Five design teams from across the country will compete for the chance to redesign Wyoming Street on the Near Westside as part of “Movement on Main: Designing the Healthy Main Street,” funded in part by the Syracuse University School of Architecture’s UPSTATE program.

The winning teams were selected out of 13 submissions Dec. 19 to compete in the final round of the competition. In addition to SU’s UPSTATE:  A Center for Design, Research and Real Estate program, the Educational Foundation for America and the Near Westside Initiative are funding the project, said Marc Norman, director of UPSTATE. SU invested in the project as part of Chancellor Nancy Cantor’s downtown initiatives and the school’s community involvement, Norman said.

Maarten Jacobs, director of Near Westside Initiative, said the cost of the project is estimated at about $3.5 million.

The competition, developed last spring, invited landscape architecture firms to submit proposals for designs of a streetscape that would inspire the Syracuse community to get physically active, said Julia Czerniak, professional adviser of the competition and professor of architecture. Czerniak said she hopes it will “get the community to think about the relationship between public health and public space.”

Each firm received $15,000 and has eight weeks to create its final draft of a design that should draw on innovative ways to visually communicate motion and stimulate physical activities within the community. The firm with the winning design will be selected in April and construction could begin sometime in 2014, Czerniak said.

The five-block stretch of Wyoming Street was selected for the site of the Movement on Main project because the surrounding neighborhood has been the site of recent redevelopment and public programs, Czerniak said. ProLiteracy, Hillside Children’s Center and the Lincoln Supply Warehouse, which houses the Say Yes to Education office and the La Casita Cultural Center Project, currently have their headquarters in the Wyoming Street neighborhood.

When the competition opened to architecture firms last spring, it received design submissions from across the country and some international locations. Out of the submissions, three firms were selected: Coen + Partners, Inc., of Minneapolis, Minn.; Stoss Landscape Urbanism of Boston with Howeler + Yoon Architecture, LLP., Nitsch Engineering, Inc. and Angie Cradock, Sc. D; and King and King Architects of Syracuse with Urban Movement Design and the Alchemical Nursery.

Two firms, Marpillero Pollak Architects of New York City and Peg Office of Landscape + Architecture of Philadelphia with Sp(a)de Architecture and Barton & Loguidice, P.C. Engineering, were previously selected for the competition.

The 12-member jury included SU professors and administrators, residents and city planners. Jacobs, who is a member of the jury, said while reviewing the final proposals from the firms he will be looking for, “a design that understands the current neighborhood and the people that live there.” He said he hopes the selected design for the streetscape will turn Wyoming Street into “a street that encourages people to walk, run and be healthier in their daily life through fun and engaging interventions.”

Published on February 4, 2013 at 1:46 am

Contact Heather: hgrounds@syr.edu