SYRACUSE — A Washington, D.C.–based development firm plans to convert the building at 101 South Salina St. to a residential facility and will build about 120 apartments. M&T Bank, which owned and operated a branch inside the building, sold the structure to Douglas Development for $7,155,000 and the transaction closed earlier this year. The bank […]
SYRACUSE — A Washington, D.C.–based development firm plans to convert the building at 101 South Salina St. to a residential facility and will build about 120 apartments.
M&T Bank, which owned and operated a branch inside the building, sold the structure to Douglas Development for $7,155,000 and the transaction closed earlier this year.
The bank completed the sale after relocating to a different office space two blocks away at 250 S. Clinton St. in Syracuse.
Norman Jemal, managing principal at Douglas Development, explained to CNYBJ why his company found the property attractive.
“It’s not any one thing. It’s the location. It’s the fact that it has a 500-car parking garage; the aesthetic and quality of the building,” says Jemal, who spoke with CNYBJ on Aug. 13.
Jemal also noted how Douglas Development learned of the property’s availability.
“A fellow [we’ve known] for many, many years was marketing it and he sent it to us and we were interested,” he says.
That individual was John Clark, who had represented M&T Bank in the sale of the building. He had notified Douglas Development of its availability.
Besides Clark, Joyce Mawhinney MacKnight of Cushman & Wakefield/Pyramid Brokerage Company also represented M&T Bank in the sale.
The demolition work on the project was expected to begin by about mid-September. Jemal said in the interview.
The building’s shell will remain and Douglas Development will perform interior demolition, ripping out offices in order to build apartments. Jemal figures the work will finish in late 2022.
Douglas Development has yet to determine which contractors will handle the project. Antunovich Associates of Chicago handled the design work.
“We have the flexibility of doing retail or office on the first floor and then we also will be offering the old bank hall, which is absolutely magnificent, as event space,” says Jemal.
The property, with its original tower built in 1896, grew over the years to more than 120,000-square-feet of office and retail space, per a June 24 news release about the sale from Cushman & Wakefield / Pyramid Brokerage Company.
