Syracuse's East Adams neighborhood has a second construction site going.
Work has started on The Simmons, a $100 million, 125-unit affordable senior public housing building developed by McCormack Baron Salazar and the Syracuse Housing Authority, Gov. Kathy Hochul's office announced after a Sept. 29 groundbreaking. It's the second phase of the East Adams Neighborhood Transformation Plan.
The four-story building is going up on a vacant site just south of downtown that used to be a parking lot for SUNY Upstate Medical Hospital. It's close to Syracuse University, public transit, restaurants and a pharmacy.
The building is named for William J. Simmons, the housing authority's recently retired executive director.
Who it's for and how it's paid for
Apartments are reserved for residents 62 and older. Priority goes to seniors relocating from Pioneer Homes, which is slated for demolition and redevelopment, followed by former residents of McKinney Manor, which was torn down in 2025. Remaining units will be open to other housing authority seniors. All 125 apartments will be affordable to households earning up to 60% of area median income, and all are backed by Section 8 project-based vouchers.
Financing includes federal and state low-income housing tax credits expected to generate more than $45 million in equity, plus $36 million in state housing subsidy. The site is in the state Department of Environmental Conservation's Brownfield Cleanup Program and, once finished, would be eligible for $11 million in brownfield tax credits.
The building will be all-electric, with geothermal heat pumps and energy-efficient appliances. Amenities include a community room, library, fitness center, outdoor seating, walking paths and terraces. Eight units will be built for residents with mobility disabilities and three for residents with sensory disabilities.
Neither the state nor WRVO named a general contractor for the job.
A neighborhood being rebuilt
The East Adams plan, led by the housing authority, aims to build or preserve about 1,500 homes at several authority properties while the state removes the elevated I-81 viaduct, which split the old 15th Ward when it was built. The first phase, also under construction, will replace McKinney Manor with 117 affordable homes.
At the groundbreaking, state housing commissioner RuthAnne Visnauskas said the effort will eventually replace more than 1,000 obsolete public housing units, WRVO reported. That figure counts replacement units, while the 1,500 figure is the plan's total homes built or preserved.
"Projects like this are exactly the kind that we want to be doing community by community," Visnauskas said, so seniors can "stay and live independently and comfortably in neighborhoods that they lived for a very long time."
Hochul, who didn't attend the ceremony, said the phase "builds on the promise we made to this important Syracuse neighborhood — to reverse decades of injustice, replace aging public housing, reconnect a community to its city."
Vince Bennett, president and CEO of St. Louis-based McCormack Baron Salazar, said Phase 2 is about "ensuring longtime residents can remain part of this community as it grows and changes."
Jalyn Clifford, the housing authority's acting executive director, said the project is "another step toward delivering on the commitments we made to our residents."
Syracuse Mayor Sharon Owens said "signs of growth and progress are everywhere," and U.S. Rep. John Mannion said he secured $850,000 in federal Community Project Funding to help the housing authority move the broader East Adams plan forward.
Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon called The Simmons "a statement of our priorities as a community," adding that the county has "put unprecedented resources into housing" and is "not slowing down."
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said the phase will let seniors with mobility and accessibility needs "age comfortably in the community they call home."
Why it matters for Contractors
East Adams is one of the biggest housing pipelines in Central New York, and it's tied to the state's I-81 viaduct removal. With two phases under way and Pioneer Homes slated for demolition and redevelopment later, there's work coming for demolition, environmental remediation, site and utility contractors, then for the vertical trades. The geothermal heat pump system on The Simmons means drilling, mechanical and HVAC contractors with ground-source experience have an edge. Public housing and tax credit jobs come with paperwork and compliance requirements, so contractors who want a piece of the next phases should get to know the housing authority and its development partner now.