starvingmind

A key thing to understand...

The previous owner forced tenants out, to make way for the remodel. Once the tenants were forced out, they scrapped the remodel plans. Then they decided to not make a major payment on the loan, and essentially gave the mall...half empty...to their lender.

The state of the mall is not an accident or a result of the economy. The lack of stores in the Sears wing was on purpose, but has impacted the rest of the mall once the remodel plans were scrapped.

"The office buildings you wish demolished house workers and businesses."

That's where the rubber meets the road. Many of those buildings DON'T house workers or businesses. They are empty. Many have not had people in them in a decade or more. People would be shocked if they could see how many buildings downtown were empty.

I support the first half of the idea. Building need to come down, nobody wants them. Investors keep paying just enough taxes to keep them off the auction block, hoping that someday they WILL be worth something. If you invest in enough properties like this in enough areas of the country, overall the theory is they will come out ahead. It's big money casino gambling, but with buildings in our downtown. So here they sit. Empty. Like a cancer embedded in their area of the city.

Buildings need to come down, but I disagree that parking is what it should become. Let's all start by agreeing that a building that has sat empty for 10+ years is not a productive asset to the block or area. Some are worth saving, but others aren't. It's time to cut our losses on some properties, tear them to the ground and have properties with potential, instead of properties that are liabilities.

Step 1? Temporary parks. Prioritize. Tear down. Plant grass. Invest $10k in picnic tables, crushed stone walkways, etc.
Step 2? A managed and focused program to transform the newly created "clean slates" into productive uses that benefit the area. Parking should be part of the overall plan, but parking should not BE the overall plan.

I started working downtown in 2005. It's easy to make a list of what buildings have more potential down then up. As we will soon see with the hotel about to go up in Armory...empty lots have potential. We need more potential, and less cancer.

1) How many hotels does Syracuse have now?
Downtown? Without having to walk under 81 to get downtown? One. The Jefferson Clinton.

2) What is the average occupancy rate of those hotels?
High

3) How often are there no rooms available at the existing hotels?
Often

4) Why give a 15-year tax break on an unnecessary hotel?
Because it does not financially make sense to build downtown, but hotels downtown are needed for further economic growth. This hotel will also generate a lot of hotel room tax money.

5) Does the anticipated "gain" in jobs at a new hotel include the loss of jobs in the other hotels, due to market saturation?
I don't know, but I'd suggest the Marx and Hotels in the middle of nowhere (carrier circle) may be negatively impacted in the short term. In the long term, downtown, a rising tide lifts all boats for the entire region. Carrier circle may be another matter, and that may be a good thing from a economic development perspective.

That Bass Pro shop things is a big risk. Even if their design was chosen, there is a good chance Bass Pro would not ever get on-board.

I think that's why the city unexpectedly released the proposals.

COR had the best proposal by far. They knew the decision would be unanimous for COR, and wanted it to be clear that the decision was clear and obvious.

Relationships, donations, or not...this proposal was clearly the winner by a local developer with a proven track record of completed and high quality projects. (Go visit Towne Center in Fayetteville.)

"To clear this up"?

Sorry. No. You may believe what you say, but that does not make it so. Your comment is an insult to your readers and implies they are stupid. It's quite clear to your readers that Newport is using you as a pawn in this fight, and you are happy to (ignorantly?) play the part. Verizon does not want to use you like that (this time), so you come off one-sided.

Your organization is coming across as a thin cover (and bullhorn) for the Newport PR department. If Newport gets their way, it means higher bills for cable TV customers. It seems from comments here that Verizon Fios TV customers are smart enough to understand the larger situation, which may be exactly why they chose Fios in the first place...being fed up with higher prices from TWC and others...who DID sign this deal with WSYR.

Have you read the comments here? I don't care about if you publish the view from the Verizon PR department. I don't think other readers care either from the sound of things. That's NOT the story.

People are fed up, and in this case, Verizon is on the side of their customers. That's the the story here...not the PR dribble from either side. You don't get that, which is clear from how this whole story has been covered.

I should also add that the FCC REQUIRES Fios to carry WSYR...unless WSYR demands payment. This is 100% a Newport/WSYR choice.

Bob - With all due respect, it's actually quite interesting to compare the Post Standard coverage, which seems to 100% blame verizon, with the comments here. For once, the posts here are of a very high quality, and almost 100% present a view which the Post Standard has not given any credibility to.

The real problem here is the business model no longer works. (Similar to the newspaper business, which may fog your objectivity.)

I was shocked at the "screw WSYR" consensus that was coming out here. Consumers are fed up with the ever increasing cable-tv rates, and for once, have other options. I did not expect Fios subscribers to overwhelmingly support Verizon in this fight, but it seems they do.

Now, I'm not objective either...I dropped cable TV 5 years ago, when I could no longer justify the HUGE bill compared to the value our family was actually getting. We got a DVR with an antenna and do RedBox a lot. We'll probably sign up for NetFlix eventually...and would in an instant if we could get an on demand high quality newscast.

google "how to make a tv antenna"

There is a good reason only Spint allowed this. It's because T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon are trying to launch a competitor to this where they get a cut of all transactions.

This is not a hardware limitation. This is industry standard hardware in the rest of the world. There is no reason a number of services like this can't co-exist...other than a carrier decision to block all competitive software from running in an effort to grab 100% of the market for themselves.

I read the article, but I also read other news sources. The is 100% a Verizon decision, and Verizon has stated such.

"For once, Verizon didn't block this from happening, it was Google that did it because of the exclusive deal between Sprint and Google."

Not true. Verizon has issued a statement confirming they are the ones not allowing it. The ZD Net is reference is terribly misleading. This feature is enabled on the version of the phone already released outside the US...Verizon won't allow it because it's competition in a new market Verizon wants a monopoly over.

This is a clear example of why the mobile market is broken in the US. In many other world markets, the competitive pressures don't allow carriers to strip functionality out of handsets to artificially protect their own interests.

"Walsh said the city will not sell it for less than its appraised value."

The current building is a liability...not an asset. It has a value of less than zero. If they are serious about a good renovation and are credible, sell to them for $1.

I must say, as a Town of Manlius tax payer, I'm quite happy with the level of plowing service. It's one reason our taxes are so high, but I appreciate the quality of service and am happy to pay for it.

You've not been paying attention to the history of this project. Fixing what we have is no longer an option. The safe usage life of the physical steal and concrete is almost up. At this point, "repair" means tear the whole thing down and start from scratch, but even so, the current traffic flow does not meet modern traffic pattern safety standards.

I don't consider myself an artist, but I'm delighted my suggestion (out of 900) was highlighted and quoted in this article.

Joe Galuski has shows starting at 5am, and ends his day 13 hours later, 5 days a week. I'm thinking this either is not done yet, and/or maybe Jim walked out.

Whether you like Jim's show or not, one thing is quite clear. This is the end of high quality local news/events coverage. When the city refuses to purchase cop cars, where else can I hear the chief talk about the issue for 15 minutes, followed by the mayor for 15 minutes. Where else can I personally hear about local events like Jazz fest directly from the guy in charge of it? Where else can I hear directly from the head of OCC? The county executive? The list goes on.

Jim's show has given the region a voice, which may never exist in this area ever again.

Not true. Read again. "Professional and business services was the big gainer. There were 3,800 more jobs in those services last month than in September 2011 — a gain of 11.5 percent."

Also, I'd argue that in this flat world, manufacturing jobs are not wealth producing. Manufacturing is a global commodity and, in all but the edge cases, not the point in the value chain where wealth is created.

Couple years back I had 17 in my back yard at once.

BTW - they like to eat grass seed from freshly planted sections of lawn.

Why should my taxes pay for your tax receiver? If it's a town position, your town taxes should cover yours, my town taxes should cover mine. Better yet, how about we eliminate both, and just send our check to the same person at the county?

Very happy to see this. I've never been happy with the food selection, and highlighting the local Syracuse favorites is an awesome idea.

How much bigger is the Apple store? I'm sure that'll be one of the first to move in. That place is bursting at the seams.

Last time I was at Carousel, I was shocked to see 6 Apple employees working with customers at tables in the food court, which I quickly learned was because the hallway bench was already full of Apple employees working with customers too. The store was packed. I felt rude trying to squeeze around people to get to the back of the store to find the cable I needed.

I told the clerk they needed a bigger store, and her response made it fairly obvious they have a new space in (or as a result of) the new section, but she was not allowed to say such.

Here we go again. Let the negative comments begin.

From January on this site:
"DeWitt approves $800000 per year tax break for struggling ShoppingTown"

In exchange for the PILOT agreement, they agreed to move forward with the Mall renovation.

Ah yes. I love the look of the dirty crumbling blacktop parking lot across the street from those historic brick buildings.

The people that post here generally have such a negative attitude. That side of downtown needs more hotel rooms, Parkview is fully booked a lot. This should be a very good thing for downtown.

Please stop complaining about the PAYMENT in lieu of taxes. These are taxes that don't exist or get paid today...in one of the highest taxed counties in the country...on a building that does not exists today...with hotel rooms that don't exist today...rooms that will generate hotel room taxes for each guest...for guests who will come from out of town and leave their money here.

GM killed the brand. Saab died the day GM released a Subaru Impreza Wagon with Saab branding, and a poorly disguised Chevy Blazer as a Saab. At the same time, at least to me, the core cars seemed to lose their character and clearly looked like corners were cut to save a few bucks.

Agreed. Pricing killed their business. I bought a bag of chips and soda there once, was shocked by the price, and never went back.

I attended the workshop last evening. From the people I heard talking last night, it seems clear the the current configuration of 81 is VERY broken from a Downtown Syracuse perspective. The traffic flow and exits don't meet the current needs of the city. There seemed to be consensus that the solution needs to look at overall traffic flow downtown, and by doing that, a ground level improved Almond St. could actually handle the traffic better.

The current configuration only works for people that want nothing to do with downtown. There is a large number of people who use the road daily to get in or out of downtown who feel very passionately about how broken the road configuration is today, how much time it the broken-ness costs them every day, and how dangerous it is.

I live in the Fayetteville Fire District. I think this is great, and needs to move forward. I've thought for a while that a town fire service may be best move. From talking to firefighters, the merger of Fayetteville and and Manlius is a no-brainer. They say they already both show up for many call and work together constantly. I've wondering if Kirkville would make sense as well, but had not thought of Pompey.