PAETEC Headquarters was a building proposed and approved for construction in

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...

. It was to serve as the new headquarters for the Rochester-based telecommunications company,

PAETEC Holding Corp. PAETEC Holding Corporation was a Fortune 1000 telecommunications company headquartered in Perinton, New York, United States. It was founded as the private company PaeTec Communications, Inc. in 1998 by Arunas A. Chesonis. In 2007 it merged wi ...

Its original proposed height was 40 floors, with a LEED-certified rooftop garden and was originally slated for completion in 2012. The proposed PAETEC building would have sat on the southeast corner of the intersection of Main Street and Clinton Avenue, taking advantage of both the refreshed (abated) skeletal structure of the former Seneca Building and adjacency to an enormous underground parking facility (1600+spaces) and truck tunnel. In addition to reusing the Seneca structure, PAETEC revealed plans at an RDDC luncheon in June 2010 that detailed the construction of a semi-transparent NOC on the north side of the building with viewing lines for pedestrians into its command center, additional office space on the south side of the structure, as well as retail on the first floor. The new downtown headquarters for PAETEC was to be part of a redevelopment plan, with the state of New York using a $40 million state grant to clear the Midtown site.

Midtown Plaza

It was announced on October 16, 2007 that Midtown Plaza will be knocked down to make way for the new

PAETEC PAETEC Holding Corporation was a Fortune 1000 telecommunications company headquartered in Perinton, New York, United States. It was founded as the private company PaeTec Communications, Inc. in 1998 by Arunas A. Chesonis. In 2007 it merged wi ...

headquarters via

eminent domain Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...

. Midtown Plaza was the first urban indoor mall in the United States.Midtown to be demolished; Paetec HQ to rise on sit
Rochester Business Journal

Fate

With the economic recession of 2008–2009, PAETEC scaled down their plans significantly, first to a much smaller new building, and then to a simple re-use of the existing Seneca Building. With PAETEC's acquisition by

Windstream Communications Windstream Holdings, Inc., also doing business as Windstream Communications or Windstream, is a provider of voice and data network communications (broadband, VoIP, MPLS), and managed services ( virtual servers, managed firewall, data storage, clou ...

, the new plan involved only two-thirds of the Seneca Building; the city then began considering options for the corner parcel on which the Tower would have been built. The corner was sold to Pike Construction who built a new headquarters for the

Democrat and Chronicle The ''Democrat and Chronicle'' is a daily newspaper serving the greater Rochester, New York, area. At 245 East Main Street in downtown Rochester, the ''Democrat and Chronicle'' operates under the ownership of Gannett. The paper's production fa ...

on the site. The building, completed in 2016 is three stories like the current Seneca Building which currently houses offices for PAETEC's successor

Windstream Windstream Holdings, Inc., also doing business as Windstream Communications or Windstream, is a provider of voice and data network communications (broadband, VoIP, MPLS), and managed services ( virtual servers, managed firewall, data storage, clou ...

References

{{coord missing, New York (state) Office buildings in Rochester, New York Unbuilt buildings and structures in the United States 2012 in New York (state)