Join Us as Pike Block Hosts the 2013 Downtown Living Tour!
Dates: Saturday May 18, 2013
Join Us as Pike Block Hosts the 2013 Downtown Living Tour!
Date: Saturday May 18, 2013
Time: Noon-6:00pm
Location (Headquarters): The Chamberlin Building as part of Pike Block, located on West Fayette Street, across from One Lincoln Center.
To Purchase Tickets: Click here
News Channel 9 WSYR Coverage:
Pike Block among highlights of Downtown Living tour
Published: 4/17 5:44 pm
Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - The Downtown Living Tour will soon arrive, giving Central New Yorkers and opportunity to see what kind of homes could await them in the heart of the Salt City.
Tickets are now on sale for those who want to participate in the Downtown Living Tour in Syracuse.
Developers say the downtown area is becoming increasingly popular – and not just among young professionals.
“I think there's an influx of people who have decided they probably don't need their yard anymore, they don't need a big house anymore, and they're deciding they want to live downtown as well. So not only is it young professionals, which we certainly expect to be the bulk of the business, but an awful lot of older folks are looking now, too,” said CEO of VIP Development Associates Dave Nutting.
One of the brand new Pike Block buildings will have apartments move-in ready by June 1, and nearly all of those apartments have already been claimed.
The Downtown Committee of Syracuse says $265 million in development is happening, mostly for residential units – and many of them can be viewed during the Downtown Living Tour.
The tour will begin at Pike Block, followed by two stops in either direction that are under construction – on one side, apartments, and on the other, the Marriott in Armory Square.
“The downtown living tour is a way for you to get a sneak peak at all of these developments that are transforming Downtown Syracuse and so much of that transformation is from taking underutilized or vacant buildings and turning them into residential units,” said Lisa Romeo of the Downtown Committee of Syracuse.
Many of the apartments at Pike Block incorporate the building’s history – keeping in place the wrought iron railings and reusing the wood from the old beams as decorations.
“What's really neat about this next chapter of downtown is those places that already have strong memories attached to them are feeling new life in a different way. Something that to my grandmother was a department store is now somebody's home,” Romeo said.
2,100 people bought tickets for last year’s tour.
This year, the tour will be Saturday, May 18 from noon to 6 p.m.
Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 the day of the tour.
There are eight tour stops in all.
Download a PDF
Sampling Syracuse Food Tours
Dates: Saturdays Thru November 9, 2013
Sampling Syracuse Food Tours will provide participants with a delicious and unique way to discover Downtown Syracuse. The 2.5 hour walking tour includes stops at award winning restaurants. The eateries offer generous portions of delicious foods and beverages ranging from savory barbecue to luscious cupcake creations. Participants will sample local fare as well as visit cultural and historic landmarks including Onondaga Creekwalk, Clinton Square, the Erie Canal, Salina Street and Armory Square.
Walking tours depart Saturdays at 12:00pm, rain or shine, from April to November. The two mile, moderately paced tour is appropriate for all ages and fitness levels. Enough food is served that, for most participants, lunch is not necessary afterwards.
Must be 13 or older to participate. Tours start in Armory Square (exact meeting location details will be provided immediately upon purchase of tickets). For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.syracusefoodtours.com
Downtown
Armory Square
Syracuse, NY 13202
12:00 pm
VIP Welcomes CenterState CEO to Pike Block
Dates: PIKE BLOCK IN THE NEWS
VIP Welcomes CenterState CEO to Pike Block
CEO and Affiliates will relocate late summer 2013 to the Witherill Building
SYRACUSE, NY – VIP Development Associates (VIPDA) welcomes CenterState CEO as an anchor tenant at Pike Block. CenterState CEO has signed a commercial office lease for approximately 12,000 square feet of space on the second floor of the Witherill Building and the first floor of the Chamberlin building. Witherill is the cornerstone building of the high profile mixed-use residential and retail project, located at the corner of Salina and Fayette Streets, in downtown Syracuse. The Chamberlin building will provide CenterState CEO with convenient street-level access, featuring the space necessary for an enhanced visitors’ center, along the Connective Corridor on Fayette Street.
“CenterState CEO brings an exciting dynamic to arguably the most important ‘business’ corner
in Central New York,” says Charlie Wallace, VIPDA president. “Pike Block is transforming downtown Syracuse into a vibrant residential and commercial hub the likes of which the city has never experienced. We are pleased to have CenterState CEO anchoring Pike Block.”
“This move allows CenterState CEO and its affiliates to better serve our members and the community,” said Robert Simpson, president, CenterState CEO. “The Pike Block provides this organization with a central location in the heart of our business district. We are proud to be a part of this exciting project and to help advance the growth and development that is taking place here.”
Along with CenterState CEO, affiliates including: Benefit Specialists of New York, the Syracuse Convention and Visitors Bureau, and The Downtown Committee of Syracuse will move their operations late this summer.
CenterState CEO’s current building, located at 572 South Salina Street, is under contract for sale.
Tim Hortons Selects Pike Block in Downtown Syracuse as Site of Newest Restaurant
Dates: PIKE BLOCK IN THE NEWS
Syracuse, New York –VIP Development Associates (VIPDA) has announced that Tim Hortons Cafe & Bake Shop has signed a lease for a 2,149 sq. ft. restaurant to be located at Pike Block, a high profile mixed-use residential and retail project located in downtown Syracuse.
Tim Hortons is one of the largest publicly-traded restaurant chains in North America based on market capitalization. Operating in the quick service segment of the restaurant industry, Tim Hortons appeals to a broad range of consumer tastes, with a menu that includes premium coffee, espresso-based beverages, specialty teas, home-style soups, grilled paninis, hot breakfast sandwiches and fresh baked goods—including its trademark donuts. Tim Hortons has 804 restaurants in the United States.
“We could not be more proud or excited to have a high-profile franchise like Tim Hortons opening here at Pike Block,” adds Charlie Wallace, VIPDA president. “The restaurant will be a real asset to the project and to the continued revitalization of downtown Syracuse.”
Pike Block is transforming the downtown Syracuse into a vibrant residential and commercial hub the likes of which the city has never experienced. From the start, VIPDA’s goal has been to create a hip, trendy urban center with a welcoming neighborhood feel. For more on Pike Block, visit www.pikeblock.com.
VIPDA is the development arm of VIP Structures, a national Design-Build firm based in Syracuse, NY. VIP Structures has more than 38 years of professional experience in architecture, construction and development, as well as in-house engineering and property management expertise for commercial, industrial and institutional clients. Visit vipstructures.com for more information.
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Onondaga County at Gettysburg: A Sesquicentennial Remembrance
Dates: Thru August, 2013
In honor of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, Onondaga Historical Association (OHA) on February 6 will open in the museum’s first floor studio gallery a new exhibit entitled “Onondaga County at Gettysburg: A Sesquicentennial Remembrance.”
The focus will be on paintings, photos, diary entries and quotes to illustrate the experience of eight veterans who served at Gettysburg in one of the following locally-based regiments: the 3rd Onondaga (122 NY Infantry), the 4th Onondaga (the 149th NY Infantry), and Battery B of the 1st NY Light Artillery.
Also included in the exhibit is a three-part framed battlefield map that shows the military maneuvering that took place over the course of three days of fighting, July 1 – 3, 1863. The exhibit is available for viewing Wednesdays through Sundays when the museum is open.
Onondaga Historical Association Museum
321 Montgomery St.
Syracuse, NY 13202
11:00 am – 4:00 pm
Exhibit: American Moderns, 1910-1960 O'Keeffe to Rockwell
Dates: Thru May 12, 2013
Organized by the Brooklyn Museum, the upcoming exhibition American Moderns, 1910-1960: O'Keeffe to Rockwell, explores a wide variety of American art from the first half of the twentieth century. The exhibition consists of fifty-one paintings and four sculptures by such prominent artists as Georgia O'Keeffe, Norman Rockwell, Milton Avery, Stuart Davis and Arthur Dove. Drastic social, political and economical changes during this time period challenged artists to define what could be considered "modern" from a wide variety of definitions. From abstraction and cityscapes to realism and nature, these works selected from the Brooklyn Museum's permanent collection offer a new perspective on American modern art.
Opening night reception: February 15, 2013
Enjoy entertainment, light hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar before previewing the exhibition. See website to purchase tickets.
Everson Museum
401 Harrison St.
Syracuse, NY 13202
12:00 pm, 10:00 am Saturdays – 5:00 pm
In Search of Excellence
Dates: PIKE BLOCK IN THE NEWS
An underused office building becomes home to restaurants and apartments
By Charles McChesney
Staff writer
Perhaps the clearest view of Central New York’s future comes not by looking left or right, but by looking up. In Syracuse, the horizon is broken by lines of cranes. There are buildings going up and old buildings being rebuilt in a way that doesn’t simply update them, but rethinks their purposes. Consider the Pike Block, a $25 million project combining four downtown buildings into a facility that will be home to 78 apartments, two restaurants and four stores. ‘‘This had to happen,’’ said David C. Nutting, CEO and chairman of VIP Structures Inc., the company developing what had been four rundown properties where South Salina meets Fayette Street. On a damp winter day, Nutting leads a visitor through the gutted remains of the former Witherill Building, the Chamberlin Building, the Wilson Building and the Bond Building. A new central corridor and elevators will connect all four, creating what Nutting said will be ‘‘a community more than an apartment building.’’ Two courtyards— one for residents and one for people visiting retailers or restaurants— will link trendy Armory Square to the Pike Block and from there to South Salina Street, the city’s traditional commercial center.
Decades of damage can be seen on the parts of the buildings that remain. Smoke stains from a long-ago fire scar one wall, signs of water rot mark a ceiling. Whole sections of the buildings have been cut away and reframed with modern materials. ‘‘It’s been an interesting project,’’ Nutting said. ‘‘It’s three-to-one the most complex project we’ve ever done.’’
Half smiling, he added: ‘‘Had we known what we would ultimately find out, it’s questionable whether we would have gone on with this.’’ Amid the din of construction, Nutting climbs a dripping wet temporary stairway to a hallway and opens the door to a very different space. ‘‘We essentially built this to hotel standards instead of apartment standards,’’ Nutting said as he showed off a one-bedroom apartment slated to be rented for $1,150 a month. Windows cover nearly an entire wall, flooding the room with winter light even on a grimly gray day. There are granite counters and stainless steel appliances. The bedroom door slides to the side, like a barn door, and the bathroom features tiled walls and a soaking tub, far deeper than a conventional bathtub. ‘‘The soaking tub is a big deal,’’ Nutting said. Another big deal is the sound, or lack of it. The original plan, Nutting said, was to leave the 3-inch-thick wood floors exposed as the ceiling for the apartment below. But that allowed too much noise. Instead, the ceilings are white, and rubber bushings separate the ceiling from the floor above. Similar measures isolate the walls of each unit. The result: A quiet apartment in the middle of a construction site. It is the sort of project that could be built in New York or Boston for just about the same money, Nutting said, but rents here will be lower. That’s why the project needed government assistance: ‘‘We’re going to spend $25 million on it, and it will be worth $12 million the day we’re done.’’ A block east of Pike Block, work is under way at Merchants Commons, the renovation of what had once been a bank building. It, too, received government support and is bringing market-rate apartments to downtown — some 66 units. Merchants Common will also be home to Syracuse Media Group, the new company that produces syracuse. com and The Post-Standard. A block to the west of Nutting’s project, work continues at what will soon be The Inns at Armory Square. A block south is the former Sibley’s department store, slated to be rebuilt by developer Robert Doucette and his business partner in Paramount Realty Group, Richard deVito. Doucette plans an $18.7 million renovation to turn the 240,000-squarefoot building into 62,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and 60 market-rate apartments on the upper three floors. Sitting in the quiet, modern apartment, Nutting talked about the types of people who have been looking at renting in the Pike Block. There are young professionals, and there are older ‘‘empty nesters’’ looking to give up suburban homes. The transformation of the Pike Block has done more than combine old buildings into a single modern one, he said. ‘‘We watched Syracuse go from disbelief to belief,’’ he said. ‘‘All of a sudden there’s a bunch of believers.
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Staying Open Sunday in the Square
Dates: PIKE BLOCK IN THE NEWS
Joe Rainone, owner of Mulrooney’s bar on Fayette Street and Benjamin’s on Franklin nightclub around the corner, plans to keep both his places closed on Sunday. “I don’t think we’ll do it — you need a day off,” Rainone said. His concession to the new hotel will be to bring food back to Mulrooney’s in March or April. The pub menu, which he hasn’t offered for about seven years, will be served starting at 5 p.m. Monday to Saturday. But the prospect of finding new customers is appealing to other businesses, despite the extra burden of a sevenday-a-week operation. Abigail Henson, who runs LoFo on Walton Street across from the Urban Outfitters store (one of the few Armory
retailers open on Sunday) said there was pent-up interest when she began opening
on Sundays in mid-January. “The first day, we opened at 11 a.m. and we had a line immediately,” she said. “This is obviously something there’s a demand for. People who live down here told us they would lie in bed waiting for Empire to open up because there wasn’t anything else.”
Empire built its Sunday business on the strength of its blues brunch, which created “a unique niche for us,” said owner David Katleski. He thinks more Sunday openings, especially during the day, makes sense. “In my opinion everybody should be open on Sunday,” Katleski said. “It’s a day when your customers, for the most part, have the day off.”
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Rebecca Soderholm: Crescendoe
Dates: Thru May 11, 2013
Photographer Rebecca Soderholm focuses on Upstate New York, its people and landscape, while capturing a collective human spirit in today’s world. For the Window Projects, "Crescendoe," is titled after one of the many tanneries that produced leather gloves in Johnston, NY during the first half of the 20th century, nearby where the work for this exhibition was created.
Developed as three panels that fit the large Warehouse Gallery windows, Soderholm accentuates the three-dimensionality of a fence, underlines the painterly qualities of a photographed landscape, and reveals her own fascination with the beauty of often forgotten landscapes. Born in Syracuse, New York, Soderholm received her B.F.A. in Photojournalism from the Rochester Institute of Technology and her M.F.A. in Photography from Yale University, School of Art where she studied with Todd Papageorge and Gregory Crewdson.
An Assistant Professor of Photography at Drew University (Madison, New Jersey), Soderholm’s most recent exhibition, Upstate was shown at 511 Gallery in New York City in the Spring of 2012. She currently lives in Upstate New York and Madison, New Jersey. This is her first solo museum show.
DWC Writing Workshops
Dates: Thru June 20, 2013
The DWC offers creative writing workshops for adults throughout the year... fiction, poetry, non-fiction and dramatic writing. Courses are held in our classrooms at the Downtown YMCA, and are taught by trained, published writers from the CNY region. Courses are offered for every level of craft and experience.
Advanced students seeking a more serious engagement with their craft should consider applying for DWC PRO, the Downtown Writer's Center's two-year creative writing certificate program. Registration required.
See website or call for complete details on our WINTER 2013 workshop schedule.
YMCA of Downtown Syracuse
340 Montgomery Street
Syracuse, NY 13202
315-474-6851
Syracuse Crunch
Dates: 2012 - 2013 Season
http://syracusecrunch.com/
The Syracuse Crunch announced they have entered into a multi-year affiliation agreement with the National Hockey League's Tampa Bay Lightning beginning in the 2012-13 season.
“We are delighted to be partnering with a first class organization run by an outstanding management team in Steve Yzerman and Julien BriseBois,” said Crunch Owner Howard Dolgon.
“We are excited about our new partnership with the Syracuse Crunch and we look forward to working with Howard Dolgon and his organization on putting together a winning development program,” said Julien BriseBois, Assistant General Manager of the Tampa Bay Lightning.”
The Syracuse Crunch is entering into its 19th year of operation in the American Hockey League and boast the longest, current independent ownership group, led by Howard Dolgon. The Crunch has the sixth longest tenure of any AHL team. The Lightning will be the fourth primary NHL affiliate of the Crunch, who previously partnered with Vancouver (1994-1999), Columbus (2000-2009) and Anaheim (2010-2012). Syracuse had a dual affiliation with Vancouver and Pittsburgh from 1997-1999.
The Lightning joined the National Hockey League as an expansion franchise in 1992 and 12 years later, in 2004, were crowned Stanley Cup Champions. In addition to their Stanley Cup the Lightning have made five post-season appearances (1996, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2011).
Arts Across Campus Exhibit: Whitney Windows Project by Mike Barletta
Dates: Thru August, 2013
Onondaga Community College's Arts Across Campus series continues with Mike Barletta's latest exhibit.
Onondaga Community College
4585 W Seneca Turnpike
Syracuse, NY 13215
9:00am – 8:00pm
315-498-2622
Syracuse Sports Association
Dates: Open Registration!!!
http://www.syracusesportsassociation.com/leagues
