Syracuse Landmark Preservation Board Meeting - August 27, 2026
Syracuse Landmark Preservation Board Meeting - August 27, 2026
The Syracuse Landmark Preservation Board met on August 27, 2026, to consider a major site plan review for the rehabilitation of 301 South Salina Street (the former Woolworth building, now a Dollar General) within the South Salina Street Downtown Historic District. The board also approved previous meeting minutes, discussed future training schedules, and adjourned.
Discussion Items
- Minutes Approval: The board unanimously approved the minutes from the August 6, 2026 meeting, with no changes.
- Major Site Plan Review – 301 South Salina Street (Project #2026-38): Jim Niddle presented the project scope, which includes rehabilitation of the building and rooftop construction. The building is a contributing feature in the National Register-listed South Salina Street Downtown Historic District. Key points:
- The project aims to create 60 residential units (the transcript also mentions a question about squeezing in 75 units, but the official proposal is 60 units).
- The fourth floor addition and rooftop elements will be designed to be as minimally visible as possible, with a beige/terracotta color scheme.
- Existing historic windows (steel casements) will be replaced with matching aluminum casements, retaining the original configuration and transoms.
- The corner tower will be preserved and restored; the exact condition of the underlying structure is unknown but cautiously optimistic.
- An overhead door and car elevator are planned for the Bank Street alley side.
- Board members expressed support for the project, noting the corner's long neglect and the building's prominence. Comments focused on window details, the corner tower, and color matching.
- Future Board Training Schedule: Staff outlined upcoming training sessions, including an October walking tour led by Bob, a November/December history of Syracuse's preservation program, a January 2027 primer on reading plans and elevations (taught by a PhD candidate from ESF), and two sessions by the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions on legal basics/meeting procedures and design guidelines/new materials. The sessions will be held on Thursday mornings.
Key Outcomes
- Approval of Major Site Plan Review: The board voted affirmatively to approve the project at 301 South Salina Street, with no formal opposition recorded. The motion carried.
- Adjournment: The board voted unanimously to adjourn the meeting.
Meeting Transcript
We we need one more. Okay. Sorry, you can continue to eight thirty. It is eight thirty. So what we're waiting on Sir Bob. It's still August. Right. I thought he was missing both meetings in August. Let's see who this is. She has resigned. All right. There's a tea time waiting on you right now, Bob. You want to sit over here so you can see the screen? Okay. Good morning, everybody. This is the Syracuse Landmark Preservation Board meeting of August the twenty-seventh, two thousand and twenty-six. Present at today's meeting are all Robert Searing. Jeff Romano. Hillary Donahue. And Kate Oweter. Excuse for Howard and Howard and Kyle. Kyle. Okay, thank you. Uh can I get a motion to accept the minutes of August the sixth? Do I have a second? Any changes to the minutes, modifications. Hearing none, all in favor of accepting the minutes as submitted. Hi. Hi. Nay. Motion carries. Can we we can launch straight into major uh this is a major site plan review uh twenty twenty-six thirty-eight. It is for three oh one South Salina Street, the former Woolworth building, then the right A building, and now a dollar general. Anyway, uh it is uh real uh the project scope includes rehabilitation of the building as well as rooftop construction. Um and it is part at a contributing feature within the National Register listed South Salina Street Downtown Historic District. And Jim Niddle is here to tell us. So we really don't know what's under there. So we're cautiously optimistic that there'll be something to salvage. And if it has been totally destroyed, then we'll have to go back and propose something new today. Most of it's in pretty good shape, but there is some areas where we see it kind of pulling away. So we're gonna have similar issues here. Um the others have to do with the tenant improvements, anything we do on the first floor with those open tenant spaces, they we'll have to do amendments as well. Um and then there's some uh just a couple comments on the second and third floor about some of the the upper floors were you know the third floor was a warehouse. So it's just concrete, there's nothing up there. Um and we're gonna expose the structure and leave the concrete floors and second floor, there's some glazed tile on the walls, and we're saving those areas, and they just want to make sure we do that. Um and then the fourth floor uh addition and the roof, they they just want to their j their condition is that we're not um it won't be any more visible than what we've represented to them. Okay. And the color, they're just looking for um some beige kind of colors to match. Um these are just some more and samples. We're not quite sure.
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