A former warehouse in the Near Westside has been transformed into a spot where people can live and work in the same space.

Though tenants started moving into upper-level apartments in Lincoln Building in October, construction is still underway on the first two floors, where Say Yes to Education and La Casita Cultural Center Project have leased space. Both groups are expected to move in by the end of February, said Maarten Jacobs, director of the Near Westside Initiative.

NWSI, a collaborative community project dedicated to revitalizing the neighborhood, one of the poorest in Syracuse, bought the 30,000-square-foot space in February 2009 to convert it into a mixed-use commercial and residential building, Jacobs said.

The total cost of renovation and construction reached close to $4 million, Jacobs said. Funding came from the help of the Restore New York Communities Initiative and a donation of about $300,000 from the Syracuse Center of Excellence, as well as from fundraising, Jacobs said.

‘The building was a huge project just because it’s over 100 years old, and it was in disrepair for a really long time,’ he said.

The building includes 10 living and working lofts on the third and fourth floors. NWSI members are seeking LEED certification for the building, which includes green technologies such as geothermal heating and storm-water retention strategies that eliminate site water from entering the city and county sewer systems, according to the NWSI website.

For Genevieve Babecki, a Syracuse University engagement fellow at La Casita, an apartment in Lincoln Building provides an ideal opportunity to work closely with the community, she said.

Engagement fellows secure a year of paid employment at a local company, a nonprofit organization or as an entrepreneur in Central New York, and they receive remitted tuition for courses each semester for graduate study at SU, according to the engagement fellows’ website.

La Casita, which aims to build a bridge among people at SU and keep the community interested in Latino-American studies, serves the Near Westside, Babecki said. The new space will include a gallery, library, classroom space and a theater, Babecki said.

Because the loft-style apartments are designed to encourage artists to work in their homes, the apartments, which are roughly 1,500 square feet, do not have delineated sections and function instead as one large room with a kitchen and bathroom.

‘It’s completely open,’ Babecki said. ‘My living room is my dining room is my bedroom.’

Rent costs between $1,075 and $1,225 per month, depending on the space, and includes all utilities, Jacobs said.

‘It’s pretty drastically different from any apartment I’ve had before,’ said Hilary Mansur, an engagement fellow and architectural construction specialist at Home HeadQuarters Inc., an organization that works in the Near Westside to renovate homes and increase home ownership of the residents in the community.

‘The idea is you take it and make it your own space,’ she said.

Other tenants include SU professors, Syracuse city employees, local artists and Michael Short, an engagement fellow and deputy director at NWSI, Jacobs said. Short also works with many businesses in the area and serves as chair of the NWSI Small Business Development Committee, Short said.

‘The initiative empowers people in a way that brings them together to do things they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do,’ Short said.

Bringing in people who work for the neighborhood to live in the neighborhood and become a part of the community will be beneficial in the long run, he said.

‘It’s one thing to work there and another to go out there, experience what the people there are experiencing,’ he said, ‘and to count yourself as a resident of the neighborhood.’

nsdelacr@syr.edu

Published on January 25, 2011 at 12:00 pm