SYRACUSE — A pandemic-related equipment delay has pushed back the upcoming opening of the Salt City Market, which remains under construction at 484 S. Salina St. in downtown Syracuse. A factory in Texas, which is assembling the equipment, has been operating at 50 percent capacity, which resulted in the delay, Maarten Jacobs, the project’s executive […]
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SYRACUSE — A pandemic-related equipment delay has pushed back the upcoming opening of the Salt City Market, which remains under construction at 484 S. Salina St. in downtown Syracuse.
A factory in Texas, which is assembling the equipment, has been operating at 50 percent capacity, which resulted in the delay, Maarten Jacobs, the project’s executive director, tells CNYBJ in an Oct. 27 email.
“As a result, we are about six weeks behind,” he adds.
Jacobs also serves as director of community prosperity with the Allyn Family Foundation, which has offices in Syracuse and Skaneateles.
Construction effort
The Salt City Market — a $24 million mixed-use project — is a design-build project by Syracuse–based VIP Structures, says Jacobs.
Subcontractors on the project include Raulli & Sons, Inc., which is handling the steel work, and Century Heating & Air Conditioning Inc., which is doing the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning work on the project.
They also include Paragon Environmental Construction of Brewerton, which is handling the sitework and concrete elements; Phoenix Electric of CNY Inc., which is doing the electrical work; and BR Johnson Inc. of DeWitt, which is responsible for the doors on the project, according to Jacobs.
The Salt City Market construction effort continued throughout the state’s pandemic restrictions this past spring. The project qualified as an essential construction project because it includes affordable housing, according to Jacobs.
VIP Structures also partnered with Environmental Design & Research, Landscape Architecture, Engineering, & Environmental Services, D.P.C. of Syracuse, along with New York City–based iCRAVE and Minneapolis, Minnesota–based Snow Kreilich to design the interior food hall and the exterior shell, respectively.
The Allyn Family Foundation is financing the effort, using a line of credit against the foundation’s endowment, according to Jacobs. Once the project is complete, the foundation will shift to permanent financing, he adds.
“We created a separate nonprofit called the Syracuse Urban Partnership to do the project and manage it and to own the building,” says Jacobs.
About the project
The two anchor tenants in the 78,000-square-foot, four-story building are the Syracuse Cooperative Market and Salt City Coffee. Other tenants include food entrepreneurs like SOULutions Sley’s Southern Cuisine, Big in Burma, Firecracker Thai Kitchen, Pie’s The Limit, Cake Bar, Erma’s Island providing “Jamaican dining at its best,” Mamma Hai, and Miss Prissy’s, per the market’s website.
In addition, the tenants include Baghdad, a Middle Eastern restaurant, and Farm Girl / Catalpa Flowers, a micro stall serving cold-pressed juices and smoothies and selling flower bouquets.
In addition to the food merchants, the first floor of the Salt City Market will include a 2,100-square-foot grocery store, as well as a coffee shop that transitions to a bar in the afternoon/evenings.
The Allyn Family Foundation wanted to take an “underutilized or blighted” corner of the downtown area and “revitalize it,” says Jacobs.
The organization saw progress happening in downtown and wanted to be a “connector” between the revitalization of downtown and some of the neighborhoods that “could be poised for revitalization but haven’t been to date,” referencing some neighborhoods along South Salina Street and West Onondaga Street.
“That’s really why we selected that location,” he says.
Besides the food-related tenants, the Salt City Market will also include 26 apartments and space for the Allyn Family Foundation.
“With our apartments, we’ve been really intentional to make sure that there’s affordable units that will always be affordable to lower-income individuals and we’ll also have market-rate apartments as well,” says Jacobs.
The main part of the building is the first floor and the food hall, which is intended to “create wealth-building opportunities primarily for entrepreneurs of color.”
The Salt City Market allows entrepreneurs to start in a small space, test out their business, build it, and decide if that’s what they want to do.
“That’s really the focus of the first floor and just creating a space where people can come together and eat and have a new space in Syracuse,” says Jacobs.
Project origin
The Salt City Market is based on a model built by the Neighborhood Development Center (NDC) located in Minneapolis.
The nonprofit NDC has helped start more than 400 businesses in the Twin Cities region. Many of those business launched in the Midtown Global Market, a large public market owned and managed by NDC.
NDC has “long had a connection to Syracuse” through its partnership with the Upstart program, which CenterState CEO operates. Through that existing relationship, the Allyn Family Foundation teamed up with CenterState CEO and NDC to develop a “similar concept” for the food hall that is under construction in Syracuse.