Since the rise of suburbs and the related discriminatory housing and development policies of the 1950s and 1960s, many New York downtowns have suffered from neglect. While movements to improve those areas have been underway since the 1970s and 1980s, they often hit snags — either because only certain areas never see revitalization or because progress slows down.

In downtown Syracuse, it’s a little bit of both, but one organization is taking on an effort to revitalize the southern section of downtown, an area that has missed out on opportunities for improvement over the past several decades, connecting a vital business corridor to one of the city’s most historically neglected communities.

“We are now in the Salt City Market first floor,” said Meg O’Connell, executive director of the Allyn Family Foundation, who developed the market on the site of a vacant parking lot at the far south end of the area. “As you come into the market, we have 10 different food vendors that are all their own businesses; they are all startup businesses, they are mainly minority and women owned.”

The market was part of an effort to revitalize the neglected section of downtown, just steps from where substantial work has taken place over the years to revive other parts of the neighborhood.

Now the organization has purchased one of the city’s most iconic buildings just across the street, and plan to build apartments.

The Chimes Building, as it is called locally, was constructed in the late 1920s and was designed by the same firm who designed the Empire State Building. It originally had electronic chimes that rang to alert residents to the time of day, or to play a song on the hour. The chimes stopped ringing during World War II and are now on display on the first floor.

Because of a distinct bend in South Salina Street, the building appears dead center from the view of any driver coming into downtown off the highway, or to anyone crossing the commercial sections of the street to the north. Its rooftop flagpole that once displayed the American flag, and occasionally Syracuse University colors, stands still. From the ground, you can see the halyard positioned as it was when the flag was last taken down years ago, and the metal beginning to rust.

In addition to displaying a flag to brighten patriotic holidays, O’Connell says the foundation would like to remove several antennas from the roof to improve the overall appearance of the building. She says it’s all part of a broader effort to make sure downtown’s comeback is thorough and inclusive.

“Building on this corner of Salina and West Onondaga Street, we demonstrated our commitment to the southern end of downtown,” she said.

While the revitalization of Armory Square in the 1980s marked the beginning of a troubled downtown’s comeback, the path hasn’t always been straightforward nor consistent.

O’Connell says improving downtown means working on areas that haven’t seen that kind of attention, while also improving housing options for lower income levels so that anyone who can work downtown can live here, too. She hopes this project will accomplish both.

“Not everybody who works downtown is making salaries of $60,000 or above who can afford to actually live in some of the market rate buildings,” she said.

O’Connell says the organization’s not for profit status puts them in a good position to link downtown Syracuse to projects underway to revitalize the city’s historically neglected south side, which begins just south of the building.

Across the board, she says the Allyn Family Foundation is dedicated to solving a problem that has hindered revitalization efforts in cities across New York: making sure the result leaves no one behind.

The hope is to be a model for cities conducting similar efforts in how to make those efforts equitable, and emphasizes that while development is changing downtown, she is confident that there is room to grow without negatively impacting residents’ wallets.