Plans for Interstate 81's viaduct through Syracuse were slowed by a lawsuit that made claims about the plans' effects on residents. An I-81 street sign is pictured here. Photo by Michael Greenlar Credit: Mike Greenlar | Central Current

Contractors involved in the state’s Interstate 81 viaduct project denied allegations of racial discrimination levied in a lawsuit by the owner of a Syracuse-based trucking company. 

Larry Stackhouse, the owner of L Stacks Construction Co. LLC, in January accused Salt City Constructors of sidelining his company in favor of non-minority contractors. His lawyers wrote in the complaint that Salt City Constructors used his bid numbers, status as a minority contractor, certifications and local-hire compliance information to win state contracts but did not assign him enough work. 

Salt City Constructors LLC responded to Stackhouse’s allegations on March 4, labeling his allegations a “fraud claim.” They argued that none of the prime contractor’s actions were discriminatory or retaliatory and that actions taken against Stackhouse were made for “good cause.”

In their response to Stackhouse’s complaint, Salt City wrote that Stackhouse was hired for three contracts on the project and paid Stackhouse $490,791. They denied using Stackhouse’s status as a minority-owned business to win bids and denied allegations of wrongdoing. Salt City Constructors’ lawyers did not respond to several calls and emails.

Stackhouse said that he was hired by the contractors in 2024 when the first phase of the project began. His recruitment was part of the mandatory local-hire and minority-owned business participation in the project, he wrote in his lawsuit. 

He anticipated earning a million dollars in revenue after investing $450,000 into his business to buy dump trucks and hire new employees. 

However, he ended up being shunned by Salt City, his lawsuit alleged. Stackhouse’s attorneys did not respond to requests for comment on the filings made by the prime contractor.

The workload he anticipated never came. The contractors only hired one of his three trucks, he wrote in the lawsuit. 

While non-minority contractors operated up to six trucks a day, Stackhouse waited “for extended periods” waiting for work to be assigned to him, the lawsuit stated. He also accused Salt City of hiring non-minority contractors from outside Syracuse to do the work he believed he could have been assigned. 

When he confronted the contractors, they were hostile and retaliatory, he said in the lawsuit.

“I felt depressed. I felt that they turned on my company and to see all the [non-minority] contractors working up there, it hurt me,” Stackhouse told Central Current during a sit-down interview in January. 

The state Department of Transportation started a local hire initiative, which was meant to incentivize the recruitment and employment of local residents for the $2.25 billion project that would see the replacement of the viaduct and a reimagining of Almond Street. 

The initiative encouraged the hiring of 15% of the overall workforce from certain zip codes in the city, including areas near the viaduct.  

Stackhouse wrote that the contractors “misrepresented” their hiring practices to federal, state and local officials. 

Stackhouse named several defendants in his lawsuit, including Salt City Constructors LLC, Lancaster Development and Tully Construction Co. LLC, D/B/A L&T Construction, D.A. Collins Construction Co. Inc. and Cold Spring Construction Co. Inc. 

Salt City’s attorneys claimed that Stackhouse “lacks standing to sue” in their defense, asking the court to dismiss his complaint and ask Stackhouse to pay fees to those he sued.

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Debadrita Sur is a multimedia journalist and Report for America corps member who reports on the I-81 project and public housing for Central Current. In 2023, Sur graduated with a master’s degree in journalism...