Completion of project now estimated to be delayed by nearly a year.
Work on the $22 million Central New York Biotechnology Research Center along East Fayette Street has come to a halt because of a funding problem in the state Senate.
A funding glitch has halted construction of the proposed $22 million Central New York Biotechnology Research Center, delaying its completion by nearly a year.
Construction has been at a standstill since the end of July when the steel frame was completed on the project between East Fayette and East Water streets on the former Kennedy Square public housing site in Syracuse. The project is a joint venture between Upstate Medical University and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.
About $4.2 million in state money the Senate had allocated for the project was supposed to be put into the SUNY construction fund earlier this summer, but that didn’t happen, said Dan Hurley, an assistant vice president at SUNY.
“The fiscal constraints of the state caused a lot of this stuff to slow down,” Hurley said. Until the money is in hand, Upstate and ESF cannot seek bids for the next phase of construction, he said.
Hurley said the Senate is expected to transfer the money early next month. If the money comes through, the bidding process will move forward this fall and work will resume in the spring, he said. The project is expected to be done in the first or second quarter of 2012, nearly a year later than originally scheduled, he said.
The center will occupy about one-third of the 14-acre Kennedy Square site which the state transferred to Upstate early last year. The 60,000-square-foot facility will be devoted to biotechnology, educational and research programs.
Upstate wants to get private developers to redevelop the rest of the Kennedy Square site with commercial projects and student residences. But that effort has been mired in delays as well.
Because it is SUNY property, Upstate cannot subdivide, sell or lease any of it unless the state Legislature enacts a law authorizing it. The Senate has passed a bill that would allow Upstate to lease the Kennedy Square property, but the Assembly has not taken action on it.
Hurley said Upstate hopes the Legislature takes up the bill when it reconvenes this fall.
In the meantime the vacant Kennedy Square apartment buildings are deteriorating, he said.
“We’re trying to get somebody in there and get that stuff knocked down and get a plan to redevelop it,” Hurley said.
--James T. Mulder can be reached at 470-2245 or jmulder@syracuse.com