Diane Salatino uses Interstate 81 every day to get to Destiny USA, where she works as the manager for the clothing store Schiq. She also uses I-81 to take her husband to the Syracuse VA Medical Center to receive treatment for stage five kidney failure.

She’s worried about the highway’s future, she said. The New York State Department of Transportation recommended in April that the aging 1.4-mile I-81 viaduct be replaced with a community grid. While the portion of the viaduct near Destiny USA isn’t expected to be demolished, some community members are concerned the grid would affect access to the mall.

The community grid would level the existing viaduct and reroute traffic onto city streets. Salatino said it could affect her business. She also thinks it could affect people like her, who rely on the highway’s route.

“It’s people trying to get to work, people trying to come into the hospitals for treatment,” Salatino said. “They need to put into consideration not what’s going to make it easier for them, but what’s going to make it easier for a lot of people.”

Along with the grid, a replacement viaduct and a tunnel option were also considered. Salatino’s aware of the ongoing debate on what to do with I-81, and the three options proposed. But not all store managers at Destiny USA are.

For years, the developers of Destiny USA, Pyramid Management Group, have lobbied for the viaduct’s replacement to keep its current route through Syracuse. Managers of smaller stores inside the mall, however, vary widely on their knowledge of the decade-long debate and where they stand on the issue.

The Daily Orange asked dozens of store managers about their thoughts on I-81. Of the 40 who were interviewed, 24 managers knew there was a debate about the highway. Only 22 knew of the debate’s basic premise: keep the highway’s current route, or knock it down and funnel traffic elsewhere.

Some key takeaways from store managers include:

• All 40 managers said Destiny USA has not communicated to them at all about the subject. Most described a lack of communication with Destiny USA owners, with the most communication coming from quarterly meetings with mall management.
• Just under one-third of the store managers were aware of the three major highway options, but opinions varied about which option they preferred. Slightly more preferred keeping the highway’s route than demolishing it and funneling traffic elsewhere, which the community grid plan would do.
• Several anchor stores at Destiny USA were unable to be reached for comment.

The I-81 debate is more distant to Kyle Fuller, an assistant manager at Vans and lifelong Syracuse resident.

He knows that right outside his Vans shop at Destiny USA, people wonder what to do with the viaduct. He knows it may get knocked down or keep its current route.

“Honestly, I just don’t care,” said Fuller. “Either way it’s going to screw the city up if you look at it.”

Destiny USA has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on lobbying both state and federal players to maintain the viaduct’s current route. After the state recommended the community grid replacement option in its Draft Environmental Impact Statement, Destiny USA hired lobbying firm Whitmer & Worrall to lobby the Federal Highway Administration, Syracuse.com reported.

In an emailed statement to The D.O., a Pyramid Management Group spokesperson said, “We are an advocate for any solution that maintains high-speed Interstate access through the City of Syracuse and Onondaga County.” He did not elaborate on their communication with individual stores about the mall’s stance.

More recently, Pyramid’s name recently appeared as the owner of the website for Save 81, a community group focused on keeping the highway’s current route, according to Syracuse.com. Pyramid Management Group said in their statement to The D.O. that the website domain name was “news to us,” and that they asked that it be corrected.

Eva Suppa | Digital Design Editor

“As you know, there are many different players involved,” the spokesperson for Pyramid Management Group said. “And maintaining the Save 81 website and social media channels is a collaborative effort made possible by the efforts of these many different individuals and organizations.”

The state’s Final Environmental Impact Statement, the last step in the planning process, is expected to be released in 2020.

Part of the viaduct runs right by the east end of the mall, with anchor stores like The Cheesecake Factory and Macy’s visible to the thousands of people each day. Exits 23 and 23b, lead traffic into Destiny USA Drive, the mall’s entrance.

Heather Allore, an assistant store manager for VILLA, isn’t familiar with all three replacement options proposed for I-81. But she’s familiar with the possibility of removing the viaduct that passes Destiny USA and afraid it will affect business at the store.

When Allore first came to Syracuse, she accidentally got off at this exit and ended up at the mall. The highway’s route pulled her into the mall, and she thinks it does for other people, too.

“Without having a direct exit off of I-81, the tourists have to come find us,” Allore said. “If they have to go searching for it, we’re going to lose all the passerby business.”

Not everyone agreed. Slightly more managers said the mall’s regional pull attracts customers, not the fact that the route goes right by it.

“If they’re coming to the mall, they’re coming to the mall,” said Daniel Burchill, manager of Texas de Brazil. “They’re not just accidentally showing up here.”

Destiny USA opened to the public in 1990, with Onondaga Lake to its west and I-81 to its east. Minch Lewis, a Save 81 member and adjunct professor of public administration and international affairs at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, said that without the highway, Destiny USA wouldn’t have opened at its location.

Lewis said that Destiny’s owners have held at least one meeting for Save 81, a group he described as “informal” citizens, business owners and public officials meeting to discuss how to push their message to the public.

Lewis offered a reason why some store managers may not take a stance: it could be harmful to their business, causing them to stay quiet. Store managers may not be representative of the general public, he said.

“(If) I operate a little shop along 81, and I’m dependent on that business, I’m not gonna take a public stand,” said Lewis, who was Syracuse’s city auditor from 1995-2003. “You know why not? Because some of the customers are on one side of this issue, and some are on the other side.

“And you know what? I don’t want to piss off the ones that are on the other side.”

Published on September 25, 2019 at 11:19 pm