SYRACUSE — A project to renovate the Symphony Tower that started in 2007 and included a lengthy legal battle is heading toward completion. It’s a $17.4 million mixed-use project in the 15-story building at 111-113 E. Onondaga St. that remains in progress. Symphony Tower, situated on the corner of East Onondaga Street and South Salina […]
SYRACUSE — A project to renovate the Symphony Tower that started in 2007 and included a lengthy legal battle is heading toward completion.
It’s a $17.4 million mixed-use project in the 15-story building at 111-113 E. Onondaga St. that remains in progress.
Symphony Tower, situated on the corner of East Onondaga Street and South Salina Street, formerly served as an annex to the Hotel Syracuse (now the Marriott Syracuse Downtown), when it was built in the 1980s.
“We’re finishing the building as it was originally contemplated as an apartment building with 76 one- and two-bedroom apartments,” Gary Thurston, CEO of the Hayner Hoyt Corporation, tells CNYBJ in an Aug. 30 phone interview.
Thurston anticipates having apartments ready for rent on Dec. 1.
The first and second floors will include rental space for retail outlets or offices. The first floor will also have a recreational area and a pickle ball court, Thurston says. Floors 3 through 15 will have apartments.
The first floor will also include All About Me Childcare Center, which plans to relocate to the building, according to Thurston. It currently operates at 422 W. Onondaga St. in Syracuse, per its website.
The structure will eventually be known as Symphony Place under Thurston’s ownership entity called Symphony Tower, LLC, he notes.
Hayner Hoyt is the contractor and construction manager on the project, while Holmes King Kallquist & Associates, Architects of Syracuse is the design firm on the project.
Project history
Hayner Hoyt’s work at Symphony Tower started back in 2007. As Thurston explains it, his firm was working for a developer from Israel.
Personnel from Hayner Hoyt worked on the project in 2007 and through the fall of 2008 after the developer stopped paying the Syracuse firm a few months earlier, says Thurston.
What followed was a seven-year legal battle with the original lender, an Israeli financial firm, until 2015 when the two sides reached a settlement.
He also tells CNYBJ that a few years earlier, Hayner won an early legal battle and bought the property in 2012 at a foreclosure sale. But the litigation continued, calling the purchase into question. In September 2015, Hayner Hoyt and the Israeli financier reached an agreement that involved Hayner Hoyt paying a fee in exchange for the clear title and an end to the ongoing the legal challenges.
In the agreement, Hayner Hoyt “basically bought them out,” according to Thurston.
“So, in 2015, we finally got clear title to the building,” he says.
At that same time, Hayner Hoyt was finishing up work on renovations to the former Hotel Syracuse, what is now the Marriott Syracuse Downtown.
Thurston went on to say that Hayner Hoyt considered a suggestion to renovate the building into an extended-stay hotel, signing a franchise agreement with Hyatt. However, the project got delayed. As time passed, the pandemic became an issue and it “shut down any financing of hotels,” according to Thurston.
A few years ago, Hayner Hoyt decided to return the original plan to renovate the structure for one- and two-bedroom apartments, he adds.
