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A bright future for Great Northern? Nine-figure mixed-use development planned for mall site By David Tyler Last week, Onondaga County and developer Guy Hart Jr., of Hart-Lyman Cos., announced that the legal issues that threatened the deal to purchase the Great Northern Mall from an outof-town landlord who has let the aging facility fall into disrepair had been resolved, paving the way for an ambitious redevelopment as a new mixed-use neighborhood. Last week, Hart, along with Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon, held a brief press conference in the parking lot of the dilapidated mall. The terms of the purchase agreement are confidential, Hart said, but they are similar to the original purchase offer of $9 million. He expects to close on the property in July, he said. Plans for the redevelopment, at this point, are conceptual, Hart said, but those concepts fit with Onondaga County’s comprehensive land use plan, which call for investment in walkable, village-centric mixed-use developments. Hart said he expects there will be hundreds of housing units as well as a mixture of businesses including a variety of goods and services, including restaurants, retail and medical. “[It’s going to be a] walkable community, following that village-center, towncenter comprehensive plan,” Hart said. “The exact look of all that will kind of take place over the next several months.” The target market for the
London Ladd
Artist London Ladd shared insights into his art at the Liverpool library in celebration of Juneteenth Day.
David Tyler
County Executive Ryan McMahon and developer Guy Hart Jr. speak about the future of Great Northern Mall at a press conference held in the mall’s parking lot last week. project is “blue collar up to middle class” residents, and he said he expects the residents to be a cross-section of people who want to live in a community where they can walk to the gym or the coffee shop. Hart, who is also developing the Lakeshore Village project in Cicero, said he is currently in discussions with several national investment groups to provide financing for the project, which he expects will cost several hundred million dollars. “Some of the national groups, who I would say have never looked at any of the upstate markets probably from Buffalo to Albany as potential investment sites, Syracuse is on the map for them now,” Hart said. “In an economically challenged national and international
landscape, they’re seeing Syracuse as one of the few diamonds in the rough, which is a great change from what I grew up being used to.” McMahon pointed out that a few years ago, when Amazon arrived in the area with a $400 million project, it was the largest investment in the history of the county. This project, he said, will rival the Amazon facility in terms of investment, and there are other nine-figure residential and mixed-use projects in the works – ShoppingTown in DeWitt and Lakeshore Village in Cicero – that show how much momentum Onondaga County has right now. Hart said that a project like this normally would take up to 10 years to complete, but with Micron arriving in the next couple of
years, the demand for housing will likely speed up the pace for the Great Northern project. “I think you’ll see five years from today, a substantially complete project, with the possibility that there might be pockets that we haven’t finished yet,” he said. Currently, Hart said, they are in the process of working on an asbestos survey and demolition survey with the expectation that demolition of most of the existing mall will take place later this year. There are also a few current tenants of the existing mall, whom Hart said he needs to “have conversations” with. Hart also said there are no plans to purchase the existing Olive Garden restaurant adjacent to the mall property.
Challenger files complaints with Attorney General Penizotto claims Supervisor Paro interfered with election process By Russ Tarby Contributing Writer The upcoming Republican Party primary race for supervisor in the town of Salina pits challenger Stella Penizotto against incumbent Supervisor Nick Paro. Last month, Penizotto filed several complaints about Paro with the office of New York State Attorney General Letitia James. In her statements submitted to the Attorney General’s Public Integrity Bureau, Penizotto charges Paro with election interference. One of the three complaints involve threatening text messages sent to Penizotto on April 21, while another reports the cancellation of a Penizotto fundraiser planned for May 9 at a business owned by a friend of Paro’s. Penizotto also told the Attorney General that Paro had attempted to “bribe” her by offering her business – Shining Stars Daycare – a Main Street development grant. For his part, Paro strongly denies the accusations. “All three [of those charges] are not true,” Paro said. “They’re frivolous.” Paro said the Penizottos – Stella and her husband, John – have been “harassing me for more than a year. Now they’re making things up, and I’m frustrated.” The supervisor, who is also chairman of the town’s Republican Party, said Penizotto’s complaints are simply untrue.
“Here are two grown adults who run a day-care center, who are lying,” Paro said. Penizotto said she felt obligated to make her allegations. “The first time it happened, when he intimidated me, I let it go,” she said on June 10. “But it kept happening, over and over. The people have to know what kind of a person he is, and they need to consider if they really want him as supervisor.” On June 6, Alexis Richards – an aide to the Attorney General – confirmed her office’s receipt of Penizotto’s complaints. Meanwhile, the Penizottos have hired a Syracuse-based private investigator from the Intrigue Investigations agency to help them build their case against Paro. Voting in the primary election is scheduled from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday, June 27. In 2021, Paro – then a legislative analyst for the Onondaga County Legislature and the First Ward town councilor – was elected Salina town supervisor by soundly defeating Democrat Kathy Zabinski 3,157 to 2,176. If Paro wins the June 27 GOP primary, Penizotto will still be on the ballot in November’s general election because she’s endorsed by the Onondaga County Conservative Party. Democrats will not run a candidate for supervisor in November. Earlier this year, Salina Democrats failed to gather enough signatures by deadline to qualify their candidate for a line on the ballot.
Local artist shares his knowledge By Andrew Welliver
In recognition of the Juneteenth holiday, the Liverpool Public Library hosted local artist and illustrator London Ladd on Thursday June 15, where he spoke about his work. This is the first time the Liverpool Public Library held an event in recognition of Juneteenth. For a first time event it garnered a lot of interest with about 30 people in attendance. Ladd spoke about his work on the murals he has painted in Syracuse, including a mural of Frederick Douglas and Martin Luther King Jr. The work also contains important quotes by both figures to help bring the piece together. “I wanted the quotes for the murals to mean something,” Ladd said. Artist l Page 15
Karen Eames sentenced to six months By Russ Tarby Contributing Writer
On Feb. 7, 2022, at the family home in Brewerton, when her 48-year-old husband, Isaac Eames, killed their 21-year-old son, Troy, and shot his wife in the face before committing suicide, Karen Eames was clearly the victim of a brutal crime. Two months later, however, her status as a victim changed dramatically after she was arrested and charged with grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property. District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick maintained that the Eames couple collaborated on the theft of more than $529,000 from the sheriff ’s office where Isaac Eames worked as a civil deputy. Karen Eames, 46, worked as a secretary at Liverpool High School. On June 12 in Syracuse, Onondaga County Judge Theodore Limpert sentenced Eames to six months at the Jamesville Correctional Facility and five years of probation. Prosecutors had sought a sentence of three years in state prison. Limpert told Eames that she could have prevented the entire tragedy had she simply refused to cooperate with her husband’s scheme. Before she was sentenced, Eames made a statement to the court. “I simply went along with something I should not have,” she said. “This was out of my character for me, and from the day this came to light I have done everything in my power to make this right.” Eames’ defense attorney, Michael Vavonese, said Limpert’s sentence was well-reasoned. “Certainly that sentence reflects the court’s understanding of what occurred in this matter and her part in it separated from her husband, Isaacs’s, part,” Vavonese said. As part of her plea agreement, Eames will pay back $530,000 to the county, and she has agreed to return $77,000 donated to a GoFundMe account following the murder-suicide.
Volume 131, Number 25 The Star-Review is published weekly by Eagle News. Office of Publication: 2501 James St., Suite 100, Syracuse, NY 13206. Periodical Postage Paid at Syracuse, NY 13220, USPS 316060. POSTMASTER: Send change of address to Star-Review, 2501 James St., Suite 100, Syracuse, NY 13206.
community: Henty honored with park naming.
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schools: Sixth-graders study Onondaga Lake.
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PennySaver ���������������� 8
history ������������������������ 7
Schools ��������������� 14-15
Obituaries ������������� 4,13