Syracuse University announced to city officials Aug. 28 that it would pledge $2 million in state grants to create an ‘interactive streetscape’ along the Connective Corridor, a cultural strip connecting downtown Syracuse with University Hill. The initiative will bring new landscaping, lighting, outdoor furniture and active space to the outside of the Symphony Place development downtown.

The ‘interactive streetscape’ project, which will be developed on East Onondaga Street between Warren and Salina Streets, will be a test for new materials and designs that officials want to use on the corridor, said Marilyn Higgins, vice president of community engagement and economic development on campus.

A design firm called Upstate within the SU’s School of Architecture is working with the engineering firm Barton & Loguidice to create the project. Amenities include accent street lighting, multi-leveled clustered plantings and landscaping elements, outdoor furnishing and a possible motion-sensor water feature that will interact with the public at the street-level.

‘What we’re hoping is to have a fountain that reacts to motion, light (and) human presence,’ Higgins said.

Joe Sisko, the senior designer of Upstate, prefers the name ‘water feature’ rather than ‘fountain’ because of the way it will function with its environment.

‘It’s important that it’s not a fountain because a fountain typically has a base and an edge that you can’t go into,’ said Sisko. ‘The way we’re thinking of the water feature is very much an active space. You interact with it; you play with it. It becomes lighted at night, so it’s something that’s very much about activity and imagery and intrigue … It’s not sort of this off-limits element.’

Sisko said the water feature, which will also be programmed for different music, will be inactive during the weekend. This way, it doesn’t turn into a ‘collection of leaves and garbage that fountains usually become during the late fall and early winter.’

Julia Czerniak, director of Upstate and an associate professor in the School of Architecture, calls the water feature the ‘signature element’ of the project. The official Web site for Symphony Place, also known as Symphony Place at Hotel Syracuse Square, labels the area on East Onondaga Street as a mix of condominium, hotel, rental and retail space that will commemorate the historical Hotel Syracuse.

‘Here’s a place where they’re trying to attract residents back into the city,’ Higgins said. ‘It’s a perfect spot to create new landscape design.’

Czerniak said Upstate has several ambitions for the Symphony Place project, including making it stand out so it can be recognized as part of the Connective Corridor, using green technology and using elements that could serve multiple functions. Czerniak gave the example of objects that could be used as seats during the day and become a lighted line of cubes during the night.

Eric Persons, the director of engagement initiatives at SU, said the incorporation of street lighting and outside furniture surrounding Symphony Place will ‘create a backyard environment opposed to what exists right now.’

He added that improvements to the street will ‘really invite people to be part of the urban environment.’

Sophomore Adam Davidson, a student at the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, said he believes an increase of lighting and retail in the city would make it more appealing.

‘It might make (downtown) more interesting if there were more stores down there and more lighting, ’cause that way it’d be easier to get around at night and during the winter,’ Davidson said.

SU plans to fund the ‘interactive streetscape’ through state grants that are coming to the university for the Connective Corridor. Higgins said that the state grants total up to $20 million.

‘SU is applying for the grants, lobbying for the money (and) managing (the grants), but it is state money,’ Higgins said.

Not everyone is excited about the ‘interactive streetscape.’

Anna Santayana, a junior psychology major, questioned SU’s decision to use $2 million in state grants to fund the project.

‘Why do they want students to be so interactive in downtown Syracuse in the first place?’ Santayana said. ‘I mean, I guess it’s cool to be a part of the city and stuff, but that much money is a lot. I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do.’

But Higgins said more than 300 SU students, including those at the SOA, are involved in projects that are part of the corridor.

‘The visual and performing arts students are engaged now in the sculpture park in Franklin Park,’ Higgins said. ‘All of these projects are becoming part of a curriculum for various schools across the corridor.’

The involvement of students in the corridor would give freshman Kristen Le, an interior design major, a reason to go downtown so she could see what her fellow students create.

‘Since I’m involved in the art department, I’ll probably want to check it out, especially if I know someone who’s involved with it,’ Le said.

Persons said the ‘interactive streetscape’ part of the Connective Corridor would tie in with the rest of the work the city and university want accomplished between downtown and SU.

‘We want to bring all these investments together, and I think that’s very important,’ he said.

Other work on the corridor may come in the form of added transportation, but this last type may require a helmet.

‘I think we’re going to get bike lanes through the Connective Corridor, which the students really want,’ Higgins said.

Easier methods of transportation would make Le’s trip around town easier. She believes the current transit system can sometimes be a time-consuming hassle.

‘I think if it was just easier to get (downtown),’ Le said, ‘I would go there more often.’

mcboren@syr.edu

Published on September 15, 2008 at 12:00 pm