'The whole thing is about Mother Earth'
Thursday, November 08, 2007By Rick Moriarty Staff writer
Chicago - The second phase of the Destiny USA project will see a 1,342-room hotel and conference center - covered with green solar panel windows - rise on the south shore of Onondaga Lake like giant blades of grass.
The $450 million hotel, which has not been named yet, will be the tallest building in the state outside of New York City, according to Destiny developer Robert Congel. It will be powered partly with electricity generated by its solar panel facade and by hydroelectric turbines utilizing rainwater collected on its roof.
Congel today is expected to announce his plans for the hotel at the U.S. Green Building Council's Greenbuild International Conference and Expo here. An estimated 25,000 people are attending the conference, which kicked off Wednesday with a keynote address by former President Bill Clinton. The conference runs through Friday.
"The whole goal was to create something iconic that would signify Syracuse all over the world," Congel said Wednesday during the conference. "The whole thing is about Mother Earth. It's about creating 1
Syracuse as a destination."
Destiny officials said the hotel will be built to the Green Building Council's highest standards for eco-friendly construction andoperation.
Syracuse Mayor Matt Driscoll, who is attending the Greenbuild conference, called the hotelplans "a pretty fantastic design" that would help put the city at the forefront of sustainable building design.
"I think it's outstanding," he said.
No date was set for the start of construction, but it will begin no later than Aug. 1, 2009, the date by which Congel must start the second phase of the Destiny project under the terms of a development agreement with the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency. Destiny executive David Aitken said construction will take 18 months.
The agreement requires Congel to build at least 1,000 hotelrooms and complete them by Feb. 1, 2012.
Congel began construction of Destiny's first phase - a 1.3-million-square-foot addition to the Carousel Center shopping mall - in March. The developer has said he plans to build a massive retail, hotel and entertainment center that would expand across Hiawatha Boulevard and reach all the way to the Syracuse Inner Harbor, a former Barge Canal terminal between the Carousel Center and Franklin Square.
Green has been a major theme for Destiny. Congel has pledged to power the complex without using fossil fuels. He and Driscoll are scheduled to make a presentation to Greenbuild today on the public-private partnership formed between the city and Destiny to make the project happen.
Syracuse and Onondaga County have waived most property taxes on the project in hopes of driving up sales tax revenues and creating jobs, while seeing what was once a heavily polluted industrial site transformed into a major tourist attraction.
The hotel's green theme will be carried throughout its design, Destiny officials said. A rendering of the hotel shows a V-shape structure on the north side of the Carousel Center, with a green facade that makes it look like six giant blades of grass soaring into the sky next to Onondaga Lake.
"The symbolism is obviously important," said Aitken. "This will get people's attention. It's architecturally stunning."
The functional space of the hotel will have 39 stories and rise 600 feet into the air. The hotel will be topped by steel architectural features that will make the building 640 feet tall - the tallest in Syracuse, and tallest in the state outside of New York City, according to Congel.
The State Tower Building downtown is 322 feet tall to the top of its flagpole.
Aitken said Destiny expects to fill its 1,342 rooms with people who come from outside of Central New York to visit Destiny's shopping and entertainment attractions and to attend conferences on renewable energy technologies and other topics.
Onondaga County Executive Nicholas Pirro said Congel's hotel plans were further evidence that the developer plans to carry through with his pledge to build the larger Destiny project, which has been in the planning stages since 1997.
"I know the plans are to create a unique destination," he said.
Pirro said the hotel and conference center will complement, rather than compete against, the county's downtown convention center, which is set to get a 350-room hotel next year.
"It's going to allow us to draw bigger conventions than we have in the past," he said.
The hotel has not been given a name, but one name that has been ruled out is the Grand Destiny. That's the name of a 1,300-room hotel that Congel had planned for the same site five years ago and even held a groundbreaking for it that was attended by 3,000 people, including then-Gov. George Pataki.
Construction of the Grand Destiny never went forward after the project ran into financing challenges and a legal dispute with the city over the terms of its tax agreement with the city. Those issues were settled last year and Congel completed a $540 million financing package for Destiny's first phase earlier this year.
Aitken said the Grand Destiny name was dropped because the developer wants to come up with a name that is tied closely to its eco-friendly theme.
Staff writer Rick Moriarty can be reached at 470-3148 or
rmoriarty@syracuse.com.
Sure its ugly but its tall!
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