SYRACUSE — The Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency (OCIDA) is seeking to buy a property it would lease to Onondaga Community College for the school’s Food Innovation Center, a program the school is developing to train students in food business management.

OCIDA, at its June 9 meeting, voted on and approved a proposal to begin pursuing the property. Another vote would be needed to approve the purchase.

The property OCIDA would lease to Onondaga Community College (OCC) is one of two adjacent parcels it is looking to buy, located at 435 and 437 North Salina St., respectively, according to OCIDA documents. Both are owned by the Greater Syracuse Land Bank, which is responsible for rehabilitating and selling foreclosed properties claimed by the city.

The parcel that would be leased by OCC, 435 North Salina St., is the former site of Mediterranean restaurant La Cuisine. It has been priced at $99,000 by the land bank, according to Honora Spillane, an economic development specialist in the county’s Office of Economic Development, OCIDA’s parent organization.

The second property, at 437 North Salina St., which is priced at $40,000, would be used for another project, Spillane tells CNYBJ. She declines to reveal that project.

The property OCC wants for its Food Innovation Center already has some kitchen equipment in it that still belongs to the former owner, according to Spillane. 

OCIDA would purchase the equipment, along with both properties. It has estimated the total cost of all three to be $200,000, according to meeting documents.

OCIDA would sign OCC to a five-year lease agreement, with monthly payments of about $1,650, according to Spillane, meaning OCIDA would make back its investment over the life of the initial lease. She says there would be renewal options to extend the lease agreement.

“We have not done this before,” Spillane says of OCIDA purchasing property to lease to another entity. “IDAs across the state are in this sort of workforce incubation business, so this is a common practice.”

The former restaurant is in need of renovations, all of which would be paid for by OCC, says Spillane, from the $2.5 million workforce grant the school was awarded by U.S. Department of Labor last year.

Spillane says OCC would like to get the facility up and running for the fall semester. Projected employment generated by the Food Innovation Center over its first four years is 72 jobs, according to OCIDA documents. She says the idea was brought to OCIDA by OCC.

Training

The Food Innovation Center would teach students how to own and operate a restaurant, according to OCIDA documents. The school plans to target returning veterans, working adults seeking career changes, displaced workers, refugees who need specific training or certification for employment opportunities, and others, according to the documents.

An entrepreneur-training program is planned for the center if it is established at the former La Cuisine site, according to the documents. Each quarter, aspiring restaurant owners will compete to be granted use of the facilities and staff at the site, determined by who is deemed to have the strongest business plan.

The effort by OCC is part of a larger workforce training expansion plan that was made possible through the grant it received from the Department of Labor (DOL). The grant was originally intended to be applied solely to workforce training in the agribusiness and food industry fields, but OCC petitioned the DOL to expand the set of industries because it thought those areas would produce too few “family sustaining wages,” according to OCIDA documents.

The DOL approved the expansion, and now OCC is planning workforce-training programs for warehouse employees, the health-care industry, and manufacturing, according to the documents. The school is projecting those programs, including the Food Innovation Center, will produce more than 300 jobs in their first four years.