High-tech walls go up on Marcellus Street “green” house

Taken From The Post-Standard.  Article by Marie Morelli

SubCat Music Studios in harmony with new neighbor, the Red House

Taken From The Post-Standard.  Written by Rick Moriarty on November 14, 2009

A commercial building in Armory Square will soon see new life as a cafe, a music recording studio and a place for artists to stay while performing at the Red House Arts Center next door.

SubCat Music Studios will relocate from Skaneateles and occupy most of the first floor and cellar level of 219 S. West St. when a recently launched renovation of the three-story building is completed in late spring or early summer, said Kristen Brandt, who speaks for the project.

Founded in Skaneateles in 2002, SubCat has expanded its studio services to include CD duplication and album art design and needs the extra space that the Armory Square building will provide, Brandt said. The studio is owned by three audio engineers — Ron Keck, Derek Yackel and Jeremy Johnston.

A glass-enclosed, one-story addition to the rear of the building will house a cafe that will offer a small menu of coffees, wines, beer, appetizers and snacks. It will be open to the public and double as a lounge where artists and patrons can mingle , she said.

“It will complement Red House shows,” Brandt said. “People can come here after a show and maybe listen to talks by the artists.”

Scott Allyn, a physician and a musician, owns the building and is heading up the project.

Allyn, a member of the Red House board of directors, has applied to the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency for a sales tax exemption on construction materials.

His application estimates the cost of the project at $3.1 million, city officials said. The agency will hold a public hearing Tuesday.

The project also is eligible for state Empire Zone property tax exemptions.

Red House Art Radio, an Internet radio station launched in May and temporarily housed at the arts center, will also occupy the cellar.

The second floor will become available for rental as musical or dance rehearsal space or for business meetings or cocktail receptions.

Part of the second floor will house music and performing arts classroom space under development by 219 South West LLC, the company Allyn has created to own and operate the building.

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Syracuse ceramic studio has big assignment: Fixing up the NYC subway

By Dick Case of the Post Standard

Bob Shenfeld is settling into his new ceramics studio on West Fayette Street. It looks like a go, after six months.

The dusty, one-story brick building used to be home to a company that made countertops. It’s next door to his former studio on the top floor of the ex-Porter Cable Co. redo and definitely in the neighborhood west of downtown where Syracuse University wants to grow an artists’ colony.

Bob’s already there.

He has a national reputation as the producer of what he calls “very particular work” from a studio that’s big enough to do major things but small enough to do them creatively. He has a contract to repair or replace decorative terra cotta tiles in several New York City subway stations. He also produces bathroom and kitchen tiles for architects and designers as well as custom bricks and tiles and glass for Stickley Audi Co.

Bob does this with a crew of six full-time workers and an equal number of part-timers. A few of the staff are immigrants from Nepal. He works with Tom Millar, the project manager, and Paula Burke, a sculptor. It’s a busy place.

Bob says he’s a workaholic, who is “obsessed by challenges” in ceramics. He taught art for 26 years at Corcoran High School before retiring (his mother, Doris, and great grandfather also were city teachers) and has been consumed with the subway project the last two years. Bob was recommended for the contract by folks at the Everson Museum and works directly with a contractor hired by the New York City Transit Authority.

The authority claims seven million riders a day in a system that was started in 1900. “They wanted to make subway stations art galleries,” Bob explains.

Most of the studio’s work involves either repair or replacing sections of station walls and friezes with pieces that are as close to the originals as workers can get them. Bob’s production has to pass the muster of conservators employed by the transit authority and the contractors. “I go to New York usually once a week,” he says. “Sometimes I’m holding up our work against a wall to see if it matches.”

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HUD secretary tours two Syracuse neighborhoods

By Maureen Nolan / The Post-Standard
October 23, 2009, 4:15PM

Federal Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan got a tour today of Syracuse’s Near West and North sides at the request of U.S. Senator Charles Schumer and Congressman Dan Maffei last Friday.

Schumer, standing in front of a formerly vacant, newly renovated house on Marcellus Street, said he wanted Donovan to see first hand the challenges and promise of Syracuse and its neighborhoods. The Near Westside is marred by vacant and abandoned properties, but also are the targets of housing rehabilitation efforts. The Marcellus Street home was redone under the umbrella of the Near Westside Initiative.

Schumer was stumping for The Community Regeneration, Sustainability, and Innovation Act, which he announced in April at the corner of Marcellus and Wyoming streets. The bill has been introduced in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

If it passes, Schumer said, it could mean money to fight Syracuse’s plague of vacant houses, develop green infrastructure and create a comprehensive strategy to fight blight. The city has nearly 1,600 vacant properties.

Schumer said the legislation would create a three-year, $300 million demonstration project and he and Maffei would make sure Syracuse gets selected for it.

Urban Arts and Crafts debut in Syracuse

By: News 10 Web Staff

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A new event brought alternative arts and crafts to Syracuse on Saturday. The first ever Salt City Urban Art and Craft Market was held at the Case Supply Building on Wyoming Street.

The market showcased 40 local artists who offered unique handmade pieces including everything from jewelry to clothing. Both of the market’s organizers have previously lived in New York City and wanted to bring a bit of that urban edge to Central New York.

“We really wanted it to have an urban edge. So part of the downtown feel was really to really make it kind of a little bit grittier, that’s why we are having it in a warehouse. And we are having some interesting music choices today. We really looked for things that were different,” said Vanessa Rose, co-organizer.

One of the organizers plans to open a store so the “market” can be open all year long.

Construction of three “green” homes begins on Syracuse’s Near West Side

By Marie Morelli / The Post-Standard

Syracuse, NY —  Ground was broken Wednesday for three innovative “green” houses that will be built on Syracuse’s Near West Side.

They are the winners of a sustainable design competition sponsored by the Syracuse University School of Architecture, Home HeadQuarters Inc. and the Syracuse Center of Excellence.

The houses are to be built at 617 Otisco St., 619 Otisco St. and 317 Marcellus St. Foundation work on the Marcellus Street house already has begun. All three houses are scheduled to be completed by the spring, said Mary Kate O’Brien, speaking for the School of Architecture.

A sale is pending on one of the homes before it’s even built.

Among those present Wednesday were Mark Robbins, architecture school dean; Edward Bogucz, Center of Excellence executive director; Kerry Quaglia, executive director of Home HeadQuarters; Marilyn Higgins, SU’s vice president of community engagement and economic development; and architects who worked on two of the winning designs, Rick Cook and Jared Della Valle.

• The houses are part of the Syracuse Art, Life, Technology (SALT) District, a creative community to foster economic development on the Near West Side. This story explains what the SALT District is all about.
• Architect Rick Cook spoke Sept. 17 in Syracuse at the Healthy Buildings conference sponsored by the Center of Excellence.

2 Minute Video Posted on the SALT DISTRICT! Check it out!

Near West Side SALT District Project

Syracuse’s Near West Side neighborhood looks for future in SALT

Taken from the Post Standard. 
Article written by Pam Lundborg on October 18th, 2009

Five years ago, some of the area’s remaining neighbors met at St. Lucy’s Church, on Gifford Street. They asked what has become a $44 million question: Isn’t this area — with its proximity to downtown and the Delavan Art Gallery building housing about 60 artist studios — primed for an Armory Square-like renaissance?

“This culture is burbling up,” said Beth Eischen, a clothing and accessories artist who runs Lilipad Creations, in the Delavan building. “There’s fashion, art and local productions being done.”

Prominent community leaders agreed.

Three years ago, The Gifford Foundation established a new nonprofit: The Near West Side Initiative. It partnered with Syracuse University, Home HeadQuarters Inc., the City of Syracuse, the Syracuse Center of Excellence, National Grid and residents.

Twenty six businesses and organizations have since joined the initiative, and the momentum is growing. So far, $24 million has been invested in a plan to rehabilitate the neighborhood. Plans to secure another $20 million are in the works.

This struggling section of Syracuse has been renamed “The S.A.L.T. (Syracuse Art Life Technology) District.” The plan is to focus on rehabilitating dilapidated buildings and creating an environmentally friendly neighborhood. The goal is to court artists to come to the neighborhood by offering housing and work space incentives so that the largely vacant section of the city can become an artists’ quarter, said Maarten Jacobs, director of the Near West Side Initiative.

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Construction to begin on innovative green homes in Near Westside neighborhood

A groundbreaking ceremony will be held on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 12:30 p.m. at 626 Otisco Street for the three houses that won the “From the Ground Up: Innovative Green Homes” international design competition in January 2009, sponsored by the Syracuse University School of Architecture, Home HeadQuarters, Inc., and the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems.

Developed for vacant infill sites on Syracuse’s Near Westside, these residences will provide a new vision for one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods and demonstrate the value of design, incorporating the most advanced thinking about design, sustainability, and cost-effective building practices for the single-family house. The three winning firms—ARO and Della Valle Bernheimer, New York; Cook + Fox / Terrapin Bright Green, New York and Washington, D.C.; and Onion Flats, Philadelphia—are leaders in the field of sustainable design. These houses wed high standards of living with advanced technology, providing a range of design approaches to encourage revitalization of the Near Westside and neighborhoods in postindustrial cities across the nation.

Construction of the three “From the Ground Up” houses is planned for completion in late spring 2010.