Salina 1st project is under way with site remediation

SYRACUSE — The early work on the Salina 1st project, south of downtown Syracuse at 1081 S. Salina St., has focused on site remediation. 

Crews have been involved in site work and remediation because the property is a brownfield, Gail Montplaisir, a real-estate developer from Washington, D.C., working with Taurus Development Group, tells CNYBJ in an Aug. 19 phone interview.

The work involves moving soils to where they’re needed and removing soils from the site, which have to be tested because they’re contaminated.

“As part of the DEC program of which we’re a part, they get tested and then they get taken to a particular landfill that is already equipped to accept polluted soils.,” says Montplaisir.

DEC is the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. 

During the week of Aug. 22, crews were scheduled to install the infrastructure for the stormwater-management system.

“For a project like this, there’s quite a large stormwater-management containment facility and that will be under the parking lot,” says Montplaisir.

Crews then attached various pipes to that big tank, which will eventually take the stormwater out to different areas and out to public services.

She anticipates vertical construction will begin either late this year or the beginning of next year once all the site work concludes. Construction on the Salina 1st project is scheduled to be completed by 2024.

Montplaisir was among those who spoke at a June 2 event to mark the start of the construction process. Besides Montplaisir, Emanuel Henderson of JHP Industrial Supply Co. and Eli Smith of E. Smith Contractors are spearheading the Salina 1st project. 

The partners describe Salina 1st as a “catalytic,” mixed use, community development project. The 52,000-square-foot facility will include residential, retail, light industrial, and incubator/shared-office space.

E. Smith Contractors of Syracuse and Taurus Renovation & Construction are overseeing the construction effort.

Salina 1st is the first all minority-led commercial development in the history of Syracuse, per a June 2 news release about the project. With an estimated investment of more than $10 million, the Salina 1st project seeks to “embrace, not displace” neighborhood residents and aims to “hire within the community.”

“We were one of the first projects to kind of stake our flag on the south side and say we’re going to move this forward and since then we’ve seen a lot more interest in the south side as well as a lot more development of project and some really big ones, which is great, so that can’t help but encourage the revitalization,” Montplaisir tells CNYBJ. “We’re really, really pleased to be a part of that.”