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SU Campus Framework includes renovations to Carrier Dome, Archbold Gym, plans for veterans center

Syracuse University's Campus Framework is a 20-year road map of major construction projects affecting the university area. University officials said there are currently more than 200 active construction projects on campus.

Those projects include everything from adding bells to Crouse College’s bell tower, to the removal of PCBs and asbestos from a building adjacent to the Waverly parking lot, which should come down this fall making way for the National Veterans Resource Complex.

Pete Sala is in charge of overseeing the Campus Framework, which he called a living, breathing document, subject to change. Syracuse University is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to renovate the campus. At a question-and-answer session giving updates on the framework, Sean Conrey of the English Department told Sala his biggest concern was how the campus plans to plug into the community at large.

“It’s entirely possible to go to a school like Syracuse without really ever meeting anybody who lives off-campus," Conrey said. "I think you do a disservice to your students if they’re going through four years of school and not really engaging with the community and not taking chances outside of the classroom in terms of implementing the ideas they’re learning."

Sala said Syracuse University can only do so much in terms of influencing what happens to properties the university does not own but are close to campus. The university opposed a 17-story student apartment building in the area which was proposed by a private developer but then later withdrawn.

While the university has not taken an official stance on what should happen with Interstate-81 through downtown Syracuse, Sala said the direction it seems to be heading in is favorable to opening the west side of campus up to the rest of the city.

The other big renovations being planned are to the Archbold Gymnasium and the Carrier Dome. The Dome is expected to get a new roof, air conditioning and disability enhancements.

Sala said while he would like to see all of the freshmen and sophomores living on the north campus, he said Syracuse Common Councilors worry the university will take students away from the Westcott and Euclid neighborhoods, where students rent apartments and homes.   

The university recently completed its promenade project on University Place. More improvements will also be made to  classrooms and bus stops.

Tom Magnarelli is a reporter covering the central New York and Syracuse area. He joined WRVO as a freelance reporter in 2012 while a student at Syracuse University and was hired full time in 2015. He has reported extensively on politics, education, arts and culture and other issues around central New York.