Walkable Eastwood » vision

Meeting about design for James/Midler corner

Lonnie — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 21:27:56 +0000

Sent in by Babette Baker regarding the development of the southwest corner of James and Midler (where the Sport Center once stood, where Fifi’s Ice Cream is now):

Information Meeting On the Proposed Kinney Drug Store Project

Monday, August 15th -7pm
James St Methodist Church
3027 James St.
Syracuse, NY

Representatives from the Development and Design Team will be present to answer questions.

Babette Baker
Coordinator
TNT/ESG/HPRP
City of Syracuse
Department of Neighborhood and Business Development
(v) 315.448-8173
(c) 315.935-3773
(f) 315.448.8036
bbaker@ci.syracuse.ny.us
www.syracuse.ny.us

It’s very hard, after over 10 years of looking at a pile of rubble at a major intersection in our neighborhood, to project five or ten years down the road and try to imagine what we will have wished we’d done in 2011. We’re desperate for something clean, nice, and shop-able in that spot. And to be frank, given the number of years that have gone by without a solution, I’m not so sure there really is another solution besides another convenience store (Kinney’s). It’s basically a repetition of stores we already have, and apparently we don’t have enough people in this neighborhood who want anything but their medications and the stuff China ships us. I get that.

But, because I just can’t leave a thought unexpressed, I’d like to go back to this pattern of development that has plagued Syracuse and, apparently, still plagues it: pave paradise and put a parking lot. In a walkable community with lots of free parking along the streets (the side streets, anyway, but that’s another can of worms), why would we need the usual sea of asphalt that these convenience stores demand? Perhaps you, dear reader, have seen the Walgreens parking lot filled to capacity, and do let me know if you have, but I have not.

So I’d ask that you re-read this article: Other cities series: historic fabric. Ask yourself if it’s true that there is nothing we can do to preserve the historic fabric – the built history – of James Street. Maybe this design will surprise us. Maybe it will adhere to our overlay district guidelines while leaving existing buildings intact.

I deeply appreciate all the hard work that Mr. Marcoccia has put into the development of this corner. He came to us once with a design – for a gas station – that really did not work for us. And he didn’t put us through the years of hell that we experienced with a certain other developer. Instead, he went back to the drawing board, and for that I am deeply grateful.

I am hoping that this new design will be at least closer to what will benefit Eastwood. And if there’s any way, please let not too much more asphalt mar the fabric of our business district. In ten years, when gas is at $7/gallon and we’re walking a lot more, we might wish we’d kept it after all.

Right rendering, bad news

Lonnie — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 21:15:01 +0000

Maybe memories are short, or eyeglasses in need, but 9WSYR committed an interesting boo-boo in their video about the groundbreaking for the new Ronald McDonald House. You may recall our great gnashing of teeth over the demolition of the beautiful Kingsley-True house. Our Eastwood neighbor, architect Beth Crawford, had done a rendering of the historic yellow house with the PACNY proposed addition off the back as part of the effort to show RMH that they could have their building AND keep the historic home. Alas, that one unexpected deciding vote brought down the house, literally, and Genesee Street lost a part of our built history.

Well, in today’s news video we first see the building that apparently will go up (looks like a Microtel) and then they showed the PACNY proposed site plan. Would that the lovely yellow building with the mansard roof could be our Ronald McDonald House! But no, only the first version (below) is what we’ll get.

Screenshots from the video (scroll down to “Groundbreaking for new Ronald McDonald House 6-9-11″):

The building that will go up

The building we could have had... but won't

Urban myths about Walkable Eastwood

Lonnie — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:31:10 +0000

Written by Maureen Harding, published with her permission:

There are several myths floating out there in Syracuse that somehow mistakenly are taken as “fact” concerning the Walkable Eastwood group of neighbors:

Myth: Redevelopment at the northeast corner of James and Midler (the former location of Steak & Sundae ) is being prevented by the Walkable Eastwood group.

Fact: The owner of the building at that location, Mike Muraco, has a vacant building because he had doubled the former restaurant’s rent. The restaurant owner decided to leave and build his own restaurant on Teall Ave. There were no other tenants even though there was vacant space. After that, Mr. Muraco submitted a request to the Planning Commission to have the building demolished (this falls under the City Zoning Code and NOT the James Street Overlay District). The Planning Commission denied the request because, under the City of Syracuse Zoning Code, you must have a site re-development plan in place before you can demolish. The owner did not have a plan. The owner retaliated against the Planning Commission with a law suit and he lost. The owner has yet to bring a site plan application under the James Street Overlay District standards to the Planning Commission. Therefore, the Walkable Eastwood group is absolutely not at fault since they had no control over what the owner does with his property, including failure to upkeep the property, failure to pay taxes on the property, or failure to lease the property (which would ONLY fall under the guidelines if there was any rehabilitation and new use in the old building).

Myth: The Walkable Eastwood group is responsible for the tattoo parlors, bars, salons, and pawn shops.

Fact: These land uses are permitted as-of-right under the City of Syracuse Zoning Code regardless of the Overlay District Design Standards. Therefore, the Walkable Eastwood group is absolutely powerless over what or who decides to open a business on James Street.

Myth: The Walkable Eastwood group is against development of any kind on James Street.

Fact: There has been one development application for site plan review on James Street that falls under the James Street Overlay District Design Standards (other than those by Mr. Pomphrey of Pomco) who generally complies with the spirit and the intent of the standards), and that is Walgreens (Five Points Development formerly HDL). The developer of Walgreens, Guy Hart, Jr., was on his own schedule and failed to submit a sign plan with his original site plan back in 2005 (the sign plan was NOT approved before). Therefore, the Walkable Eastwood group simply made sure that the design standards were complied with when he did submit his sign plan four years later. The hold-up was entirely self-created by the developer as he requested 11 waivers from the design standards. Had he complied (as Mr. Pomphrey does) he would have been through the process in a matter of weeks (as Mr. Pomphrey is).

Myth: The Walkable Eastwood group is responsible for that “hole in the ground that used to be the Bowling Alley” (the southwest corner of James and Midler).

Fact: The owner of that property, Tino Marcoccia, had worked with the original James Street Overlay District Review Board back in the early 2000 period (prior to the review board being dissolved by the City) on a site plan. The funding for Mr. Marcoccia’s project fell through and he did not return with a site plan. Therefore, he never went through the review process to have it denied or granted. The owner was approached with purchase offers, the owner refused to sell.

The Walkable Eastwood group is simply a grassroots volunteer organization of neighbors who value pedestrian-oriented development. This type of development is what is revitalizing Syracuse’s downtown as well as many other cities and towns in the country. It is 21st century-style development. Unfortunately for Mr. Hart, the Walgreens development was the antithesis of a mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented, traditional neighborhood Main Street design of which the Overlay District Standards require.

Some of the Eastwood residents are willing to settle for less…or are desperate (which is not a requirement under the Eastwood Overlay Design Standards). The Walkable Eastwood group is willing to hold out for something better because it knows that it’s possible to develop something uniquely Eastwood that looks and is cohesive, pleasing to explore, and diverse in its businesses. The group, comprised of people from a wide variety of backgrounds, includes professional urban planners, civil engineers, landscape architects, architects, and college professors who know by their training, education and expertise that the alternative, design centered on automobiles, is no longer acceptable. Auto-centric design is unhealthy, unsustainable and bad for property values. Thus they are protecting their own property values as well as those of their neighbors by using the tools and resources available to them. Nothing more, nothing less.

Other cities series: Buffalo’s Elmwood Village

Lonnie — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:02:49 +0000

Dave and I just got back from a visit to Buffalo, another much-maligned city in upstate New York that has, nevertheless, managed to move forward in its thinking about sustainable urban development. While the addition of one more national chain in Eastwood has caused much furor, Buffalo’s Elmwood Village is just a step or three ahead of us. They’ve lived through the installation of a Kentucky Fried Chicken and its demise. Now take a look at what’s replacing it – photo taken directly from this article in Buffalo Rising:

Looks pretty much like the kind of buildings that used to be built in cities where people walked. There are many reasons for this design choice, and a quick search on “walkable” in your favorite search engine will provide them. But a quick review:

Density (numbers of people living in the buildings above shops) creates walkability – the people want to walk to businesses nearby so businesses get built for them.
Transparency from the street and sidewalk to the interior and also back out creates safety for the same reason the elevators are made of glass in malls: you can see what’s going on outside and people outside can see what’s happening inside.
Natural surveillance from the upper floors where people live 24/7 keeps eyes on the street at just about all hours.
Parking is located in such a way as to make quick getaways difficult, resulting in lower crime rates.

There’s a lot more to it than that, but let’s take a look at one more fascinating aspect of a densely populated urban community: real estate value. Buried in the comments of the above article is something we might want to pay attention to:

If you want to buy anything within .5 mile east or west of Elmwood you will pay through the nose.

Elmwood does not have a lot of the kind of gorgeous buildings we see in Skaneateles, Geneva or Canandaigua. It’s quite similar to Eastwood’s James Street business district, and I’d be willing to bet that it wasn’t all that long ago that it looked much the same, struggling to shift from the downward spiral to becoming the interesting and walkable destination district that makes it the most desirable neighborhood in Buffalo.

Now look at the home values. Two-family homes near this project, similar to the many we have within blocks of James, are going for $160,000 to $206,000 (according to zillow.com). By national standards that’s still wildly inexpensive. But it’s about 25-50% greater than what we have in Eastwood.

How does this kind of good development happen? In part, help from enlightened government. From yesterdays’ Buffalo Business First site (bolding mine):

Plans to demolish a vacant Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet along Elmwood Avenue and replace it with a mixed-use building have cleared another hurdle.

The Erie County Industrial Development Agency’s directors, Monday, unanimously approved an inducement package that will help the development trio of Orchard Park’s Krog Corp., Buffalo architect Karl Frizlen and lawyer Michael Ferdman construct a three story, nearly 20,000-square-foot building at 448 Elmwood Ave.

… The building will house a Coffee Culture outlet on its first floor and upscale apartments on the its second and third floors.

So how do we entice a developer like Krog Corp to build correctly on James and Midler?

All mayoral and Common Council candidates may now weigh in. :-)

They didn’t pave paradise

Lonnie — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:18:52 +0000

Anyone crazy enough to read all these posts knows I grew up in Manlius, so walkability was normal for me. My dear ol’ dad was a member of the Village Board for quite some time and I recall fights back in the ’60′s when he and others were trying to prevent the village from tearing down its historic buildings. For the most part, they were successful. And if you walk around Manlius today, you’ll see that there’s still a “there” there. You’ll know, from the quaintly mid-century Sno-Top to the Swan Pond to the ancient Masonic Temple and the early 19th-century homes near the gazebo, that you are in no other place than Manlius, NY.

They didn’t tear it down. They kept it walkable, despite the pressures of all that oh-so-annoying traffic. They “allowed” old people to grow old right there in the village, unlike Fayetteville, which couldn’t have any of that. There’s a senior center and a senior home in the heart of the village of Manlius. And now they’ve somehow found a developer stupid enough to build according to the village’s stupid plans. Who do they think they are? Another Skaneateles? You know which one I mean, the town so stupid it figured out how to get people to drive for 40 minutes just to take a walk in it.

Sorry, I get worked up. This article in today’s Post-Standard upsets me. The things they say! Look at this (bolding mine):

“In 2008, the village adopted its comprehensive Vision Manlius plan for development. The plan is a set of guidelines for fostering a pedestrian-friendly village with a rural feel, vibrant downtown business core, mixed residential and commercial development, plus parks and natural areas.”

and

“A key, said Dougherty, was to create a project that would encourage foot traffic through it and into the rest of the village. “It is nearly the inverse of how a typical developer would approach this prime site,” said Dougherty.”

and

“Parking would be in the rear and would accommodate more than 350 cars. A new road, called Village Road, would line up with Manlius Mart. It would be closed off to vehicular traffic in the summer for pedestrian flow and to allow the restaurants to open up for outdoor, patio seating.”

So what if traffic doesn’t flow rapidly through Manlius? It doesn’t do that in any town worth living in. That’s because people find it so rewarding to live there, they put up with the inconvenience of having to take just one aspect of their lives a little more slowly (examples: Newport, Boston, all of Europe). If traffic discourages one more developer from turning one more of Pompey’s farmer fields into a mass of McMansions, all the better for Manlius.

Let’s see, then. Eastwood has had its own visionary overlay district guidelines for eight years. It has had development on James Street during that time, and most of it pretty good. It has suffered from a planning commission still subject to pressure from a mayor who has publicly come out against the guidelines. It is mired in a system that that allows developers to toy with (read: divide and try to conquer) the property-tax-paying residents. It is facing the same problems Manlius faces. But oh, what a difference when you have plans in place that will be enforced. Look at the kind of developer you get: one who will do the inverse of what has brought Eastwood to the brink, Butternut to the pit and Salina-Ballantyne over the edge.

Makes it kinda tempting to consider moving back home.

They paved paradise

Lonnie — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:56:25 +0000

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you got till it’s gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
………….From “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell

I’ve been reading a lot about upstate New York lately, in particular Carl Carmer’s books. But I recently got a different kind of book from the library: Dispatches from the Muckdog Gazette: A Mostly Affectionate Account of a Small Town’s Fight to Survive, by Bill Kauffman. The small town: Batavia, NY.

Same view, but now there’s no “there” there:

“Beth is of the opinion, ” says Steve (on p. 162 of Kauffman’s book)… “that with the demolition of downtown Batavia, it lost so much of its character that there was not enough left to hold people, to give them a feeling of community and of belonging.” Anchorless, unmoored, Batavians cast about for any port in a storm.

One paragraph in this book sounds so much like Syracuse in general and Eastwood in particular that I just have to reproduce it here. It is simply a quote by Kauffman of a letter-to-the-editor that Don and Teresa Doran of Batavia wrote:

In reply to why Batavians mock out Batavia instead of being proud and trying to make Batavia big, Batavia is funny. What other town would destroy a possible tourist attraction on a continuous basis? Batavia could have been a tourist attraction with all the wonderful history that this town had, but instead every ounce of history is being destroyed by the great community leaders. Why bother publishing flashbacks from the past? It only shows all of us how stupid Batavia is….Books and articles are published about the history of Batavia. People just laugh at that. They say, “If Batavia cared so much about its history, why did they tear everything down?” Do you have an answer? I don’t! I am disgusted with Batavia’s great plans! They have turned a once beautiful city full of history and industry into a junk city full of modern, no-class buildings and retail stores that benefit no one and they wonder why so many people laugh at Batavia and move away.

Do you remember Wittigs Ice Cream? The building is still there. I’m told they used to make their own corned beef right there, in a special cooker. That and pastrami, too. And they served some very good hamburgers and pistachio ice cream.

Let’s not tear down our built history. This building had a long-time restaurant in it up until just a couple years ago and it conforms to the overlay district guidelines. It has ample parking behind it and it holds the corner. It’s walkable. Anything is possible where there’s vision and a will… and a mayor willing to exercise both of those rare traits.

Making Eastwood look like every other place is not sustainable. It makes money for the few and deprives thousands of residents of a feeling of community. People move away. And property values fall.

Let’s not pave our piece of paradise. It’s all that makes Eastwood unique.

W.E. Co-hosts mayoral candidate forum

Lonnie — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:33:31 +0000

MEET THE CANDIDATES FOR MAYOR OF SYRACUSE

Join the discussion with mayoral candidates focusing on
“HOW DO WE BUILD A SUSTAINABLE, LIVABLE SYRACUSE THROUGH CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT AND PLANNING?”

Wednesday, June 17
6:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.: refreshments
6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.: program

SUNY Oswego Metro Center
Corner of N. Salina and W. Washington Streets MAP

EVERYONE IS WELCOME

CANDIDATES FOR MAYOR – all agreed to attend:
Alfonso Davis, Carmen Harlow, Otis Jennings, Steven Kimatian, Stephanie Miner, Joe Nicoletti

Candidates will be asked to respond briefly to the following three questions, followed by an open forum.

QUESTIONS:
1) A key contributor to making a city sustainable and livable is good urban design and planning. As mayor, what principles and policies will you use to ensure that the city of Syracuse will safeguard and strengthen the elements of good urban design it already has, add more wherever possible and make Syracuse the national model for sustainability?

2) Numerous documents containing plans for sustainable development of all or parts of our city, created by citizen groups or consultants, already exist at City Hall. James Street Overlay District Guidelines and a proposal for a Director of Sustainability are examples. What will you do to recover, implement, and, most of all, enforce, what is still valuable in these documents?

3) Considering any future planning for a sustainable and livable city that might occur during your administration, how will you ensure that Syracuse residents will have ample opportunity to contribute, and that their opportunity to react and give input continues as those plans are carried out and enforced?

Sponsored by
WALKABLE EASTWOOD, GREENING USA,
URBAN DESIGN CENTER, F.O.C.U.S. GREATER SYRACUSE

Common Council meeting re: billboards

Lonnie — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:44:11 +0000

At last night’s planning commission meeting, reference was made to the electronic billboard that sits in Dewitt but “graces” the eastern entrance to Eastwood. It was used in an argument as a precedent for allowing the LED sign at Walgreens. Oh boy. Got that slippery-slope slidey feeling?

If you would rather these signs did not grace our city at all, might be a good idea to let the Council know by showing up tonight at the meeting: 5:30 pm in City Hall.

There are actually four of these billboards around. They contribute to visual clutter, they are light pollutants, and they are distracting to drivers who are already talking on the cell phone, eating a McFood-item and trying to get the kids to behave. At this rate, we won’t be requiring people to actually pay attention to the road, cars or pedestrians!

From Lance Denno, 5th District Councilor:

The Lamar “trial” electronic billboards are located at:

I-690 Westbound nr Teall Av
James St, Westbound nr the City Line (Friendly’s Ice Cream)
E Brighton Ave, nr Ainsley Dr
West Genesee St at Erie Blvd West (Eastbound)

The proposed changes to the sign regulations are complex, but among other things they would prohibit most “animated” signs, and the Electronic Billboards (EBBs) would only be allowed to change the ad copy every 8 seconds. Even so, I am concerned that the reason that these bright, changing, electronic billboards are effective advertising tools is because they attract your attention.

The federal gov’t has studies that clearly indicate that any “eyes off the road forward” for two seconds more than doubles the probability of an accident. They are currently conducting a study specifically designed to see whether EBBs cause drivers attention to stray in the vicinity of these billboards. The study will be completed this year, and the results will be published next year. There is at least one study that finds a direct correlation between an electronic sign and accidents, and several industry reports urge state and local governments to await the findings of this new study.

Although the current moratorium has expired, I am urging that we not permit any new billboards until the test results are known. If a company invests millions of dollars in a big new EBB that the city has authorized, and then we find out that they double the chance of an auto accident, what will we do?

On Wednesday May 6 the Post Standard published an editorial also urging caution. You can read it at http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2009/05/digital_danger_syracuse_should.html

As I look into this I find more and more problems. Next Monday, as most of you know, there is a Planning Commission meeting at 6 pm. One item is the “monument” sign for Walgreens. The next item on the agenda is a zoning change request from Lamar. They want the City to change the zoning on a parcel at 117 Butternut (Veteran’s Fastener, on 81 North) to make legal a billboard that has been there illegally for many years.

The city has won several court decisions on this case, Lamar does not have a permit for the sign, the zoning does not allow for a billboard. But it is still there, Lamar still makes money off of it. You can see it currently displaying a liquor ad. What you can’t see are the American and POW/MIA flags that are now obscured by the billboard.

I am concerned that the city needs to create an effective enforcement mechanism before authorizing any more billboards. Many of the billboards in Syracuse do not have current valid permits.

The Onondaga County Planning Board has recommended that the Lamar zoning request be denied at 117 Butternut, and added to its statement this comment:

“The City is encouraged to uphold its sign ordinance.”

I hope to see a full house at the Monday Planning Commission (6pm) meeting and at the Tuesday Common Council meeting (5:30).

Enough said.

Lance Denno
5th District Councilor

What kind of signage do WE want?

Lonnie — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:15:11 +0000

Although we were assured in 2005 that there would be no scrolling LED sign at the Walgreens that now graces the gateway to our “village,” this type of sign is likely to rear its ugly head again. If you care about what kind of “look and feel” our traditional village streetscape has, you may want to attend the public hearing (details below).

Following is one of the more benign Walgreens designs. We can already see the metal “awnings” on the building, and windows that are not transparent to the interior. Does this design blend well with the Palace, Pomco’s recent improvements, or the facades of the two independent bookstores we have?

View from James Street looking east:

View from Grant Blvd. looking toward James St.:

Any one of the following Walgreens signs could be your gateway to Eastwood. Which one works best with the character of the street?
(Use your browser’s “back” button to return here.)

View 1 … View 2 … View 3 … View 4 … View 5

View 6 … View 7 … View 8 … View 9

This is where you want to be if you’re concerned about what they’re proposing:

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, that a public hearing will be held Tuesday, March 17, 2009, at 6:00 p.m. in the Common Council Chambers, City Hall, Syracuse, New York to consider in full or in part the following applications:

7) Application No. AS-08-33, for a Sign Waiver of area, type, and number, on property situated at 2327 James Street, owned by Five Point Development Grant, zoned Local Business, Class A, pursuant to Part C, Section X, of the City of Syracuse Zoning Rules and Regulations, as amended.

NOTE that this is on a Tuesday, not the usual Monday meeting.

The James Street Overlay District Guidelines, which are a part of the Syracuse Comprehensive Plan (both available on the home page of this website) states the following about signs:

g. Signs:
(1) Each business shall be permitted to have one wall or projecting sign on each façade facing a street. The maximum area of each sign (including both faces of a projecting sign) shall be one (1) square foot for each linear foot of the façade width. No signs shall be permitted on facades not facing a street. Projecting signs shall have a minimum clearance above finished grade of at least seven (7) feet and shall project no more than six (6) feet beyond the face of the building. Ground signs and signs above the first floor shall not be permitted. Animated signs and roof signs shall be prohibited and shall not be subject to review as Exceptions. All illuminated signs shall be turned off when the businesses being identified are closed.

When the public shows up at planning commission meetings, they can have an effect on the outcome. If you own property or pay rent in Eastwood, your voice is especially vital at this time.

Whatever is decided about Walgreens will set a precedent for the corner of James and Midler.

Later addition to post:

Councilor for District 5 Lance Denno would like us to know the following:

I will be attending the Planning Commission Public Hearing on Tuesday, 17th. It is, as Lonnie says, best to have plenty of warm bodies there. But if anyone wants to submit a statement and is not able to attend, I would be willing to take those statements with me and submit them for the record – reading as many as time permits.

All statements must include the writer’s name and address. They may be submitted to me at ldenno@ci.syracuse.ny.us

Lance Denno, District Councilor

Human-scaled Walgreens sign

Note to planning commission: You are not alone. Schenectady is also facing precisely the same issues.

January 8, 2009

SCHENECTADY — The Board of Zoning Appeals stuck to its guns Wednesday night and rejected the Walgreens application as virtually identical to the State Street plan it had previously denied.

“What’s different about this plan?” asked BZA Chairman James Gleason.

The board voted 5-0, with two members absent, to require Walgreens to file a new application if it wants to try again.

The pharmacy has been waging a war against the city’s new comprehensive plan for almost a year now, in hopes of getting the city to waive its new rules that ban suburban-style designs. The city’s new comprehensive plan calls for a pedestrian-friendly city, with buildings placed near the sidewalk, parking lots behind buildings and far fewer drive-throughs.

MORE

“Make where you are how you want it to be.”

Lonnie — Thu, 03 May 2007 21:33:31 +0000

One of my favorite people is Rick Destito, the owner of the building that originally housed the Brown-Lipe Gear Company on the corner of Geddes and W. Fayette. There are few I know in Syracuse who are so relentlessly upbeat and downright visionary about the potential for this city. And he puts his money where his mouth is. He bought a building folks had given up on and is turning it into art studios and work/live space. People who can envision something better, no matter where and on what scale, have a much better chance of bringing it about than those who can do nothing but whine about how terrible things are now and how much better it was back before they were born.

Kate Clark, Rick Destito
Kate is the public arts coordinator for the city.

Rick was recently interviewed by the Syracuse New Times and had this to say:

“I left the area to go look for that perfect area,” Destito said, “and then after three years I realized I actually like it here and I like the area and it’s more gratifying to make where you are how you want it to be instead of looking for it somewhere else.”

Rick envisions an entire district for creative endeavors stretching from Syracuse University’s The Warehouse to his building a few blocks away. If you want to see what is going to be here, take a look at his website, Vibrant Syracuse Spaces. It’s already happening.

In fact, much is already happening under the surface right here in Eastwood. There is a newly-formed Chamber of Commerce. There are plans brewing to fill empty shop spaces. And as we already know, there’s excellent coffee brewing at both ends of the James Street business district and some great food in the middle. Sunnycrest Park was attracting over 200 people per weekend over the winter, and it offers even more to do in the summer. There are folks working on everything from planters to festivals to public art.

Do you have ideas about what you’d like to see in Eastwood? Want to be involved in the already-occurring renewal of Eastwood? Drop me a line or join the Walkable Eastwood email group. There are fun things to be doing and creating all over the neighborhood. What do you want to see in Eastwood?