Part 2 RECOMMENDED RENEWAL ACTION
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~ ~ "~ "., (I, I' . CENTRAL ~, E ~, SYRACUA GENERAL NEIGHBORHOOD RENEWAL PLAN ~ Ii Part 2 RECOMMENDED RENEWAL ACTION , \ ~I WILLIAM F, WALSH, MAYOR SYRACUSE URBAN RENEWAL AGENCY CENTRAL SYRACUSE GNRP EXECUTIVE BOARD , I l~ , CITY OF SYRACUSE, N.Y. Hon. Willialll F. Walsh, Mayor THE COMMON COUNCIL Roy D. Simmons, President Albert Orenstein Mrs. Norma H. Coburn Mrs. Maria H. Farr Tarky Lombardi, Jr. H. Newcomb Steuart, Jr. Walter J. Ludovico Stanley J. Laskowski John J. Handlin William S. Andrews SYRACUSE URBAN RENEWAL AGENCY Mayor William F. Walsh, Chairman Roy D. Simmons, President of the Common Council H. Beaman Tremble, Commissioner of Finance CENTRAL SYRACUSE GNRP EXECUTIVE BOARD George B. Schuster, Commissioner of Urban Improvement (1964-) George A. McCulloch, Commissioner of Urban Improvement (1958-1964) Sanford Getreu, Commissioner of Planning Thomas E. Ward, Director of the City-County Office of Economic Development John R. Searles, Jr., Executive Vice President of the Metropolitan Development Association CENTRAL SYRACUSE GNRP SUPPORTING STAFF Department of Urban Improvement: Robert L. Hale, Jr., Deputy Commissioner Henry P. Wilhelmi, Principal Planner Judson O. Allen, Senior Planner William Wasserstrom, Senior Planner Department of Planning: R. Spencer Steele, Deputy Commissioner .,,\ Metropolitan Development Association: .John G. Stone, Assistant to Mr. Searles CONSULTANTS Barton-Ascnman Associates, Consultant Harry Weese & Associates and Planners Collaborative, Associated Consultants ,- ~ i 'I ~ t I':i ~\ ,1 il 1:1 po " 'I A GENERAL NEIGHBORHOOD RENEWAL PLAN :1 FOR CENTRAL SYRACUSE, NEW YORK I ,) , Part 2 RECOMMENDED RENEWAL ACTION " t I,~ .1 i,1I I Ii I , , I~' I JULY, 1965 CONTENTS The General Neighborhood Renewal Plan, 3 Policies for Planning, 4 I Policies for Action, 5 Prospects for Growth, 7 1 Summary of Redevelopment Activity,10 The Opportunity Areas, 15 Modernization of Salina Street,16 The New Clinton Square, 18 Onondaga Creek, 20 Other Unique Development Opportunities, 22 Land-use and Zoning, 23 I The Circulation and Parking Plan, 26 1 2 '" 1 THE GENERAL Central Syracuse is the center of NEIGHBORHOOD government, business, and cultural op- portunity for over a million residents RENEWAL PLAN of Upstate New York. Government and civic leadership have together initiated a program of improvement and eco- nomic development that would, under "Our goal is nothing less than to make A General Neighborhood Renewal this plan, be extended and intensified. Central Syracuse the major center of Plan (GNRP) is called for when an business life and cultural opportunity urban renewal area is of such scope The program of improvement and in Upstate New York. We want to make that a series of renewal projects may development is needed to preserve the have to be initiated over a period of city's vital assets. One out of every the center of the city a strong symbol of years. The GNRP for Central Syracuse seven job opportunities in Onondaga ,I the quality, prosperity, and character is intended to serve as the guide for a County are found in Central Syracuse. of Syracuse and Onondaga County. program of action utilizing the full Forty cents out of every dollar in sales We are striving to attract new enter- range of constructive private and pub- tax revenues and more than a fourth II prises, to improve our position as a lic forces in community development. of all real estate taxes paid in the city are derived from "downtown" business meeting-place and a market-place, and The plan for Central Syracuse has activities and properties. Economic to make the heart of the city more emerged from a number of activities activity amounting to hundreds of mil- attractive for working and living." involving city agencies, their consult- lions of dollars each year contributes ants, and many citizens acting in both heavily to the prosperity of the whole WILLIAM F. WALSH, mayor formal and informal advisory capaci- metropolitan area, and it is in the heart October, 1964 ties. Preparation of the plan has re- of the city that many of the social, "" quired a series of technical studies, the cultural, and governmental centers that findings of which have been set forth serve the region are to be found. in memorandum reports. Part 1 of the plan, Development Policies and Objec- The urban renewal program is most tives, published in October, 1964, es- important because it represents a way tablished a number of vitally important to capitalize on the great potentials of development policies and objectives that Central Syracuse. It is the city's great- were adopted as guides for the recom- est single opportunity to create more mended renewal program and the basic jobs, attract more investment, replenish land-use, circulation, and other plans the tax base, and add new means of I on which the action program is based. cultural enjoyment. It is a unique op- This report, Part 2 of the plan, is a portunity to make the daily trips of summary of the action program and thousands of persons more convenient I basic plans, prefaced by a description and comfortable, make more business I . of the economic prospects that make services available, and create a new en- achievement of the recommendations a vironment for enterprise, leisure, liv- realistic possibility. ing, and worship. 3 U_J II POLICIES The recommended plans and program for essential business services, distribu- ~ reflect four basic policies established tive facilities, centers of training and I 1 FOR PLANNING at the outset of planning activity. These education, and places of worship and I policies are necessary to the goal of inspiration. Housing of varied type and providing for a Central Syracuse that price is needed for those who want to will, in its form and its facilities, meet live close to the heart of the city. all the requirements of its role as the I. economic and cultural heart of the Third, Central Syracuse should be reglOn. accessible from every '(I,eighborhood and industrial area of the city and from all Fir'st, Central Syracuse should be parts of the state and nation. New planned as an intensely-developed and freeways and Syracuse's modern air- compact district, essentially for those port facilities will serve this purpose activities and enterprises that especially well for years to come, but additional need this "optimum" central location: improvements in highways and public headquarters of administration and transit must be planned, including dis- commerce, retail establishments, gov- tributor facilities projected for the ernmental administrative centers, news central area itself. Additional parking media, accommodations for conventions facilities will have to be planned for and visitors, cultural and entertainment the future as part of a well-designed activities, and tourist attractions. In- system. Internally, the need is for easy tensive development and compact ar- circulation within the compact center, rangement is needed to enable con- with primary emphasis on the comfort, venient, face-to-face contact in the ~ convenience, and safety of pedestrians. exchange of ideas, information, goods, and services. Fourth, Central Syracuse should be exciting by day and by night and be a Second, Central Syracuse should also place of beauty with pleasant surround- I be planned to accommodate the related ings,. it should preserve the best of past !I activdies necessary to support its re- traditions while building skillfully for gional functions. There must be space both today and tomorrow. 4 POLICIES Just as the preparation of plans re- by the city in order to stimulate eco- quired conscious aims and policies, so nomic growth, to replace the old and FOR ACTION has the action program been based on worn-out with the new and productive, predetermined agreement in principle and to provide a new environment for as to the nature and extent of the a prosperous city center. public-private effort that could be relied upon in the future. Third, the city must make full use of its regulatory powers to the extent First, a number of major public im- necessary to protect and enhance Cen- provements will be necessary. These in- tral Syracuse. The zoning ordinance, clude important new highway develop- especially, must help to reserve this ment and significant rearrangement of area for the kind of uses that are most traffic and parking patterns; new valuable in a Central Syracuse loca- pedestrian and transit facilities; pro- tion and that are most efficient when vision of open space; and modernization grouped together. of utility systems. Policy on this type of action is to regard such projects as Fourth, business leadership must high priority measures for which public make the major contribution to the expenditure is made to create an en- ultimate full development of Central vironment conducive to the major pri- Syracuse. This calls for investment, vate investment that will produce city- large and sm?,ll, based on confidence in wide economic benefits. the future of the area. It calls for pro- motion of new development through the Second, the Central Syracuse pro- attraction of enterprises not now lo- gram will require continuing emphasis cated there. It calls for cooperation in on urban renewal, in which the city's the joint public-private elements of the powers and funds, induding the credits program, as has already been evidenced accruing from public improvements, are in the attraction of new enterprise combined with federal and state aid to and improvement of the environment provide sites for new development. This, through smaller-scale, but significant, too, must be regarded as an investment modernization and beautification. r r 5 <.D PROSPECTS gested location for production, distri- bution, and administration of region- FOR GROWTH al and national activities. The "personality" of the city- characterized by its great educational, The plan for Central Syracuse is de- cultural, and professional centers and signed to accommodate more than its civic enterprise-is attractive to economic activities that increasingly $200,000,000 worth of private construc- tion through a combination of urban are finding their way to communities renewal and public improvements over having these attributes.