BFC Partners JV Lines Up $270M for Syracuse Redevelopment
The existing community will undergo a mix of demolition and renovation.
BFC Partners and SAA Canopy Group have closed on $269 million in financing to redevelop Parkside Commons, a housing community on the East Side of Syracuse, N.Y. The project will deliver a total of 393 affordable apartments via renovation and new construction, while opening additional land for future development.
Backing the $269 million project is a financing package from New York State Homes and Community Renewal, the state’s affordable housing agency. The package also includes federal and state Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, expected to raise $88 million and $13.6 million, respectively.
The Urban Investment Group at Goldman Sachs is providing a $116 million construction loan for the project. Other sources of funding include interim project income generated during construction, and interest earnings on tax-exempt bond proceeds.
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The property currently consists of 10 buildings on Westmoreland and East Fayette Streets. The partners will simultaneously renovate six of those buildings and construct two new ones, which will provide enough space to relocate every current resident of the four oldest structures on the site. The existing structures will then be demolished.
The site of the razed buildings will be used for additional housing in a later development phase, according to BFC Partners and SAA Canopy, which are currently working with city planners and community members on options for the site. Plans will be finalized once construction on the current phase is underway. Groundbreaking is slated to take place next month.
Renovations to the 200 units of the six western buildings will be completed by early 2028. The two new structures, four and five stories tall and totaling 193 units respectively, will be ready for occupancy by late 2028.
Conversions in the Syracuse region
Redevelopment has been a tool in recent years to facilitate affordable housing construction and retention in the Syracuse region, which like much of the nation has been chronically short on affordable housing.
In June, work started on 261 apartments for low- and moderate-income residents at the former Syracuse Developmental Center site, Syracuse.com reports. Demolition of the 600,000-square-foot SDC site was completed last year.
In 2024, Liberty Affordable Housing undertook a $67 million rehabilitation of Olbiston Apartments, a 153-unit affordable community in Utica, NY. Liberty purchased the 126-year-old property in 2021, after the city had shut it down for gross negligence.
That same year, the Rome Housing Authority, along with Beacon Communities Development, completed the rehabilitation of Colonial II Apartments, a 74-unit affordable housing community for seniors and people with disabilities in Rome, NY.
