Syracuse mayor wants former Central High School building available for future development

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner plans to ask the Syracuse City School District board of education to decommission the former Syracuse Central High School as a school building.

She wants to make the structure available for future development.

The facility, which Miner said is sometimes called the Greystone Building, first opened in 1903 and served as a school until 1975.

It’s located on the southeast corner of South Warren and East Adams Streets in Syracuse.

Miner noted the structure in her State of the City address, which she delivered last Thursday night at the Marriott Syracuse Downtown, the former Hotel Syracuse.

In her remarks, Miner mentioned the former school building and its proximity to the “rejuvenated Hotel Syracuse” at 100 East Onondaga St. and the Centro bus hub at 599 S. Salina St., which she described as a “constant hive of activity.”

Miner would like to see the building have a “chance at a new future that might forge connections between downtown and the Southside.”

“In the coming weeks, I will be asking the board of education to decommission the building as a school, after which the City can commence a process to challenge the development community to come to the table with creative new ways to bring Greystone back into productive use,” Miner said.

In her remarks, Miner also noted that efforts to revive the building in the 1980s “proved unsuccessful,” and said cost estimates to reopen the building as a school exceed $60 million.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com