Gregory Elvis Myers Sr., lovingly referred to as Uncle Butch by the community, has been a Southside resident for 75 years, spending a majority of his lifetime in Pioneer Homes. As the 15th Ward underwent rapid changes following the construction of the Interstate 81 highway, Myers and his generation were presented with promises of an impending change. Decades later, they are finally coming to fruition in the form of a four-story building with affordable units meant for Syracuse Housing Authority’s senior residents.
“We were promised years and years that things were going to change, and they were right. Things changed, but not for us,” Myers said. “All we ever got was leftovers and now we’re getting something new.”
Myers joined more than 150 people at the intersection of Burt and South State streets to celebrate the groundbreaking on the second phase of the redevelopment of public housing on Syracuse’s Southside. Syracuse Housing Authority officials along with developer McCormack Baron Salazar and others hosted the ceremony.
The once vacant lot, previously used as a makeshift parking lot, now hosts vertical structures meant to serve as stairways and elevators for a new apartment building. It is expected to have 125 new affordable units for seniors.
Syracuse Housing Authority and McCormack Baron Salazar, the Missouri-based developer in charge of redeveloping public housing in Syracuse, announced that the new building will be named The Simmons to honor the decadeslong career of former SHA Executive Director Bill Simmons. SHA and McCormack Baron Salazar had closed on financing for this phase of construction at the end of last year.
Fall 2025’s record government shutdown — overseen by President Donald Trump in his first term — jeopardized nearly $4 million of financing, said Allyson Carpenter, the vice president of development at MBS.
However, the state’s Homes and Community Renewal agency stepped up to close the gap.
The second phase is part of SHA’s billion-dollar redevelopment of public housing on the Southside, involving 672 distressed public housing units across Pioneer Homes and McKinney Manor. In total, the neighborhood will see more than 1,400 new apartments built. SHA hopes to house current residents while attracting new residents who pay market-rate rents.
Central Current reported last year that the Simmons building will have five two-bedroom units while all others will be one-bedroom apartments. The building will be four stories tall. The project will cost more than $100 million. Vertical construction began in early 2026.
The vacant lot was previously identified as a brownfield because of petroleum-impacted soil and high levels of lead and PAH being discovered.
The $7 million environmental remediation was funded partly by $3.5 million from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grant. SHA won a $50 million grant for the project to support housing and neighborhood redevelopment in the region. The state’s Brownfield Cleanup Program lobbied U.S. Bank to invest the remaining $3.7 million.
Hueber-Breuer Construction took over the remediation efforts as the general contractor while Langan Engineering provided oversight as the environmental engineers. Besides constant environmental monitoring, remediation work included excavating the soil and disposing of it off-site, installing a site-wide vapor barrier and sub-slab depressurization system as well as importing and placing clean fill.
The hourlong program featured a litany of speakers who have been major stakeholders in the project, including Mayor Sharon Owens, SHA Acting Executive Director Jalyn Clifford, New York State Homes and Community Renewal Commissioner RuthAnne Visnauskas, state Sen. Rachel May and Andy Breuer from Hueber-Breuer Construction. Simmons, who announced his surprise early retirement in July, was also present at the groundbreaking.
SHA and MBS are working to close on the third phase by the end of the year. The redevelopment is stretched across several phases. In October 2025, SHA and McCormack Baron Salazar broke ground on the first phase, which included the demolition of 25 townhomes on Angelou Terrace.
Clifford emphasized that the new building will be the abode for longtime SHA residents like Jean Singletary, Myers and others who stayed through the decades — raising families, building a community and upholding the spirit of the neighborhood.
“Soon, we’ll be able to tell them, you don’t just get to stay in your community that you helped build, you get to come home to something brand new, built specifically for you,” Clifford said.
Read more of Central Current’s coverage
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