By Jay Fox

“For years, we’d been exploring these types of abandoned properties around Syracuse with the intention of bringing one back to life,” says Jason Evans, an architect and Associate Principal at Ashley McGraw Architects. The “we” here refers not to the development company or even the architecture firm where Evans works. Instead, it is a group that consists of Evans and two friends who have been dreaming of restoring a property in their home city since they were in high school together. “We’ve all always had the same kind of passion for this type of stuff,” he says.

As common as this kind of talk is, it doesn’t usually lead anywhere. Passion projects like these demand time, resources, and opportunities that rarely materialize. Even when they do, they are usually fairly limited in scope. They may involve a fixer-upper home, a modest multifamily building, or possibly a small commercial property.

However, this story is not about fixing up a single-family home, a modest multifamily building, or a small commercial property; it is about the deep-energy retrofit of a 114-year-old factory that has sat on a neglected industrial site in a disadvantaged community for more than two decades. More than just bringing it back to life through adaptive reuse, Evans and his friends plan to repurpose it to meet the needs of an evolving city. Once complete, the 64,000-ft² building will include 19 workforce housing units, a dozen art studio spaces, 11,000 ft² of food and retail space, and 12,500 ft² of additional commercial space.

As Evans explains, the building was originally a bread factory that started operating in 1913. It was one of the first commercial buildings specifically created to mass-produce bread and even predates sliced bread by 15 years. At the time, the original Erie Canal still flowed through the heart of Syracuse and passed just north of the site.

When the bread factory shut down around 1970, the building became Cooper Decorations. Cooper started making draperies and other textiles but eventually found their niche in Christmas decorations. They continued operating until the early 2000s. Since closing, the building has remained vacant, but Evans notes that the floors are still littered with bulbs from string lights and scraps of decorations from Christmases long, long ago.

As the building only had two tenants over its more than 110-year history, many of the original features of the building remain intact, preserving the work of architect Ward Wellington Ward. Ward is still celebrated around Syracuse because he helped to popularize Craftsman-style houses around the city during the early twentieth century. There are currently more than two dozen single-family homes within Syracuse that were designed by Ward on the National Register of Historic Places. Many of them are located just to the south of the bread factory, in University Hill and Westcott, or just to the north of the factory, in the Near Northeast neighborhood.

Following the closure of Cooper, the owner struggled to maintain the building, and it gradually fell into a state of dereliction. Even today, vines climb up the west side of the building, most of the wiring has been stripped, and a significant portion of the interior has been affected by water damage. The city eventually stepped in and allowed the Greater Syracuse Land Bank to acquire the property in 2018, which set the gears of adaptive reuse in motion.

Very soon after taking possession of the property, the land bank put out a request for proposal and opened the doors of the factory to potential developers. The open house brought in many of Central New York’s most prominent companies and real estate tycoons. It also caught the eye of Evans and his two friends.

As Evans recounts, most of the corporate developers were unimpressed by what they saw. Their focus was set on minor blemishes and cosmetic problems, as well as a few larger issues like broken windows, warped flooring, gaping holes in the roof, and the fact that the roof itself is what Evans describes as “an asbestos sandwich.” However, Evans and his two friends didn’t share such a dismal view of the property; instead, they saw potential.

“The three of us went and walked through, and I had my rose-colored, architect glasses on,” he says. “And I’m just thinking, ‘This is such a cool building!’”

In addition to thinking that it was cool, they also recognized that a lot of the damage was not as extensive as it looked. While the masonry certainly needed to be repointed, the steel framing was structurally sound. The beams were sitting in their pockets within the wall and were not bowed out. Meanwhile, the columns were still connected to the floors and ceilings at 90-degree angles, and nothing seemed to be sagging in a way that would indicate trouble.

“The bones were good,” Evans says.

After the open house, the three decided to create and submit a proposal. Their goal was not just to save the building from “demolition by neglect,” but to create something unique: a combination of preservation and high-performance to transform the building into a sustainable community asset.

They recognized that the chances of having their proposal selected were slim. The group had never developed a property before, either collectively or individually. Evans has a background in architecture (including an architecture degree from Syracuse University), one partner is involved in building green roofs, and the other is a graphic designer.

The three assumed their first project would be a historic building of relatively modest size—something to get their feet wet. The thought was that they would work their way up over time and take the lessons they learned and apply them to gradually larger buildings. They didn’t think they’d be starting with a 64,000-ft² industrial building spread across four stories, but they didn’t want to let an opportunity pass them by.

Leveling the Playing Field

The team received news that their proposal had been accepted in late 2019. Shortly thereafter, the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

No one would say that this was a good thing, but the pause did give Evans and his team—now operating under the name Syracuse Bread Factory LLC—the opportunity to further scrutinize their design, fill out their team with Ashley McGraw Architects and Taitem Engineering, DPC, and consider numerous options with less worry about any costs associated with delays.

It also gave them time to apply for several grants and tax credits. Some of these include a grant from New York State Empire State Development and acceptance into the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation’s Brownfield Cleanup Program.

“We needed a lot of these things to level the playing field because of the condition of the building and the substantial amount of work that has to be done to stabilize it,” Evans says.

Recognizing the bread factory’s historic value, the original architect’s outsized influence in Syracuse, and the lack of major renovations on the building, the team applied for historic status and received approval. While this honor does entitle the team to historic tax credits and having the building listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it also places some limitations on the building’s new design. Most notably, it prevents the team from making significant changes to the façade, including the windows.

New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) Buildings of Excellence Early Design Support was yet another program to which they applied and were awarded $97,500 in 2024. Early Design Support is a technical support incentive which supports early stage scope of carbon neutral multifamily buildings. “It was a big enabler because it allowed more time and leeway in terms of exploring some alternative strategies,” Evans says. Specifically, the funding helped Taitem perform energy modeling, explore certification through the Phius REVIVE program, and further refine some of the building’s mechanical systems, which will be described in detail below.

These alternative strategies and improvements have not been made solely to improve building efficiencies. Evans describes the project more as being regenerative in nature. The team is applying principles of Passive House construction within a context of preservation and adaptive reuse while also being conscientious of embodied carbon. To that end, the team has sought to salvage what can be salvaged, to repair what can be repaired, and to create something that benefits the community. They hope this approach helps to mend the social fabric that damaged while the property sat abandoned, and that the improvements to the factory can extend beyond property lines and enhance the neighborhood without fundamentally altering it.

“We want this to be born out of the community and for the community,” Evans says.

Though some repairs will be necessary, the wood decking will be preserved wherever possible. “When you’re standing in the space, and you’re looking up, you’ll see all the original beams and decking,” Evans says. “Everything will look as it was.”

The team plans to keep the wood decking in the roof, as well, following asbestos remediation. Evans says that it is probably in the roughest shape of all the decking, as there are several holes that need to be patched, but they are committed to preserving and reusing as much as possible. The roof decking will also be exposed from beneath, as they intend to install outboard insulation.

Of course, not everything can be salvaged. The original windows have to be replaced, and the team has worked with Zola Windows to match their historic profiles. Though they may look like the originals and match the framing material (wood in some places, metal in others), the new windows will be triple pane and tilt and turn. However, not all the windows will be operable. Some of the simulated single-hung windows are eight-feet-tall with high sills. More than being huge and heavy, their placement well above the floor would make them very difficult to open and close.

The above floors will contain studios and one- and two-bedroom lofts priced for the neighborhood. Here, the wall system will be made air-tight and built with an inboard continuous insulation layer to achieve an R-value of 18. Envelope upgrades had to be made inboard as the requirements of the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) prohibited visible modifications to the façade. Meanwhile, the roof, which is not subject to the same level of scrutiny as the public-facing façade, will be a more robust R-50 and the insulation will be installed outboard. Evans also notes that there will be some changes to the floor plate from the original factory, as its previous use didn’t prioritize bringing a lot of natural light to the interior spaces of the building. To remedy this, the team is planning to make a courtyard within the second floor of residential portion of the building. It will not extend to the ground floor. Instead, the plan is to keep a roof over the first floor, which will create patio spaces for the surrounding units.

The commercial portion (seen in magenta in Figure 2) and the art spaces (seen in blue in Figure 2) will have a different enclosure system with far less insulation than the residential area. The walls will have an R-value of 4 and the roof will have an R-value of 30. Given the project’s budget, making these spaces as resilient as the residential units was not a priority. As the team reasoned, the spaces are not residential and will not serve as shelters during times of power outages or other emergencies. Additionally, the design team wanted to keep some of the exposed brick on the interior for aesthetic reasons and cannot significantly modify the exterior façade due to preservation rules.

In total, there will be over 23,000 ft² of commercial space that can be divided to accommodate potential lessees. At present, the team thinks there will likely be several smaller units and one large space that may be upwards of 11,000 ft². As of now, the team plans to have the larger space occupied by a brewery or restaurant that will span two floors, have roof access, and be home to a commercial kitchen.

As Taitem Engineering Senior Engineer Brendan Mangino explains, introducing a commercial kitchen in a mixed-use building is always difficult because it uses energy for hot water, ventilation, and conditioning in a way that is far different from either residential or other commercial spaces. Breweries and commercial kitchens use far more energy than residential or other commercial spaces, and the likely addition of either one has heavily influenced the size of the building’s mechanical systems.

With respect to kitchens, it’s not just higher demand. Commercial kitchens also have different use patterns and need to be equipped to handle enormous spikes and lulls in demand that rarely occur in other typologies. The typical turndown ratio for a commercial hot water system tends to be 10:1 to 20:1, while a turndown ratio for a domestic hot water system tends to be 5:1. Turndown ratio refers to the range of a device or system in which it can effectively operate. It is expressed as the ratio of its maximum capacity to its minimum accurate output. A higher ratio means the system is more capable of adjusting to varying loads while maintaining precision and has a wider operational range. A higher ratio also allows for more energy savings because it matches output to demand without constant cycling. More sophisticated ventilation systems are also required for commercial kitchens, even when they are not built to Passive House standards (for a more detailed discussion of commercial kitchens in Passive House construction, see our articles with Marine Sanchez of RDH Building Science and Magdalena Patyna of the Passive House Institute).

Given the extended timeline of the project, funding opportunities from organizations like NYSERDA, and the Syracuse Bread Factory team’s willingness to explore different design possibilities, it has allowed Mangino and the engineering team to iterate several design solutions that are now ready for primetime. What they have produced is an integrated ground source heat pump system for domestic hot water (DHW), heating and cooling, and ventilation. The closed loop system is expected to require 45 499-foot boreholes for a total capacity of 90 tons. Mangino explains that the different use profiles in the commercial and residential spaces also provide opportunities to use excess energy in efficient and novel ways.

To illustrate how the system works, consider how mixed-use buildings are heated and cooled in shoulder seasons. The temperature may dip low enough so that people in their apartments will want heat. At the same time, individuals in a packed restaurant may feel too hot due to internal heat gains. In such a situation, one zone within the building will need to be heated and the other cooled.

Large ground source heat pump systems can easily handle this kind of challenge. However, rather than relying entirely on the geothermal system, the engineering team from Taitem has designed a system where excess energy can be shared. To continue with the scenario above, the excess heat from the restaurant can be directed to underheated residential side and vice versa. As Mangino explains, it’s slightly different than an ERV system (with which the building will be equipped); it’s more like energy redistribution. “ This is just a way to move around energy where it makes sense,” Mangino says.

Sharing energy is also a key part of the domestic hot water system, which Mangino says will have two sources of thermal energy. The first is from the ground source heat pump. The second is from the downstream side of the space heating and cooling system. The innovation is expected to boost the COP of the system by 1.5.

As for onsite renewables, Evans says the team is planning to dedicate approximately one-third to one-half of the roof to a solar array, which should cover house loads. The remainder of the space will be an accessible green roof (either to residents or restaurant/brewery patrons) and will not need to be dedicated to mechanicals on account of the geothermal system and the building’s efficient design.

Innovation and Patience

“Every project will go over budget on the design side because there's so much research associated with it,” Mangino says about making improvements to systems. This is not a critique, but rather a fact about the economies of scale. Innovation has upfront costs. Those upfront costs ultimately make processes more efficient and less costly, thereby justifying the expenditure. While manufacturers can be helpful and supply product information, and government agencies like NYSERDA that value industrywide innovation can provide grants, it’s ultimately up to individual project teams to decide if they want to dedicate themselves to trying something new.

What is oftentimes underappreciated is that this research takes both money and time, and that time is a resource most teams do not have. Luckily, this was not the case with the Bread Factory. State agencies like NYSERDA were vital to finance the additional studies, but Evans and his team’s patience was necessary to give Taitem all the space they needed. “They were willing to let us explore different options and fine tune the design,” Mangino says of Evans and his friends at Syracuse Bread Factory, LLC. “It gave us a lot of opportunity to come up with a pretty creative design.”