SYRACUSE — The Allyn Family Foundation says the renovation work inside the Chimes Building at 500 S. Salina St. in Syracuse will continue through the first quarter of 2026. That’s according to Meg O’Connell, executive director of the foundation, who spoke with CNYBJ in an Aug. 23 telephone interview. “We have been approved by the […]
SYRACUSE — The Allyn Family Foundation says the renovation work inside the Chimes Building at 500 S. Salina St. in Syracuse will continue through the first quarter of 2026.
That’s according to Meg O’Connell, executive director of the foundation, who spoke with CNYBJ in an Aug. 23 telephone interview.
“We have been approved by the City of Syracuse for our [demolition] permit and we are hopefully going to commence the beginning part of the construction on or around Sept. 15,” O’Connell said that August day.
The Hayner Hoyt Corporation of Syracuse will handle the renovation work, and in-ARCHITECTS of Syracuse is completing the design work for the project.
Plans call for renovating the Chimes Building into 152 mixed-income units with additional retail and office space on the first and second floors.
Besides the internal renovation work, those on the outside will eventually see the masonry repair on the building’s exterior and window replacements as well, O’Connell says.
The 152,000-square-foot structure has 12 floors. The Chimes Building is listed on the
National Registry of Historic Buildings.
The project cost is about $48 million, says O’Connell, a figure that includes the building-purchase price. The Allyn Family Foundation, which is made up of members of the Allyn family, awarded a grant of $8.2 million to a nonprofit it set up called SEED Syracuse that handled the purchase. SEED is short for Social Equity Economic Development. The building purchase closed in July 2023.
As of July 2024, all the residential tenants, more than 30, had moved out after finding new apartments. The structure still has some commercial tenants that will remain in operation for the duration of the renovation project.
“There are some [residential tenants] who would very much like to come back … We did say if they wanted to come back when we were all done, let us know,” says O’Connell. “We will give them some preference to come back if they’d like to.”
A few of those residents moved over to the newly renovated Symphony Tower, she adds.
On the second floor of the Chimes Building, the Allyn Family Foundation hopes to find a nonprofit partner who might want to lease up to 3,000 square feet of office space. The first floor will have some commercial spaces available as the structure extends along West Onondaga Street, including the former Time Warner Cable space.
“We have been talking already with people … We have an LOI [letter of intent] with the CNY Film Hub to take up some of the space eventually and then we’ve just had other conversations with other potential tenants,” says O’Connell.
The foundation will also be partnering with Access CNY, committing up to 15 apartments to be available for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The 152,000-square-foot Chimes Building opened at the southwest corner of South Salina and West Onondaga Streets in 1929, becoming one of Syracuse’s “most prominent” office buildings, per the website of the Allyn Family Foundation. The structure was designed by Shreve, Lamb and Harmon architects, the same New York City firm that designed the Empire State Building two years later, the website says.
