Grains of Salt (v34): One Corner at a Time

Grains of Salt

When My Sweet Baboo and I both worked in downtown Syracuse, we'd get to the center city in time for my 7AM start; I'd stick around until his 5PM end, and we'd meet at the car for the short ride home to The Valley.

We parked in two different lots back in the day - the Trolley Lot behind the Armory (before it was closed to put in a floatables collection station), and then the lot on the corner of Salina and Onondaga, across from the Hotel Syracuse, where we moved when the first lot closed.

The Trolley Lot reopened after three years or so of work, much nicer than it ever was before, but MSB continued to park at Salina/Onondaga until he retired a couple of years ago. Now, that lot is going to get an extreme makeover of its own, thanks in large part to the efforts of the Allyn Family Foundation, a local philanthropic organization.

Early last month, the AFF announced the formation of a new nonprofit organization, the Syracuse Urban Partnership, which will develop our old parking lot into a mixed-use building with apartments, space for philanthropic agencies to collaborate (the AFF will have offices there), and a 'food hall' similar to those we get to see in larger cities like Philly's Reading Terminal Market. The market is designed to help make it possible for folks to get into the restaurant business, such as the ones who have been featured at the With Love project.

The $22M project, which will break ground next year, also involved the City of Syracuse and CenterStateCEO, the local business development organization formed when the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce and the Metropolitan Development Agency merged a few years back.

Why the plans to repurpose the lot?  Meg O'Connell, the AFF's executive director, explained it in this interview with WVRO. She noted that "the idea of a downtown public market has been floating around for years" but no single organization had taken the lead.

It came to a tipping point where the board of the Allyn Foundation said, we could do this. We could leverage the funds that we have and we could bring all the partners in together and create this great new entity in downtown Syracuse...

You've seen so much great vibrancy going downtown. But this corner, that is really the nexus for where you enter the southeast side of the city, as well as the southwest side of the city, is just kind of crying out for some development. The are clearly challenges with that site, but we really felt that was part of our commitment to downtown to do it specifically on that site.

The challenges O'Connell mentioned? The lot, a couple of blocks from Armory Square, is not far from the Rescue Mission complex, and right down the street from the troubled Clinton Plaza Apartments. A young man was murdered near the lot a few years ago; there have also been reports of drug dealing, solicitation and the like not only during the time the lot was the used solely by folks working on the Hotel Syracuse project, but since.

These challenges are not insurmountable - or, I should say, we cannot consider them to be insurmountable. If we did, there would be no development anywhere other than in the suburbs. And, back to O'Connell,

We have to recognize that the core of the city is important. People ask  "Why this investment in downtown?"  You can't be a suburb of nothing. 

Indeed.

The State of Syracuse (Pt 1)

Last September, during the primary election season, I posed a few questions to the three candidates running for mayor in Syracuse.  None of them answered me back then, even though I tagged their Twitter accounts in my post.  But I know they were busy.

Stephanie Miner won the primary, and went on to win the general election in a landslide, in part some said because there's no way a Republican can win the seat because of the voting demographic.  To those who think that all city voters will blindly color in the ballot circle of anyone with a picture of an ass on their campaign materials, well, let's just say if that was the case we'd have a lot of recount elections. But I digress.

Miner recently gave her State of the City (SOTC) address, outlining her administration's accomplishments and challenges; there are many of both.  You can get information, including links to a video of her speech, on the City's website.

I thought it might be time to revisit my questions and see whether the Mayor addressed them in her vision for Syracuse for the next four years.

My first question was about how the administration could harness the energy that has led to the development in Armory Square, and do two things -- expand the energy outward to the rest of the center city, and to include businesses, not just residential development.  Our enviable  99% residential occupancy rate downtown is great, but we don't come close to that when you look at storefronts and office buildings. According to Downtown Committee reports, for example, occupancy rates in Q2 2013 ranged from 71.36%  to 90.31%, depending on the type of property. Armory Square had the highest percentage, naturally.

In her speech, Miner noted that several projects have been completed, or are nearing completion, including amazing transformations of Pike Block  and Merchants Commons, along with several new restaurants including Gannon's, Jolime Cafe, Otro Cinco, and the looming return of an old friend, Clark's Ale House. And celebrating these projects is important in more ways than one:

While each of these project is heartening, what is perhaps more exciting is the collective impact on the core of our city.  Each investment builds on the last, and it is now clear that downtown revitalization is not confined to Armory Square.  New life is spreading to Salina Street, Warren Street and beyond. 

She's not blind to the challenges that still exist, most notably the Hotel Syracuse at the southern gateway to downtown. Here's what I said about it last September:

The Hotel Syracuse once helped us meet our civic challenge; it now presents a challenge for city and county officials. It's one of our 'gateway' properties; it's in an area -the Warren Street canyon - that needs attention.  Now's the time for Mayor Miner and her team to help us get this property back in local hands, so that willing local developers can proceed with their plans. 

sue drummond photo

Well, we have a new local developer, who wants to give it a go, and the mayor is on board.  Here's what she said about this "Syracuse gem" and Ed Riley (principal of the Syracuse Community Hotel Restoration Company) who asked they city to begin eminent domain proceedings to get the historic property out of the hands of its Israeli owners:

In response, SIDA (the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency) has authorized a Preferred Developer Agreement with Mr. Riley, declared its intent to act as Lead Agency for the project's environmental review, and authorized a public hearing to be held next month on this eminent domain action...We are excited to work with Mr. Riley and County Executive Mahoney and her team to make this project a reality. 

Riley's project? A $57 million plan for a 261-room Hyatt Hotel, retail on the ground floor, and a restored lobby, among other things.

So, all in all, did she answer my first question, about making downtown bigger than Armory Square?  I think she did.  She knows there's more that needs to be done, and that as a community we can't sit idly by, but  I agree with her, that

...this progress is something that we should all be proud of as a community. 

There will be more progress to come, I'm sure.

Coming up: city neighborhoods and crime.