Camillus Mills names leasing agent, wins initial approval on historic-registration application

CAMILLUS, N.Y. — Camillus Mills announced it has named the Pyramid Brokerage Company of DeWitt as the project’s exclusive leasing agent.

At the same time, the project also announced that its application for historic-registration placement with the both the state and federal governments has secured part one approval.

Skaneateles–based Sweet Spot Development is spearheading the Camillus Mills project that is redeveloping the former headquarters of the Camillus Cutlery Company into a medical-wellness facility.

Sweet Spot Development made both announcements in a news release distributed on Wednesday.

Pyramid’s leasing team sees the project as filling an important need in the western suburbs of Central New York and contends the project has a “distinct” business advantage and will attract “savvy” medical groups, Sweet Spot said in the release.

Camillus Mills in January announced that it had signed agreements with two Syracuse–based medical practices to become ground-floor tenants in the project. Sweet Spot Development didn’t name the tenants in its Wednesday news release.

The project is now seeking additional interested medical groups for occupancy in the medical-project partnership. Camillus Mills is offering lease incentives, including up to $200,000 in tenant allowances, Sweet Spot Development said.

Any tenant involved in the project may be part of a facility with an historic designation.

Both the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation and the National Park Service, which is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, are reviewing the Camillus Mills application for inclusion in New York’s and the federal government’s historic registers.

The state and national registers of historic places are the “official lists of buildings, structures, districts, objects, and sites significant in the history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture of New York and the nation.” That’s according to the website of the state Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation.

Following the part one approval, the Camillus Mills application now advances to the final stage, seeking a part two approval. 

If also secured, Tom Blair, Sweet Spot’s Camillus Mills project manager, believes the project will then have “very few, if any, development hurdles to leap over” to get the project under construction, beyond leasing space, according to the news release.

 “We have now successfully had the project entered into a voluntary brownfield-cleanup program, have acquired several grants to help offset site clean-up and building costs, and look forward to the property receiving the recognition it deserves as a historic site that helped influence the Camillus area, and played an important role in the lives of so many people in Central New York and their families,” Blair said in the Sweet Spot Development news release.

A February 2013 fire damaged the Camillus Mills site. Crews eventually razed the vacant buildings on the more than four acre property.

At the same time, the more than 43,000-square-foot office building, which had served as the Camillus Cutlery’s headquarters until the company went out of business in 2007, remained standing.

The building is now scheduled for “extensive” renovations and upgrades, Sweet Spot said.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com