Rock City Development looks to lift Little Falls community

LITTLE FALLS — From housing to future leaders, Rock City Development is going all in on Little Falls, investing in the community to build its future. Rock City Development said it was formed in 2018 as a partnership between local business leaders, vested in the community, who envisioned a management company that would acquire, develop, and grow complementary businesses in the Little Falls area. That includes operating a number of businesses in the community, as well as several housing projects in the works or planned for the near future. The notable Stone Mill building near the Erie Canal was one of the first acquisitions that Rock City Development made, recalls Neil Rosenbaum, company president. The first floor of the building is home to a UPS Store, also owned by Rock City, along with Mangia Macrina’s Wood Fired Pizza and Just Dance Studio, while Northstar Recycling rents the entire second floor. The Inn at Stone Mill, which offers nine rooms and a conference room, occupies the third floor. Last fall, Rock City held a grand reopening event to unveil The Venue, an event space it opened on the renovated fourth floor of the Stone Mill building. “That was completely vacant,” Rosenbaum says of the space, which also houses Timeless Salon & Brial, Inter Light Transformation Coaching and Craniosacral Therapy with Kelly, Root Cause Wellness, and Tina Maria Interiors. Daneli Partners, the leadership-development arm of Rock City Development, also maintains offices on the fourth floor of the mill building, which was built in 1839 and once served as a textile mill. “We’re having a lot of events in the event center which is bringing people to the area,” Rosenbaum says. “It overlooks the river. It’s just absolutely stunning.” Rock City Development also owns and operates the nearby Canal Side Inn and along with the Little Falls UPS Store, operates UPS locations in Amsterdam, Rome, and a newly opened one in downtown Syracuse. The company also includes Rock City Construction, LLC and landscaping and lawn-maintenance company Rock City Services, LLC. A partnership with Nexamp developed a 2-megawatt community solar project that will provide power for up to 300 homes. “We have a living laboratory,” Rosenbaum says of the various business enterprises. They help the company provide not only jobs but opportunities to build a career as Rosenbaum and his business partner, CEO David Casullo, mentor their employees. The ultimate goal, he says, is for those employees to eventually become owners — either of some of the Rock City subsidiaries or businesses of their own design. Casullo, who grew up in Little Falls, is on a mission to mentor people. “We recall the types of people who impacted us growing up,” he says. Now it’s time to pay it forward to the next generation. Through Daneli Partners, that mentoring is being provided to area residents and businesses, and even to more than 7,000 students through appearances at 19 area schools, he says. “All of this together is really making a difference,” Casullo says. Eventually, the business partners hope to build a leadership institute in the area, providing development education to even more people. Another mission at Rock City Development is providing housing opportunities in Little Falls. It has already developed Overlook Ridge, a single-family home community on the hills overlooking the city and is at work on several other projects. Partnering with Philadelphia–based Pennrose Management Co., Rock City Development plans to transform the M&T Bank building into senior living with 67 one-bedroom apartments — a project included in the city’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative. “There is a large number of elderly in the city that are locked into homes that are too big, too expensive, and in need of major repair,” Rosenbaum says. “There are no quality options for them.” The second project it hopes to develop is a 138-unit apartment building with one-bedroom, two-bedroom, and three-bedroom units on the northwest side of the city. Rock City Development is providing community education on the projects and hopes to move forward with both projects in 2025 — with financing in place by mid-year and construction underway by the end of the year.