1710-1714 North Salina Street, Syracuse – National Register-eligible Historic District
Update October 2020: Rehabilitation Plans Announced!
Planning is underway for a $50 million rehabilitation that will convert the Moyer factories complex into a mixed-used development called Moyer Carriage Lofts. The project, a joint venture between Housing Visions and ADHV Redev CNY LLC, will utilize state and federal historic preservation tax credits, along with federal low-income housing tax credits, brownfield tax credits, tax-exempt bonds. Plans call for demolishing four of the buildings in the complex that are non-historic or deteriorated beyond repair. For additional information on the project, see syracuse.com, “Old Penfield Manufacturing building will be redeveloped,” October 12, 2020.
Challenges: Vacancy, Deterioration
The H. A. Moyer Factories is a large complex of late 19th and early 20th-century industrial buildings at the far north end of North Salina Street, best known today by the west factory with “the house on the roof.” The factories are significant for their architecture and association with Syracuse’s industrial history. The 210,000 square-foot complex has stood mostly vacant since 2005, and in 2014 one of the walls facing Park Street collapsed. As of 2019, developers are proposing a housing project for the portio of the complex between Park and North Salina streets using historic tax credits. PACNY is listing the Moyer Factories to raise awareness about their history and significance, and to support a current proposal for historic rehabilitation.
Harvey A Moyer (1853-1935) was born in Clay and founded the H. A. Moyer Carriage Company in Cicero in 1876. In 1880, Moyer moved the company to Syracuse a short distance east of the Oswego Canal, and built the earliest of the existing factory buildings, at the corner of Wolf and Park Streets.
In 1908, H. A. Moyer began to produce automobiles, and commissioned his son-in-law, architect Ward Welling Ward, to design a new factory at the northeast corner of Park and Wolf streets. The four-story brick building went up in 1909. Moyer tried to make cars the way he made fine carriages, but his individually produced luxury cars could not compete with mass-produced cars, especially the Ford Model T introduced in 1908.
By 1924, Moyer had gone out of business and the Automobile Factory was occupied by the Owen-Dyneto Corporation. Porter-Cable, the innovator in American portable power tools that occupied the west factory for several decades until 1960, when the company was bought by Rockwell International and moved to Tennessee. The last major tenant was the Penfield Company, which manufactured mattresses and box springs at the site until 2005.
Today, although vacant and with portions in poor condition, the carriage manufactory portion of the Moyer complex may soon have a new life through rehabilitation as housing, using state and federal historic tax credits. As part of this project, the entire Moyer complex, including the Automobile Factory, is being listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Reuse of these buildings will help to spur investment in the surrounding neighborhood that contains many other former industrial buildings, in the shadow of Destiny shopping mall. PACNY strongly supports the developer’s investment in the Moyer factories. Announcement of plans is anticipated later this fall.
Sources: Eight That Can’t Wait Nomination Form, 2019; Sam Gruber, My Central New York blog, http://mycentralnewyork.blogspot.com/2013/08/ward-wellington-wards-1909-h-moyer.html ; City of Syracuse City Planning Division
