$56M Renovation Planned

By Nancy Cole Staff writer

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Syracuse officials and community leaders plan to announce today that the city's Near West Side is on the brink of a $56 million revitalization.

The projects include moving public television station WCNY from the town of Salina to a new $17.5 million building on Wyoming Street, rehabilitating two warehouses into commercial and residential facilities and constructing or rehabilitating housing near Blodgett School.

The city is hopeful it will receive a $10 million state economic development grant that will help pay for several of the projects set in motion by a local nonprofit group, the Near Westside Initiative.

"This is something we think is going to dramatically change the face of the neighborhood, but more importantly, provide opportunity and hope for a lot of folks that live in the neighborhood," said Syracuse Mayor Matt Driscoll.

The projects are part of a plan that includes Syracuse University investing $13.8 million in the area. The money is the remaining amount of what SU owes the state from when it borrowed $27 million interest-free in 1987 for construction of its Center for Science & Technology building.

SU plans to announce today at an 11 a.m. news conference that it has final approval from the state Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation and Empire State Development Corp. to reinvest that money in the Near Westside Initiative's plan to create the Syracuse Arts, Technology & Design Quarter.

SU is the first university in the state to receive approval to restructure its debt in this way, said Edward Reinfurt,

acting executive director of the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation.

The Near Westside Initiative plans to use $8 million of the SU money to purchase former warehouse and commercial structures in a three-block area, roughly encompassed by West Fayette, Wyoming, Tully and West streets. It will renovate the shells of the buildings, hoping to attract artists who will live and work in the buildings, developers who want to open retail or gallery space, or entrepreneurs looking to establish new companies using green technologies.

The group anticipates that the overall project will generate more than 800 jobs during the construction phase, bring five new green technology companies to the area creating another 300 jobs and generate about a $10 million annual increase in tourism revenue as the neighborhood transforms into a cultural hub.

The WCNY relocation will be the anchor project of the proposed Arts, Technology & Design Quarter. It would be built through a combination of state grants and a long-term lease between Near Westside Initiative and WCNY.

Driscoll said he is confident that the city will receive the $10 million grant, but if it doesn't, the project will continue to move forward.

"We're going after every single dollar we can find," said Marilyn Higgins, who chairs the Near Westside Initiative. "We're not stopping. We're going to keep on going."

Higgins is currently National Grid's vice president for economic development. She accepted a job at SU as vice president for community engagement and economic impact, effective Oct. 15.

A Restore New York grant will also allow Home Headquarters, SU's School of Architecture and the Syracuse Center of Excellence to rehabilitate vacant, abandoned or condemned residential properties in the neighborhood. Their goal is to have 50 completed and occupied by 2011.

SU will be involved in the project in a number of ways besides providing money for the projects.

Plans call for establishing a home design center for Near West Side residents at SU's downtown Warehouse building on West Fayette Street. Existing and new property owners would receive free home design services from SU students and faculty.

A component of the architecture school, UPSTATE: A Center for Design, Research and Real Estate, plans to conduct a national design competition to generate designs for affordable and sustainable homes and to design the Near Westside Neighborhood Center at 233 Marcellus St., which Home Headquarters has purchased and will serve as a meeting place for the Near Westside Initiative, Higgins said.

SU's South Side Innovation Center will encourage successful start-up companies to locate in the Near West Side neighborhood and establish the Near Westside Entrepreneurship Initiative in the neighborhood.

The Syracuse Center of Excellence, of which SU is the lead partner, will play a role in creating studio and innovation spaces for artists and designers using sustainable designs and technologies. For those projects, whose costs will be higher because green technology is used, the center has pledged to pursue funding to pay for those increased costs, said Mark Lichtenstein, the center's director of operations and outreach.

The center's more than 140 partners will also be given incentives to test new technologies within the Near West Side, Lichtenstein said.

The Arts, Technology & Design Quarter is proposed as an extension of the Syracuse Connective Corridor, which links SU, the city and the community through arts and culture. Currently the Connective Corridor shuttle that loops between SU's main campus and downtown ends near where the Arts, Technology & Design Quarter is proposed to begin.

There are also changes proposed to West Street to make that area of the city more pedestrian-friendly. Driscoll said the city is looking into giving streets such as Otisco and Tully access to West Street. Currently those roads dead end next to West Street. Slowing down traffic and adding crosswalks and landscaping will encourage people to walk from the Near West Side neighborhood to Armory Square, which is on the other side of West Street.

Driscoll said today's announcement grew from a discussion he had with SU Chancellor and President Nancy Cantor about a year and a half ago on how they could build on the growth in downtown.

Higgins said the plan can transform the neighborhood.

"It's really a movement that capitalizes on the expertise and the connections of Syracuse University to revitalize a neighborhood that's in crisis to create for Syracuse what we think can truly be an internationally renowned cultural hub," Higgins said.

Nancy Cole can be reached at ncole@syracuse.com or 470-2173.