Feedback sought on four plans for proposed project linking SU and downtown.

Monday, August 28, 2006
By Nancy Buczek
Staff writer

Syracuse University today will unveil design concepts by four teams for the Syracuse Connective Corridor.

And the university wants to know what you think of them.

The teams were selected as finalists for their ideas for the proposed project that is to link SU and downtown with a pedestrian walkway and bus route. Exhibitions of their ideas will be displayed at five downtown spots, including the National Grid building on Erie Boulevard and the Everson Museum of Art this month and next.

Time Warner Cable, a corridor project sponsor, will provide interactive kiosks at these sites to allow people to submit comments about the designs.

“We wanted people to give us feedback, but we wanted it to be people that have actually seen this,” said Charles Merrihew, an associate vice president in SU’s Office of Institutional Advancement.

The idea is not necessarily for people to vote on which design they like, but instead which concepts and elements they like or dislike within the designs, Merrihew said.

Lead designers for each team will present their plans during a public symposium Sept. 21 at the Everson. A time hasn’t been set.

“Usually you get to see one vision, and you get to say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ This is more, ‘Which do you think is most aligned with what this is about, what do you think would work here?’ ” Merrihew said.

The four finalist teams chosen out of 10 are led by architectural firms Deborah Berke and Partners; Field Operations; the Rockwell Group; and Sasaki Associates. Each team includes architects, urban planners, civil engineers and other design professionals.

To avoid favoritism, the designs will not be identified by team, Merrihew said. An eight-person committee selected by Syracuse Mayor Matt Driscoll and Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor will recommend a finalist to Driscoll and Cantor.

The feedback provided through the kiosks will be given to the finalist to be incorporated into the final design.

The corridor will highlight Syracuse’s arts institutions, entertainment venues and public spaces. Bus service along the

route will be free to people commuting between cultural venues, shops, hotels and SU. It also will serve as a way for SU to get its students from campus to its Warehouse building on the edge of Armory Square.

SU plans to announce soon that buses will begin traveling the Connective Corridor route on select dates in the next couple of weeks, Merrihew said.

“The idea will be that we will run it on days that we know there is going to be activity either downtown or on campus,” he said.

SU and city officials hope to have the design competition complete and a finalist selected “as early in the fall as possible.” Driscoll makes the final selection because the city is spending the federal dollars authorized for the project, Merrihew said.

SU and the city are working on the project together because federal guidelines require that the $13.6 million that Rep. James Walsh and U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton secured for the project be released to a municipality, Merrihew said. The Syracuse Common Council will have to approve any contract before it can be finalized with a team, Merrihew said.

National Grid has committed $1 million to the project, and Time Warner plans to be involved in the project by providing services such as security or wireless Internet access.

Nancy Buczek can be reached at nbuczek@syracuse.com or 470-2173.