SYRACUSE — A pandemic-related equipment delay has pushed back the upcoming opening of the Salt City Market, which remains under construction at 484 S. Salina St. in downtown Syracuse.

A factory in Texas, which is assembling the equipment, has been operating at 50 percent capacity, which resulted in the delay, Maarten Jacobs, the project’s executive director, tells CNYBJ in an Oct. 27 email.

“As a result, we are about six weeks behind,” he adds.

Jacobs also serves as director of community prosperity with the Allyn Family Foundation, which has offices in Syracuse and Skaneateles.

Construction effort 

The Salt City Market — a $24 million mixed-use project — is a design-build project by Syracuse–based VIP Structures, says Jacobs.

Subcontractors on the project include Raulli & Sons, Inc., which is handling the steel work, and Century Heating & Air Conditioning Inc., which is doing the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning work on the project. 

They also include Paragon Environmental Construction of Brewerton, which is handling the sitework and concrete elements; Phoenix Electric of CNY Inc., which is doing the electrical work; and BR Johnson Inc. of DeWitt, which is responsible for the doors on the project, according to Jacobs.

The Salt City Market construction effort continued throughout the state’s pandemic restrictions this past spring. The project qualified as an essential construction project because it includes affordable housing, according to Jacobs. 

VIP Structures also partnered with Environmental Design & Research, Landscape Architecture, Engineering, & Environmental Services, D.P.C. of Syracuse, along with New York City–based iCRAVE and Minneapolis, Minnesota–based Snow Kreilich to design the interior food hall and the exterior shell, respectively.

The Allyn Family Foundation is financing the effort, using a line of credit against the foundation’s endowment, according to Jacobs. Once the project is complete, the foundation will shift to permanent financing, he adds.

“We created a separate nonprofit called the Syracuse Urban Partnership to do the project and manage it and to own the building,” says Jacobs.

About the project

The two anchor tenants in the 78,000-square-foot, four-story building are the Syracuse Cooperative Market and Salt City Coffee. Other tenants include food entrepreneurs like SOULutions Sley’s Southern Cuisine, Big in Burma, Firecracker Thai Kitchen, Pie’s The Limit, Cake Bar, Erma’s Island providing “Jamaican dining at its best,” Mamma Hai, and Miss Prissy’s, per the market’s website. 

In addition, the tenants include Baghdad, a Middle Eastern restaurant, and Farm Girl / Catalpa Flowers, a micro stall serving cold-pressed juices and smoothies and selling flower bouquets.

In addition to the food merchants, the first floor of the Salt City Market will include a 2,100-square-foot grocery store, as well as a coffee shop that transitions to a bar in the afternoon/evenings.

The Allyn Family Foundation wanted to take an “underutilized or blighted” corner of the downtown area and “revitalize it,” says Jacobs.

The organization saw progress happening in downtown and wanted to be a “connector” between the revitalization of downtown and some of the neighborhoods that “could be poised for revitalization but haven’t been to date,” referencing some neighborhoods along South Salina Street and West Onondaga Street. 

“That’s really why we selected that location,” he says. 

Besides the food-related tenants, the Salt City Market will also include 26 apartments and space for the Allyn Family Foundation. 

“With our apartments, we’ve been really intentional to make sure that there’s affordable units that will always be affordable to lower-income individuals and we’ll also have market-rate apartments as well,” says Jacobs.

The main part of the building is the first floor and the food hall, which is intended to “create wealth-building opportunities primarily for entrepreneurs of color.” 

The Salt City Market allows entrepreneurs to start in a small space, test out their business, build it, and decide if that’s what they want to do. 

“That’s really the focus of the first floor and just creating a space where people can come together and eat and have a new space in Syracuse,” says Jacobs.

Project origin

The Salt City Market is based on a model built by the Neighborhood Development Center (NDC) located in Minneapolis.

The nonprofit NDC has helped start more than 400 businesses in the Twin Cities region. Many of those business launched in the Midtown Global Market, a large public market owned and managed by NDC. 

NDC has “long had a connection to Syracuse” through its partnership with the Upstart program, which CenterState CEO operates. Through that existing relationship, the Allyn Family Foundation teamed up with CenterState CEO and NDC to develop a “similar concept” for the food hall that is under construction in Syracuse.     

SYRACUSE — Syracuse Hancock International Airport recently unveiled the first part of a project that installed new high-tech exit portals in terminal B that should make it faster for passengers to leave the terminal.

“What you see here is the first phase of it. Right now, the other side of the airport, the other exit is being worked on. That will be completed before the Thanksgiving rush,” Jason Terreri, executive director of the Syracuse airport, noted in remarks during an Oct. 23 formal-opening ceremony. 

The project cost about 

$1.5 million, Terreri added.

Hancock purchased the exit lanes from Monroe, North Carolina–based Record-USA.

RJ Ortlieb Construction Co. served as the general contractor on the project, the Syracuse Regional Airport Authority (SRAA) tells CNYBJ. Patricia Electric Inc. of Syracuse was the electrical contractor. 

Then, under the contract, Record USA handled its own installation and commissioning of the system, the SRAA said.

As for the purpose of the exit portals, the Syracuse airport addresses that question on its website in a section with “frequently asked questions” about exit portals. 

“The exit portals allow passengers to exit the airport concourse safely and expeditiously, while preventing unauthorized individuals from entering the secure area of the airport. They also eliminate the need for law enforcement or other security personnel to monitor the exit lanes,” per the airport.

In the past, passengers had complained to airport officials that the prior exit tubes were too slow and they saw it as something the facility would have to fix.

“So, we had been planning on doing an exit-portal program replacement and then the pandemic hit, which dramatically reduced all of our traffic here at the airport and put a stop to most of … our projects,” Terreri said.

The airport had to fix its exit-lane technology “for a couple reasons,” the airport director noted. The facility needed to provide a “more efficient and a safe” option for people traveling out of the airport. And officials at the Syracuse airport wanted to make sure they provide the “best customer experience for everybody.” 

In April, the federal government awarded Syracuse Hancock International Airport a $13 million grant through the CARES Act. 

“[Without that], this project would not have been possible as well as just the normal continued day-to-day operations as our numbers have been down,” Terreri said. 

Even as the pandemic continues, passenger traffic “is returning” to the Syracuse airport, he said. Each month, the facility is adding new flights and more capacity back into the market and the airport is “ready to welcome passengers back in.” 

In 2019, the Syracuse airport had about 2.5 million passengers come through the facility, Terreri said. “That’s a three-decade record,” he noted. 

The new exit portals have increased capacity at the airport, so as the traveling public returns and “we exceed the 2019 levels that we had, we will not have any delays of passengers coming out of the airport,” Terreri contended.

The new portals use sensors that detect passengers and open the doors automatically to allow them to exit the terminal. An alarm will sound if anyone tries to enter from the unsecured part of the airport or stops and turns around during the exit process. 

The exit portals have “often been a conversation piece,” Jo Anne Gagliano, chair of the SRAA board of directors, said in her remarks. 

“Now, we have a way to be secure and also provide convenience for people to move through” the airport more freely and efficiently, she said. “We are extremely appreciative … of the CARES Act that allowed this project to take place as it was planned this year,” Gagliano added.