Could Syracuse Be A New Tech City? Gentrification?

[Ronald Starusnak]

Syracuse has been on the down slope or non-moving for quite some time and while I don't expect much appreciation on the majority of properties located within the actual City of Syracuse, I do think that the surrounding areas and potentially some neighborhoods within the city have excellent potential. It is all but confirmed that Amazon is building a massive distribution center in Upstate NY / Liverpool / Clay, NY / area. 

The facility is to be over 1,000,000.00 sq/ft. In addition to the Amazon facility, Microsoft is to open a "Smart Cities" hub in Syracuse, the 3rd in the nation. These Hubs are aimed at developing uses for new technology & assisting tech start ups. Could Syracuse become a hub itself for the tech industry? The Syracuse area already brings the Rochester tech community, Syracuse University, Upstate Medical (which is currently expanding), Syracuse University, Cornell, Morrisville, etc and the city is right at the cross roads of I-90 and I-81. 

[Colin L.]

new tech city?  probably not.  I went to school at SU and lived there for about 7 years and have family in the area, and I see/hear of good things happening such as people fixing up old houses, developers fixing up the old downtown buildings, there is an ongoing process to update zoning citywide which should help facilitate growth, syracuse land bank is faciliting redevelopment and removing blight, etc.  It also sounds like the powers that be are leaning towards removing 81 from downtown which in my opinion is the right choice and will unlock a lot of downtown's potential.  I'm excited to see where things go from here.