Tagged: community redevelopment

The move to downtown Syracuse was three years in the making for Nicole Samolis. That’s how long it took her to convince her husband to forgo their home in the suburbs.

The couple lives in the newly renovated Dey’s Plaza. The building was once a large department store, and then failed as an office building.

But since it was converted to apartments a few years ago, there’s been a waiting list to get in. Samolis was sold on the place by its view of Syracuse landmarks like the county courthouse.

For property developers Rich DeVito and Bob Doucette of Paramount Realty, the motivation for taking on large scale renovations of downtown Syracuse’s previously empty buildings was this:

“We wanted to make money,” says DeVito flatly, though Doucette chuckles at the simplicity of the answer. “It’s where the market is,” DeVito goes on to say.

And make money they did.

The pair took the former Dey Brother’s department store in Syracuse two years ago and turned it into upscale apartments with a few office suites.

Its residential units are currently fully leased.

Binghamton looks to many visitors like any other post-industrial city in the Northeast: The historic buildings are in disrepair, and the rundown strip malls hide years of slow progress towards a revitalized Binghamton.

For years, the strategy for rebirth has been to perk up a storefront here, tear down a building there.

That's in evidence at the "Southside Commons," a concrete open space across the river and Route 434 from Binghamton's city center.  The space offers a raised area where bands can play in the summer, and a few tables and chairs scattered around the single lot wedged between two buildings.

It doesn't look like much, but a significant amount of work went into making it happen.

There's a lot going on in downtown Rochester these days.

A new bus barn is set to open next year, there are plans to fill in a section of the aging Inner Loop, and the redevelopment of the former Midtown Plaza is slowly taking shape.

So to keep up with what may or may not come to pass, the city of Rochester is tapping a local engineering firm to build them a powerful new tool: detailed 3D modeling software that lets planners zoom around a Rochester of the future.

The good news: Rochester's Genesee Brewery is spending $2.6 million to transform an old packaging building into a brew pub and visitor center.

The bad news: It's also proposing a $600,000 demolition of two historic buildings, including one that's at the center of a nascent online campaign. (Saturday 11:05 a.m. UPDATE: There is now an online petition.)

Company officials say the "Genesee Brew House" should be open by late April 2012. Rich Lozyniak, CEO of Genesee parent company North American Breweries, says the adjacent buildings will be razed to make room for parking, pending proper approval.

"We don't want to make an investment in this facility and have a deteriorating building right next door," Lozyniak said at Friday's announcement.