[street level | public realm]

[image taken from developer's website]

Armory Square, as everyone is well aware, is a neighborhood full of lively sidewalk life where people are encouraged to wander the streets -- absorbing the vibrancy and culture through all five senses. Nothing contributes to this more than the density of buildings in the area, and more specifically the places in which one interacts with on the street level. These places of interaction take many forms -- restaurants, retail stores, galleries, seating areas, active lobbies... the list can go on. The point is, these are spaces in which anybody can come and go, lingering for as long as they'd like.

The new and nearly-completed Jefferson Clinton Commons, just south-east of the Armory, has caught everyone's attention with the prospect of extending some of the square's vibrancy around to the "far side" of the oval. Look at all that ground floor space, just screaming for the passer-by to be enticed in by the what lies just behind the near-full-height glass. The prominent end of the building has three street frontages -- a perfect anchor space for, say, a small grocery or a trendy new clothing store. As the building pulls away from the curve of the street to the west, the wider space seems to be tailor-made for a future restaurant's outdoor seating. The balconies to the apartments above add just enough activity to the upper floors to catch one's eye and draw them nearer to the excitement below.

Unfortunately, as the story has since unfolded, the pedestrians who are drawn over by the people shooting the breeze or reading on their balconies will only find a series of ground floor windows that are merely allowing the office dwellers within to see the lack of street life immediately outside. In a rather bittersweet move, a well respected marketing firm is taking over the entire ground floor of the building. Although it will surely be exciting to have the creativity of the firm and its employees constantly engaging with Armory Square, it's rather tragic that they chose to take over the street level of a building that could have housed a good handfull of diverse public-oriented businesses. There are a few buildings less than a block away that have completely vacant upper floors could have been the perfect space for an office such as this. Instead, I worry, they're probably going to put up blinds to gain the privacy usually associated with upper floors, privatize the patio area, and become very introverted... effectively leaving the ground floor with nothing to look at or interact with. I really want them to prove me wrong.

As Armory Square continues to expand and densify, drawing in more housing and businesses, there will be ever more people engaged in the street level activity. It's too bad they will be faced with these pocket "dead zones" that they will have to quickly pass by to get to the next thing... if they even have a reason to pass by at all [the Sibley's building, the Atrium garage, and the pinkish radio station/offices on Walton are some other nearby examples of this]. I hope the new building going up just to the north of A.S. lures in some good ground floor tenants to draw some of the activity in that direction. How great would that be to have an active, pedestrian-filled Franklin Street connecting Armory to the Dinosaur, and even beyond to Franklin Square and Little Italy? The potential is growing... lets hope that the developers can follow through and make it really happen.

[attitude adjustment]

An observation... that I think will surprise many people:

Over the course of the last year, my firm has been fortunate enough to continue growing despite the economic downturn. Nearly two dozen talented people have moved to the city of Syracuse from all over the country -- west cost, south, midwest, new england -- to take a job at this firm and call Syracuse their new home. They range in age from eager recent gradutates, to experienced and storied professionals. They've settled in a geographically diverse cross-section of the city; interestingly, all but two or three chose to live within the city limits and a substantial proportion of this group found downtown apartments to call home. This may be surprising to some, but its something we've all been made aware of, whether through our own observation or through stories in the news: People want to live in the city. People want to have a short commute to their jobs and places of recreation. People want other people around.

And this isn't even the surprising point I'm referring to. This merely adds more backing to the claim that there is far more demand for downtown and urban housing that there is supply in Syracuse... although housing really is a topic for another day. What long-time Syracusans may find odd or amazing, is what these new residents think about their newly adopted home.

Every one of the new transplants -- I'm pretty sure across the board -- loves the city and the CNY region. They love the convenince of the area, the natural beauty, the affordability, and are awed by the amazing building stock we have downtown [most of them are architects and designers, so are very aware of their built surroundings]. These expressions of admiration and enjoyment apparently boggle many locals' minds, since the local response is often something like "why the hell would you move here?" or "haven't you heard about our winters? you're not going to survive." This boggles my mind -- here are intelligent, creative new people, excited to be living in our city, and we immediately start telling them they've apparently made a horrible decision in coming here? Aren't these the very people that we're trying to attract back to the region?

People need an attitude adjustment. They need to open their eyes and see all that Syracuse has to offer, just as these new residents are doing. They need to realize they are all diplomats for the city -- attracting new residents adds life and vitality to Syracuse, so new arrivals should be embraced, not discouraged. Some people actually like it here. And many more people love it.