Downtown Syracuse, NY is undergoing an urban renaissance with ...

Downtown Syracuse, NY is undergoing an urban renaissance with historic buildings being converted for residential
and mixed‐uses. Downtown was one of the only growing neighborhoods in the City of Syracuse in the 2010 U.S.
Census and while other communities were losing population, downtown added 700 residents. The residential
population in downtown Syracuse is now 2,700. Additionally, several new LEED certified buildings have been
constructed in downtown Syracuse (the first new constructions since 1990,) leading to an influx of new office
tenants moving into downtown from suburban locations. The CEO’s of these organizations understand that in
order to attract talent, they need to locate their business in a vibrant environment that will appeal to their
targeted workforce. Many times, these same employees want to live in this environment.
The Downtown Living Tour is a community marketing event organized by the Downtown Committee of Syracuse
(a BID) to promote the urban lifestyle. The goals of the event are:
• To increase interest in living downtown by highlighting residences that are at varying levels of affordability
and located throughout the downtown neighborhoods
• Bring awareness to the importance of historic preservation
• Promote development of residential housing in downtown, increasing the population base to provide a
permanent market for retail and service businesses that the community would like to attract
• Create a pipeline of interested parties, ensuring continued demand exists for the housing under
development
• Create a forum to draw attention to downtown’s revitalization
The Downtown Living Tour has become an annual event that provides an opportunity to show visitors why
downtown Syracuse is the neighborhood of choice to live, and for this past year’s 5 th anniversary event, also
locate a business.
A major component of the Downtown Committee’s 2001 strategic plan was to encourage residential uses
wherever possible in order to increase the downtown population. The Downtown Committee works with
developers and property owners to convert underutilized buildings into mixed uses, oftentimes incorporating
housing on the upper floors. In 2006, six historic structures came online, offering 89 new apartments for rent.
That same year, the Onondaga Citizen’s League, a non‐profit organization that promotes education and
involvement in public affairs, finished its report which highlighted the importance of re‐investing in the downtown
district. The Downtown Committee seized the opportunity to showcase the momentum and partnering with the
Onondaga Citizens League to release its downtown report, organized the first Downtown Living Tour. The Tour
was incredibly popular, attracting over 1,000 tourists.
Each year the Tour has grown and highlights ten to twelve different buildings throughout the downtown district
showcasing a broad range of living environments including upscale condos, artist live/work space and apartments
still under construction. The residential units featured change each year to keep the Tour fresh and show a
variety of living environments that convey the message that downtown’s housing can suit anyone’s taste. The
Downtown Committee encourages downtown businesses to provide specials on the day of the event so that
visitors can get a true taste of the downtown lifestyle by visiting the restaurants and shops. The Downtown
Committee works with the Post Standard, Central NY’s newspaper, to create a special twenty‐page insert that is
mailed to the Post’s entire circulation of 276,000 household’s days before the event. The twenty‐page Tour Guide
highlights each building, providing the building’s history and information on the residential units being featured.
The Guide contains articles throughout that feature elements of the downtown environment, whether it’s
highlighting retail or cultural attractions or interviews with existing residents. Downtown businesses are also
encouraged to advertise in this Guide.
The Tour is self guided and Tourists are encouraged to walk to each stop, however, shuttle buses running a special
tour route are available. The event costs approximately $20,000 to produce. Sponsorships from local businesses
are secured to fund the event, with the primary expense being marketing. Marketing for the event includes print
and radio advertising, appearances on all of the news stations, targeted post card mailings, flyers in downtown
Downtown Committee of Syracuse Achievement Award Entry 2011

usinesses, emails and social media. Tickets are purchased (for $10 to $12) to take the Tour. Any profits from the
event are used to diversify the Downtown Committee’s revenue stream and support additional programming not
covered through the special assessment.
Downtown housing is at 99% occupancy, so units being featured are often occupied units. In order to protect the
residences, the Downtown Committee works with 130 volunteers from the community to watch over the
homeowners’ belongings. For buildings where there is a unit available, the developer of the project will be on
hand speaking with tourists. We have found tourists enjoy the one‐on‐one interactions with the developers and
are able to learn more about downtown development. The Downtown Committee has found that this event
attracts people from the suburbs and surrounding communities who do not typically venture into Downtown
Syracuse. Ages range from young professionals to empty nesters and individuals in a variety of career levels. The
developers who have participated in the event tell us that this is one of the most important events for downtown
Syracuse in terms of promoting the urban lifestyle and ensuring continued demand for the housing that is being
constructed. The event has been extremely positive at conveying the amount of development taking place and
the quality and character of housing available as tourists are able to explore buildings that would otherwise not
be accessible to them. The Tour provides an opportunity to see what is inside these historic buildings.
The 2011 Tour was the fifth anniversary. In honor of this special event, The Tour was diversified from its
traditional housing focus to include five workspaces, five residential buildings and to appeal to the tourists
interested in architecture, an historic tour of one of downtown’s most spectacular Cathedrals. Downtown’s
newest and most unique workspaces were included in an effort to encourage individuals to not only think about
downtown as a place to live, but also as a place to locate a business.
Each workspace that was featured was staffed by employees of that organization who provided guided tours.
This event far exceeded expectations by attracting over 1,900 individuals. Several leases were signed at this event
and visitors were impressed by the buildings featured on the Tour. We were told this was the best Tour yet and
the “green” buildings featured were spectacular. The companies that participated were also thrilled at the
response they received by opening their doors to the public and highlighting the work that each company does.
To show diversity of office tenants that call downtown home, engineering, architectural, marketing,
entrepreneurial and non‐profit offices were highlighted. The goal was to highlight the type of working
environment downtown employees enjoy, setting downtown apart from the suburbs.
We learned that incorporating workspaces with guided tours was successful. Tourists enjoyed the opportunity to
learn about green investments and meet with company representatives and developers. The one item that
becomes more difficult each year is the ability to secure the volunteers needed to make this event run
successfully. In the future, we will move more towards each building owner providing more staff to oversee
residential units rather than have the Downtown Committee secure all of the volunteers for the event.
Downtown Committee of Syracuse Achievement Award Entry 2011