The state of the city
In 1989, Michael Moore created a sensation with his first film, “Roger & Me,” which focused on the hard times that had befallen Flint, Michigan when General Motors, its largest employer, closed its plant. Syracuse was never as closely tied to any single employer and not yet as badly off as Flint, but it’s definitely in a downslide with no end in sight.
Vacancies abound in and around what was once the business center of Syracuse. All of the large stores that took up more than one floor are gone from downtown. Sibley’s, Chappell's, The Addis Co., Flah's, E.D. Edwards, F.W. Woolworth, Grant's, Lincoln Stores, The Mohican, David's, Kmart, Walgreens, McCrory’s, Dey’s, Addis Company, Wells and Coverly, Whitney, Witherill’s, Wilson’s Jewelry, Goldberg's Furniture and Raymour's Furniture (which became Raymour & Flanigan) have either moved away or in many cases gone out of business. Rite-Aid is the largest store downtown today, but the sales floor only takes up one ground floor of the former Woolworth building. In the first half of the 20th century, wholesale and retail shops downtown numbered in the hundreds. Today, fewer than 50 remain outside of the Galleries of Syracuse and Armory Square. Even within the Galleries, retail is disappearing. Longtime tenants have departed, citing the near total elimination of foot traffic following the closure of the Galleries food court in February 2004. Balloons Over Syracuse closed in March 2006 after 17 years in the Galleries and Hummel's Office Plus followed in July 2006. The main branch of the Onondaga County Public Library says its traffic has declined as well, with the closed food court no longer providing after-lunch browsers.
According to the New York Times ("Flight of Young Adults is Causing Alarm Upstate," June 13, 2006), from 1990 to 2004, the number of people in Onondaga County aged 25 to 34 years declined by 30 percent. The article quoted Irwin Davis, president of the MDA, "We're educating them and they're leaving." Cornell University professor called the upstate situation unusual. Other regions around the country with serious population declines were rural, like the Upper Great Plains and Appalachia. The upstate New York counties, on the other hand, are fully urbanized -- once-big cities now ailing.
Housing in Syracuse
Downtown's role as the business center of Syracuse is over. Of the renovation activity downtown, the vast majority is conversion of unrented and unwanted commercial space into residential space. However, the methods chosen may backfire. Rather than build affordable housing, the city and property owners have focused on luxury "market rate" apartment conversions with rents anywhere from $800 to well over $1000 for one bedroom units.
The emphasis on high-end apartments may not benefit downtown merchants as much as civic leaders assume. Downtown residents generally work outside of downtown, so their lunch business and after-work shopping will be in their workplace neighborhoods rather than downtown. Another factor is that each formerly commercial space that once held many employees may now house only one or two residents, providing a much smaller pool of potential customers for downtown businesses. The small number of downtown residents cannot support a downtown supermarket. The last such supermarket, Chicago Markets on the southeast corner of downtown, closed in the 1980s despite being close to a cluster of high rise apartment buildings in Presidential Plaza. A final concern is that, should the Syracuse economy experience another downturn -- something many residents consider all but inevitable -- the expensive apartments would be among the first to be vacated, much as commercial tenants seek less expensive quarters when business sours.
In 2005, Condren Realty requested unprecedented rent increases at two Mitchell-Lama high rises bracketing Harrison Street, Harrison House and Townsend Towers, built in 1973 and 1972 respectively. If HUD approves the increases, the predominantly low-income residents could see their monthly rent nearly double in two years. For example, efficiency apartments in both units would go from $328 per month to $487 then $646 by the second year, which would place them at near parity with larger one bedroom apartments in neighboring Madison Tower. They would be more expensive than some non-subsidized apartment buildings such as Skyline Aparments.
Two of Syracuse’s larger low-income housing developments, Kennedy Square and Cherry Hill Apartments, were also built under the Mitchell-Lama program in the 1970s. Both have been plagued with extraordinary vacancy rates, code violations and financial problems in recent years. The Empire State Development Corporation, a New York State government agency, took over the properties in 2000 but only exacerbated the problems with a typical bureaucracy that only funded emergency repairs. Cherry Hill did not survive to see its 30th birthday. It was closed in October 2004, owing a total of $1.2 million dollars in back taxes to the city and county. Nearly 140 of the complex’s 164 apartments were empty at the bitter end. The two complexes cost nearly $13 million to construct. COR Development and Housing Visions Unlimited have offered to purchase the Cherry Hill complex for $400,000 then spend $15 million constructing Maple Heights, a new subsidized housing development featuring 50 townhouses in 13 buildings. Dale Buller of North Syracuse noted in a letter to the Post-Standard (12/21/05) that this calculates to $300,000 per townhouse and that these costs would likely have to be offset by extraordinarily high rent subsidies since the development will be restricted to low-income families only.
Meanwhile, closer to Downtown, Kennedy Square residents fight to save their complex from the fate of Cherry Hill, but matters did not look promising as recently as March 2005 despite its proximity to downtown, although some critics say it's because of that proximity. In July 2005, the residents asked the state for help with security at the complex, saying, "Drug dealing, criminal loitering and violence have escalated of late at the complex, making conditions unsafe for residents here," and that the complex's food pantry and laundromat were vandalized. (Post-Standard 7/7/05) In April 2006, occupancy of the complex was reported to be only 25%, leaving 300 of the 400 units unrented.
Between 1990 and 2000, the population of the Syracuse metropolitan area declined over 10%, from 163,855 to 147,306. The 2000 census showed that of 68,196 housing units, 8,710 or nearly 13% were vacant.
According to The Preservation Association of Central New York, in the decade of the 1990s, the city of Syracuse issued roughly 250% as many demolition permits as construction permits. That statistic does not differentiate between new building construction and renovations of existing structures. This doesn’t seem to have changed as new dirt lots appear regularly all around the city with few new houses and buildings being constructed. Each newly vacated lot, while eventually restoring some greenspace to the city, is also a property that no longer provides substantial income on the tax rolls. City Hall will have to compensate for the ever-shrinking rolls with escalating property taxes that may very well drive away even more residents and businesses. The vicious circle will continue.
Two aerial photographs of downtown taken in 1961 from slightly different angles. Some of the changes that have overtaken downtown are visible. Many of the buildings are gone, some replaced by newer buildings. Others by buildings that have since turned out to be white elephants. And still others finding more use as parking lots than as buildings in a downtown that sees only a fraction of its former activity. From this height, it becomes easier to see where everything was and to locate buildings past and present.
Syracuse and the future
None of the city’s numerous schemes has been able to reverse downtown’s fortunes. It has been referred to as a money pit. “Retro” cast iron streetlights intended to evoke old gas lamps haven’t helped, nor has the construction of the Galleries and the renovation of Clinton Square. Fake "trolleys," Ontrack and a Walk of Fame didn't help. Between 1980 and 2000, property tax receipts downtown plummeted from 25% of the city's tax revenues to only 10%, a 60% decline. With virtually no new construction downtown, this trend is not expected to reverse. In 1996, 58.7% of property inside Syracuse city limits was tax exempt or tax abated. By 2000, that figure was still creeping upward to over 60%, due to the expansion of Syracuse University and St. Joseph's Hospital.
Syracuse continues to install decorative "period" style streetlights even as organizations such as SELENE, Darksky.org and the Sierra Club fight to reduce light pollution. Various forward-looking municipalities within New York state and around the country have enacted laws and regulations to limit light pollution while Syracuse looks stylistically backward to the past. The adverse effects of excessive nighttime light include direct glare in the eyes of drivers, light trespass for residents in such floodlit neighborhoods, disruption of nighttime migration and circadian rhythms of wildlife, and even a possible increased risk of cancer for humans, including breast cancer. A final effect is to obscure the night sky, depriving Syracuse residents of the chance to see the stars.
Meanwhile, the city spends far more on electric bills to spray unnecessary light in directions other than onto the roads and sidewalks, where it would be most useful and contribute to both the safety of drivers and pedestrians. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY has extensive information on light pollution problems. Science, health and energy efficiency take a back seat to esthetics in Syracuse. The three-arm poles installed on North Salina Street as part of the creation of Little Italy feature shielded lamps but also elongated glass diffusers. These diffusers create substantial spill light and uplight. The need for three bulbs instead of one in each fixture may have increased costs for both initial procurement and routine replacement. Ironically, the city removed the recommended full cutoff luminaires, which have advantages in efficiency and safety and were installed by Niagara Mohawk only a year before, in order to install these wasteful non-cutoff fixtures.
Syracuse and Business
All downtown property owners are subject not only to county taxes, but to a non-optional Downtown Special District Assessment which is used to fund the Downtown Committee, essentially an additional tax for being downtown. It's yet another reason many companies choose the suburbs instead, with its copious parking spaces and lower taxes.
Downtown business is almost exclusively daytime. Most delis downtown are closed by mid-afternoon. More restaurants close by 6 p.m. Aside from bars and taverns (including blues joint Dinosaur Bar-B-Que), only a handful of restaurants in Armory Square remain open into the evening, leaving downtown streets outside Armory Square deserted.
Most national chains have left downtown, with McDonald’s and Burger King long gone, the latter even before the Galleries of Syracuse food court was converted to office space. That food court was usually nearly empty before and after lunchtime. The only national chains trickling back downtown are Subway and Quiznos, both of which rely on smaller locations with limited seating. Other well-known chains such as Wendy's, Arby's, KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell have never considered downtown to be a profitable locale and never opened locations there.
Syracuse's population dropped by 12,000 in the 1990s thanks to flight from the rust belt. Another reason for the drop was Syracuse's employment picture. From 1990 to 1993, the city lost 12,000 jobs.
One by one, local manufacturers have been either outsourcing or closing up shop altogether. The A.E. Nettleton Shoe Company was founded in 1879 and had a reputation for producing some of the finest shoes in the country. It completed the Nettleton factory at 313 E. Willow Street in 1882. Nettleton went bankrupt in 1984 and the factory was renovated four years later into high-end apartments and residential lofts. Nettleton Commons is a pocket of relative affluence on an otherwise desolate near north side. The next three blocks up North State Street hold numerous vacant and sometimes decrepit buildings. Within two blocks to the south are Snowdon Apartments, a once elegant residential hotel now with a largely transient population, and a building across the intersection from the Snowdon that has been padlocked since at least 2002.
The Joseph Pietrafesa Company, which produced men's suits for its Learbury stores, went into bankruptcy in 1998, to be bought out by Christopher's. Christopher's itself filed for Chapter 11 in April 2005.
Carrier Corporation, which the city lured to Syracuse in 1937, closed its manufacturing operations in 2003, eliminating 1200 jobs.
New Process Gear, founded by John Willys and located in Franklin Square for many years, has gone through many changes in the last few years, often resulting in layoffs. In late 2005, employees were faced with a choice of leaving Syracuse or remaining with current owner Magna International, who planned to reduce the hourly wage by $10 and eliminate the pension plan in favor of a 401k. Around the same time, 1500 workers faced temporary layoffs with no announced date when they would return to work. In May 2006, Magna offered incentives of up to $75,000 to 250 workers to buy out their contracts.
Aside from St. Joseph’s Hospital and Health Center and University Hospital, the only large business actively expanding anywhere near downtown is Syracuse University. But downtown is cut off from the vitality of SU by Interstate 81. Nothing exists beneath route 81 except for parking lots hemmed in by gray concrete walls and columns, an area columnist Sean Kirst called “a littered, noisy wasteland.” (Post Standard 3/30/2005) Others have compared it with the Berlin Wall. J.B. of Syracuse calls it a demilitarized zone. Worse, the expansion of SU hurts the city as much as it helps. Both SU and the hospitals are tax-exempt entities, so whenever they expand, previously tax-generating properties drop off the tax rolls.
Marsellus Casket was once the premier casket maker in the country. Reportedly, at least four presidents, including Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, were buried in Marsellus caskets. It shut down its Syracuse operations in early 2003 and the factory equipment was auctioned off later that year. The factory and warehouse complex, taking up an entire city block just outside downtown, sits unused today.
In 2002, Mayor Matt Driscoll confidently predicted that $500 million of investment could pour into downtown by the end of that year. That’s double what it cost to build Carousel Center in the 1980s. Four years after that rosy prediction, the goal has yet to be met.
In 1994, the Chamber of Commerce was predicting that retail stores would fill the storefronts on the 300 block of South Salina Street. Next to Jefferson Center, another storefront has not been occupied for the better part of a decade. The Wilson Building storefronts have emptied out. Around the corner on West Fayette Street, the Chamberlain building has been half renovated and completely vacant for years.
Syracuse University economics Professor Michael Wasylenko called Syracuse’s economic future “an uphill battle."
In 2000, Syracuse guaranteed $25 million in federal loans for “economic development.” By its own estimates, City Hall expected some 40% of that ($10 million) to be defaulted and eventually borne by Syracuse taxpayers. (Forbes 5/29/00)
Forbes Magazine says Syracuse has had "many dead ends on the path to economic revival."
Syracuse has had problems holding onto discount airlines. Transmeridian Airlines and Independence Air were touted as signs of the success of the "Fly Syracuse" campaign. Despite claims that Syracuse was one of their best markets, Transmeridian went bankrupt in September 2005 and Independence followed in November after serving Syracuse for only 18 months. If this experience with Transmeridian was not unique, it helps to explain why the low-cost carriers fail.
Citibank, the largest bank in the country, has not had an branch office or even an ATM in Syracuse in many years, perhaps as far back as the mid 1980s, when it last had a branch in One Park Place. Today, the closest branches are in Rochester.
Downtown buildings often operate on the "Rob Peter to pay Paul" principle. Real estate agents sometimes prowl competitors' office buildings, trying to entice businesses to move to their buildings. This is understandable as an estimated 80% of downtown buildings have vacancies in them, with numerous buildings being mostly to completely empty.
Another example of this principle in action was Carousel Center. The Pyramid Companies built it in 1988 promising it would save Syracuse's crumbling fortunes and revitalize downtown. Instead, it siphoned business and sales away from downtown businesses and especially the Galleries, constructed just before Carousel. In 2004, the Galleries defaulted on its final payment of $800,000, only to be bailed out by the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency. Carousel also devastated rival malls in Syracuse's suburbs.
The Syracuse Economy
Syracuse's Economic Development Zones, now renamed Empire Zones, are the state's oldest. The city boasts that its two square miles of Empire Zones include most of the major business districts in the city. That is a tacit admission that most of the major business districts are in serious distress as that very webpage defines Empire Zones as being located in the “State's most economically depressed areas.” The following map from the Syracuse Onondaga Planning Agency shows how much of Syracuse the city government considers depressed.
Syracuse and the Arts
Founded in 1896, the Everson Museum of Art is Syracuse's oldest and largest museum. It's one of only a handful of museums in Syracuse, including the Museum of Science and Technology and the Erie Canal Museum. Its current facilities were designed by famed architect I.M. Pei and opened in 1968. In 2000, Pei came to Syracuse and unveiled an expansion for the building that would have added sorely needed exhibition and storage space and eliminated the problematic pool and fountains. The expansion was slated to cost $15 million, but two years after it was announced, the museum had raised less than $3 million. It had also damaged its reputation by contributing $2,400 to New York politicians in the hopes of garnering preferential treatment. IRS regulations expressly forbid tax-exempt non-profit institutions from making campaign contributions. The museum had to request that the donations be returned. As of 2006, the expansion that was reported as a fait accompli in 2000 appears to be as vaporous as the Cultural Corridor was.
The Museum of Automobile History opened in 1996 on North Clinton Street just south of Route 690. A labor of love for collector Walter Miller, it was never able to turn a profit in Syracuse and has relocated to North Carolina.
The Palace Theater underwent a $650,000 renovation in 2004 and 2005, becoming a point of pride for Eastwood. The Post-Standard called it a "vibrant community center" and named owner Michael Heagerty one of their 2006 people of achievement (2/2/06). By contrast, the Landmark Theatre downtown is dark most nights, more an empty shell of architecture than a useful entertainment facility. Their events calendar in early 2006 showed most events were spaced at least a week apart.