October 2006, Issa also proposed a 40-story office tower on the Mohawk Street parking lot site. Aside from a press conference and brief meeting with the Buffalo Planning Board, the proposal never left the drawing board.

In 2008, Issa started having legal and financial difficulties in his native Manchester and in Buffalo. He hasn't been in Buffalo in more than two years.