Development in and Around Syracuse Discussion

[IthacaMatt]

If they had built the western bypass this would be a complete non-issue. 81 was the closest thing commuters in the western and southwest burbs had to a bypass. Telling us to go take 481 is a big slap in the face. Onondaga Hill, OCC, Community General get no respect.

Maybe we should knock down 481 and tell Dewitt residents to take the West Seneca Turnpike or Erie Blvd instead. Let's see how they would like it.

I agree with your first paragraph completely. It was a missed opportunity that should be rectified. Run it from Onondaga Hill out to Camillus and connect to Route 5.

Your second paragraph kind of misses the point. We aren't so concerned about the neighborhood surrounding 481. Yes, there is the chi-chi housing out by Woodchuck Hill Road, but any other place in the country just puts up the walls to baffle the sound. We certainly can do that here if we expand 481 to accommodate more through traffic that is bound for north of the City.

 

[FrancoPizza]

The highest-value real estate plummets in the area where the character of the neighborhood suffers because of the viaduct.

Really? The highway is responsible for arranging drug deals on street corners in Pioneer Homes? The highway is forcing section 8 residents to keep taking government handouts for generation to generation? That concrete needs a stern talking to!

 

[IthacaMatt]

Really? The highway is responsible for arranging drug deals on street corners in Pioneer Homes? The highway is forcing section 8 residents to keep taking government handouts for generation to generation? That concrete needs a stern talking to!

Oh, come on. What are you arguing for?
The viaduct creates a shady area where it's easier for drug deals and robberies and assaults to take place, just like if there was a block full of abandoned buildings.

If that place is no longer "there", and is replaced by office buildings, businesses and residences, then the undesirable people and behavior moves elsewhere.

This is exactly what the City of New York did with midtown and the Times Square area in particular. It's a very similar reclamation project, if you think about it. And now Times Square is the home to quite a number of corporate headquarters, instead of peep shows, bodegas and Tad's Steaks.

 

[Marty McFly]

Thanks OttoMets for the deep dive! Great chart. That said, how realistic is it, for the city to collect property taxes from redeveloping the acreage once the interstate comes down? It's great that the potential is there, but what happens if it just sits vacant? (playing devil's advocate here)

 

[IthacaMatt]

Thanks OttoMets for the deep dive! Great chart. That said, how realistic is it, for the city to collect property taxes from redeveloping the acreage once the interstate comes down? It's great that the potential is there, but what happens if it just sits vacant? (playing devil's advocate here)

It won't sit vacant. Upstate Medical keeps expanding. The University keeps expanding. Local development is going crazy along the University-to-Downtown corridor. It's probably the most active construction area in Onondaga County right now.

 

[shandeezy7]

It won't sit vacant. Upstate Medical keeps expanding. The University keeps expanding. Local development is going crazy along the University-to-Downtown corridor. It's probably the most active construction area in Onondaga County right now.

I guess I could see where Upstate and the University expanding would not help the tax base, but neither would destroying two dozen-plus occupied buildings to make way for a new viaduct or tunnel.

 

[FrancoPizza]

Oh, come on. What are you arguing for?
The viaduct creates a shady area where it's easier for drug deals and robberies and assaults to take place, just like if there was a block full of abandoned buildings.

If that place is no longer "there", and is replaced by office buildings, businesses and residences, then the undesirable people and behavior moves elsewhere.

This is exactly what the City of New York did with midtown and the Times Square area in particular. It's a very similar reclamation project, if you think about it. And now Times Square is the home to quite a number of corporate headquarters, instead of peep shows, bodegas and Tad's Steaks.

If they can relocate the section 8 residents and raze the slums for development projects like the ones you listed then I can live with the inconvenience. I also think the businesses on 81 that are affected are entitled to sue for damages if they can prove they are negatively impacted. Forget what you think about Congel and hotel owners but their investments were based heavily on proximity to the interstate. Nobody goes into that thinking an interstate may someday be erased. If the state is smart, they'll offer to compensate up to a certain percentage basis during construction and set aside annual funds that could be used by destiny/maplewood suites/etc for new billboards and advertising on 481 and elsewhere.

 

[IthacaMatt]

I guess I could see where Upstate and the University expanding would not help the tax base, but neither would destroying two dozen-plus occupied buildings to make way for a new viaduct or tunnel.

Well, look at the Hill. All those fancy housing developments for students are privately owned. All those restaurants, stores and offices are privately owned. How many doctors' offices are there on Genesee Street? Yes, more hospital or university owned buildings won't necessarily be taxed, but there are so many businesses that support the main magnets to development.

 

[IthacaMatt]

If they can relocate the section 8 residents and raze the slums for development projects like the ones you listed then I can live with the inconvenience. I also think the businesses on 81 that are affected are entitled to sue for damages if they can prove they are negatively impacted. Forget what you think about Congel and hotel owners but their investments were based heavily on proximity to the interstate. Nobody goes into that thinking an interstate may someday be erased. If the state is smart, they'll offer to compensate up to a certain percentage basis during construction and set aside annual funds that could be used by destiny/maplewood suites/etc for new billboards and advertising on 481 and elsewhere.

Congel's "investment" was substantially mitigated by various tax credits and their renewals. His original investment was in 1990 to build the place. Despite his very effective lobbying efforts, no one is guaranteed that things won't change over the course of 30 years.

 

[OttoMets]

Thanks OttoMets for the deep dive! Great chart. That said, how realistic is it, for the city to collect property taxes from redeveloping the acreage once the interstate comes down? It's great that the potential is there, but what happens if it just sits vacant? (playing devil's advocate here)

It's a good question. There's no automatic mechanism for the empty land to be transferred to the city or to developers; NYSDOT would control it, and NYSDOT's in the business of holding roads and adjacent rights of way. So there's a leap to be made here - some planning has to take place for disposition of the property. Both sides do have an understanding of what the city wants, so that's a start.

 

[OttoMets]

I guess I could see where Upstate and the University expanding would not help the tax base, but neither would destroying two dozen-plus occupied buildings to make way for a new viaduct or tunnel.

I'll do you one better (as this is an argument I hear too often - SU and Upstate are greedy freeloaders who'll spoil the 'increase the tax base' plan): if both institutions are in expansion mode, they'd just take land elsewhere if they can't take land on Almond Street. This is a zero-sum situation - land's coming off the tax rolls one way or another.

 

[Cheriehoop]

I agree with your first paragraph completely. It was a missed opportunity that should be rectified. Run it from Onondaga Hill out to Camillus and connect to Route 5.

Your second paragraph kind of misses the point. We aren't so concerned about the neighborhood surrounding 481. Yes, there is the chi-chi housing out by Woodchuck Hill Road, but any other place in the country just puts up the walls to baffle the sound. We certainly can do that here if we expand 481 to accommodate more through traffic that is bound for north of the City.

Are they expanding 481 as a result of this project. 481 is inadequate currently to handle the additional traffic in the already congested Dewitt/Fayetteville/Thruway/N Syracuse/Cicero interchange areas. For every ying theres’s a yang.

 

[OttoMets]

Are they expanding 481 as a result of this project. 481 is inadequate currently to handle the additional traffic in the already congested Dewitt/Fayetteville/Thruway/N Syracuse/Cicero interchange areas. For every ying theres’s a yang.

Yes, every option includes 481 work (because unless the no-build is selected, 481's going to have to replace 81 during years of demolition and maybe construction). Haven't seen full details, but this will include replacing ramps with wider turning radii at Rock Cut and North Syracuse, fixing some of the tricky merges (like at East Genesee), and I believe replacing that awful left-hand-lane merge from 690 eastbound with a flyover. Also additional lanes in some areas.

 

[FrancoPizza]

Congel's "investment" was substantially mitigated by various tax credits and their renewals. His original investment was in 1990 to build the place.

Any large project of that magnitude would expect similar credits. It's basically an expectation to offset the taxation and regulation in this state. Even all the apartments going up are getting some breaks albeit on a smaller scale. What hurt the destiny timeline was the constant obstruction and petty bickering with previous administrations. Love or hate the mall, it's a regional attraction that generates 25% of its sales tax from tourists and Canadian visitors. I hope the 81 decision does not impact negatively but it wouldn't surprise me to see Pyramid threaten to take their ball and go home. Right now they are trying to stay ahead of the game by diversifying away from retail and more towards entertainment. In frustration they could just say it and try to sell like they considered 10-15 years ago. Maybe they'll take their services to Washington with Hop.

 

[shandeezy7]

Are they expanding 481 as a result of this project. 481 is inadequate currently to handle the additional traffic in the already congested Dewitt/Fayetteville/Thruway/N Syracuse/Cicero interchange areas. For every ying theres’s a yang.

Some semantics here, but 481 is currently more than adequate to handle the amount of traffic that is on it now. I used to travel it quite regularly, and rarely, aside from during poor weather, construction or an accident have I ever had to travel through that area during peak traffic hours below the speed limit. There will be upgrades if it is converted to 81, but I'd bet that any traffic expert would tell you that it's more than able to handle additional traffic flow.

 

[shandeezy7]

If they can relocate the section 8 residents and raze the slums for development projects like the ones you listed then I can live with the inconvenience. I also think the businesses on 81 that are affected are entitled to sue for damages if they can prove they are negatively impacted. Forget what you think about Congel and hotel owners but their investments were based heavily on proximity to the interstate. Nobody goes into that thinking an interstate may someday be erased. If the state is smart, they'll offer to compensate up to a certain percentage basis during construction and set aside annual funds that could be used by destiny/maplewood suites/etc for new billboards and advertising on 481 and elsewhere.

What about the business owners/property owners being forced to relocate and sell their properties because they need to be torn down for construction? Seems as though they would have more of a grievance here than some business owners who will still sit on an interstate highway and less than a mile from the NYS Thruway

 

[FrancoPizza]

What about the business owners/property owners being forced to relocate and sell their properties because they need to be torn down for construction? Seems as though they would have more of a grievance here than some business owners who will still sit on an interstate highway and less than a mile from the NYS Thruway

I believe eminent domain requires the state to compensate those businesses at the assessed rate.

 

[shandeezy7]

I believe eminent domain requires the state to compensate those businesses at the assessed rate.

As someone who has had family members uprooted via eminent domain, it doesn't always work out so well and is really not a fair practice. The number of businesses that would have to relocate is quite large, and they would be far more inconvenienced than the guy with the wide-ranging shopping mall portfolio or the multi-billion dollar truck stop owner.

 

[sutomcat]

If we're talking about the public good -- rather than the very narrow interest of Pyramid and a couple Salina landholders who want a high-speed freeway connection to run uninterrupted past their properties -- I can't think of any problems that a tunnel would solve. Onondaga County has a parallel, higher-speed freeway to the east, and it doesn't have any traffic to speak of.

And downtown Syracuse and adjacent neighborhoods aren't lacking for green space - far from it, they're only suffering from a lack of density. The real estate values along the corridor are depressed because of the traffic volume and the built environment. While I'm sure some projections for community improvement are pie-in-the-sky, the idea that the grid solution is singularly able to improve the corridor is perfectly reasonable. This chart can better illustrate what I mean.

View attachment 153976
The highest-value real estate in the county flanks the Almond Street corridor on both sides. It plummets in the area where the character of the neighborhood suffers because of the viaduct.

A tunnel could theoretically solve this: a deep bore tunnel could enter the ground around East Colvin Street and emerge near the mall. The Almond Street corridor could support hundreds of millions of dollars of new development. But we wouldn't be getting much utility from that tunnel, because it wouldn't offer direct access to downtown or the hill, and it wouldn't connect to 690. Further, because it would certain be tolled, a lot of traffic would shift to the existing grid anyhow.

To answer your Princeton question, I always take 206 through town and don't know of any parallel through streets. It's slow sometimes. In Syracuse, 88% of the traffic on the viaduct has a destination or origin between the two 481 termini. A big percentage of this is bound for downtown or the hill. That is, they're all using the grid already! Congestion results from the chokepoints on and approaching the interstates. The essence of the grid is that there are dozens of redundant streets - motorists would leave the freeway and disperse onto city streets that provide more direct access to destinations (and are running over 90% below capacity at all times).

Hope that answers a couple questions.

That chart is the most compelling argument for a grid that I have seen.

Losing I-81 through the city is going to make it a lot harder for me to come to and go home from events at the Dome but the land freed becomes valuable and filled with tax paying owners, or even if it is snapped by by Upstate and SU but ends up spurring significant growth and good jobs, it is a small price to pay.

Disagree about I-481 not having any traffic to speak of. It has plenty of traffic on weekdays when commuters drive into the city and drive back home to their houses in the Eastern suburbs. It is already a bottleneck and adding all the thru traffic from I-81 to it is going to make the situation worse. Glad they realize that and have plans to expand the highway to accommodate more traffic. That will definitely be needed.

 

[shandeezy7]

That chart is the most compelling argument for a grid that I have seen.

Losing I-81 through the city is going to make it a lot harder for me to come to and go home from events at the Dome but the land freed becomes valuable and filled with tax paying owners, or even if it is snapped by by Upstate and SU but ends up spurring significant growth and good jobs, it is a small price to pay.

Disagree about I-481 not having any traffic to speak of. It has plenty of traffic on weekdays when commuters drive into the city and drive back home to their houses in the Eastern suburbs. It is already a bottleneck and adding all the thru traffic from I-81 to it is going to make the situation worse. Glad they realize that and have plans to expand the highway to accommodate more traffic. That will definitely be needed.

Sometimes I wonder if Syracusans view not being able to drive 80 mph as "traffic." I still have never traveled on 481 through Dewitt during peak traffic periods and had to travel below speed limit, aside from weather or an accident/construction. That road is nowhere near capacity, even during rush hour.

 

[OttoMets]

That chart is the most compelling argument for a grid that I have seen.

Losing I-81 through the city is going to make it a lot harder for me to come to and go home from events at the Dome but the land freed becomes valuable and filled with tax paying owners, or even if it is snapped by by Upstate and SU but ends up spurring significant growth and good jobs, it is a small price to pay.

Disagree about I-481 not having any traffic to speak of. It has plenty of traffic on weekdays when commuters drive into the city and drive back home to their houses in the Eastern suburbs. It is already a bottleneck and adding all the thru traffic from I-81 to it is going to make the situation worse. Glad they realize that and have plans to expand the highway to accommodate more traffic. That will definitely be needed.

Yeah, that was careless wording by me; I meant that Onondaga County has no traffic to speak of.

Regarding your Dome commute (and things might have changed under the newest DEIS), southbound I-81 traffic could exit onto North Franklin, North Clinton, North Salina (as they do now), or either North State or North McBride via a new offramp; you could backdoor your way to Dome parking from there. Alternatively, you could merge onto 690 east and take the new off-ramp at Irving Avenue, which would provide access through Upstate's new north campus (former Kennedy Square) via an extended Irving Avenue, which provides direct access to Dome parking and also connectivity to South Crouse (to be converted to two-way), University, etc. And westbound 690 traffic would have Teall and I believe an enhanced Canal Street/University Avenue intersection to work with.

So it'll be interesting to see if the modeling bears out what I believe - that eliminating the Harrison/Adams bottleneck with this enhanced grid might actually improve traffic times. Either way, I respect your gut take - a micro-level traffic delay for Dome events is cancelled out by the improvement to the region.

 

[OttoMets]

Sometimes I wonder if Syracusans view not being able to drive 80 mph as "traffic." I still have never traveled on 481 through Dewitt during peak traffic periods and had to travel below speed limit, aside from weather or an accident/construction. That road is nowhere near capacity, even during rush hour.

The traffic pattern is outdated and a hindrance to maintaining posted speeds, which is ironic because 481 is by far the newest of the area freeways; even the 90-East Genesee portion was, if I'm not mistaken, built in the '70s and the southern part was under construction into the '80s. The northbound East Genesee acceleration lane is long, but its curves don't really provide enough space to get up to 65, which leads to slow traffic -- a lot of which wants to merge across two lanes to 690 in under a mile -- getting dumped in with people going 70. 690's off-ramp presents a whole new problem with the weird left merge and the abrupt shift to two lanes over the DeWitt Yards bridge. And the cloverleafs in general don't really support safe merging in an area that seems to have more traffic driving faster than it was designed for. It would slow through-traffic on East Genesee and Kirkville, but SPUIs (like many of 690's interchanges) I think would be a much better treatment. And an extra lane could hurt (and I'm far from a "more traffic, extra lane solves all" kind of guy).

 

[shandeezy7]

The traffic pattern is outdated and a hindrance to maintaining posted speeds, which is ironic because 481 is by far the newest of the area freeways; even the 90-East Genesee portion was, if I'm not mistaken, built in the '70s and the southern part was under construction into the '80s. The northbound East Genesee acceleration lane is long, but its curves don't really provide enough space to get up to 65, which leads to slow traffic -- a lot of which wants to merge across two lanes to 690 in under a mile -- getting dumped in with people going 70. 690's off-ramp presents a whole new problem with the weird left merge and the abrupt shift to two lanes over the DeWitt Yards bridge. And the cloverleafs in general don't really support safe merging in an area that seems to have more traffic driving faster than it was designed for. It would slow through-traffic on East Genesee and Kirkville, but SPUIs (like many of 690's interchanges) I think would be a much better treatment. And an extra lane could hurt (and I'm far from a "more traffic, extra lane solves all" kind of guy).

I think the biggest issue with the Genesee Street interchange is the fact that some civil engineers determined that the best way to offload traffic on two of the exits was to put a stop sign at the bottom of the off-ramp. That is a disaster at rush hour.

 

[OttoMets]

I think the biggest issue with the Genesee Street interchange is the fact that some civil engineers determined that the best way to offload traffic on two of the exits was to put a stop sign at the bottom of the off-ramp. That is a disaster at rush hour.

Northbound outbound, or southbound in? Either way, it's a mess. A traffic circle would be marginally better, but really we needed the county to step up 20 years ago and say hey, we can't have a successful DeWitt town center combined with auto access to thousands of new homes in the eastern part of the county, something's gotta give. Total regional planning failure, and it's trashed the village of Manlius and the whole Lyndon-Mario's strip in DeWitt.

 

[shandeezy7]

Northbound outbound, or southbound in? Either way, it's a mess. A traffic circle would be marginally better, but really we needed the county to step up 20 years ago and say hey, we can't have a successful DeWitt town center combined with auto access to thousands of new homes in the eastern part of the county, something's gotta give. Total regional planning failure, and it's trashed the village of Manlius and the whole Lyndon-Mario's strip in DeWitt.

Southbound exit heading west toward Dewitt and Northbound exit heading east toward Fayetteville. There is far too much traffic there to have a hard stop and not just have a merge lane with a yield sign.