SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — The massive building that used to house the Syracuse Developmental Center will be demolished and replaced with a high-tech manufacturing and residential campus, Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh announced at his State of the City address.
It’s the most significant development for the property since the city took it over from tax-delinquent owners three years ago.
In his speech, Mayor Walsh said: “We will demolish the abandoned and vandalized structure and replace it with a modern, job-creating, manufacturing, research and technology campus.”
The site is the second-largest amount of contiguous acreage available for redevelopment anywhere in the CIty of Syracuse, according to CenterState CEO, which is partnering with the city to market the property to prospective tenants.
NewsChannel 9 toured the property in October of 2019, just two months have the city began taking care of and maintaining the long-neglected property.
CenterState CEO’s senior vice president, Andrew Fish, tells NewsChannel 9: “We have, in the last few years, had opportunities that if we had locations for them in the city, they would have chosen that. If you want to talk about manufacturing in the city as a pipe dream, that being a falsehood, look no further than what JMA Wireless is doing on the Southside.”
The space is smaller than Griffiss Park in Rome but could feel a lot like it when complete. It’s too early in the planning to know the exact format, but the vision includes anchor tenants and some smaller spaces for rotating tenants.
Fish said: “The idea of having a campus where you’ve got people both living there both working in those operations as well as the ability for those companies that are collocating there, their ability to share facilities, share ideas.”
For possible tenants, planners don’t have to look much further than start-up companies at the Tech Garden in Downtown Syracuse, perhaps growing enough to now need bigger space. The hope is to keep them growing locally.
