By Sarah Chen, Staff Reporter
DeWitt has spent most of the last decade waiting on ShoppingTown. The mall sat shuttered for six years. Two development teams came and went. Moonbeam Capital fought Onondaga County through bankruptcy court. Tenants walked. Weeds took over the parking lot along Erie Boulevard East.
On March 30, State Supreme Court Justice Joseph Lamendola cleared the last piece. He signed off on the county Industrial Development Agency’s eminent domain petition for the former Macy’s parcel, the final hold-out in the 65-acre site. Onondaga County now controls the entire footprint.
The path is open for a $450 million mixed-use redevelopment at the corner of Erie Boulevard and Marshall Avenue, even as the county re-opens bidding to find a new lead developer after the original team walked away last fall. County Executive Ryan McMahon, who has called the parcel “one of the most valuable pieces of property with the most upside potential to redevelop for the community,” said at a March 24 press conference that the county is looking for a strong anchor tenant, empty-nester housing, and a reuse of parts of the mall footprint. He has floated “high-tech manufacturing with housing” as a possible mix, citing the Micron buildout 12 miles north in Clay.
What follows is a grounded look at what is real, what is pending, and what is actually opening near DeWitt this spring.
The ShoppingTown timeline, verified
ShoppingTown opened March 3, 1954 as one of the region’s first post-war shopping centers, built on a 52-acre plot by Syracuse developer Eagan Real Estate Inc. and designed by local architect Fred B. O’Connor. The four-day dedication drew roughly 40,000 people on opening day despite poor weather and an estimated 75,000 the following Saturday, with live radio broadcasts, searchlights, and a giveaway of a 1954 Chevrolet. Frances L. McElroy, president of Shoppingtown Incorporated, and L.T. Eagan of Eagan Real Estate spoke at the dedication. Initial tenants included J.C. Penney as the lead anchor, F.W. Woolworth, Walgreens, Grand Union, Acme Markets, Fanny Farmer, Endicott Johnson, and Kinney Shoes. Addis joined on October 8, 1954.
The center was converted to an enclosed all-climate mall beginning in late 1973 and eventually reached 988,054 square feet. Wilmorite Properties took control through a partnership with Eagan in summer 1989, then Macerich acquired the property as part of a $2.3 billion Wilmorite portfolio deal in late 2004. Kaufmann’s, which had anchored since relocating from Fayetteville Mall in 1993, converted to Macy’s in September 2006 after Federated Department Stores absorbed The May Department Stores Company. Macy’s announced its closure in March 2015, citing stronger performance at Destiny USA. Sears followed in 2018. By March 2020, all three anchors had left and the mall closed for good.
Moonbeam Capital Investments, the Las Vegas firm owned by CEO Steven Maksin, bought ShoppingTown at an online auction in August 2013 for more than $14 million. Moonbeam stopped paying taxes, and by 2019 the company owed more than $15 million in back taxes and penalties. Maksin’s Shoppingtown Mall NY LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2019. In 2020, Moonbeam agreed to sell the main building to Onondaga County for $3.5 million and walk away from roughly $13 million in taxes, interest, and fees.
Onondaga County then selected OHB Redev LLC, a joint venture of Redev CNY, Hueber-Breuer Construction, DalPos Architects, and Syracuse nonprofit Housing Visions, to lead the rebuild. But the former department store pads were owned separately by Benderson Development, and those parcels sat outside the county’s control.
The county bought the former Sears parcel from Benderson for $4.5 million, closing on November 25, 2025. The final piece, the Macy’s parcel, was the one left for Justice Lamendola. The IDA offered Benderson $2.5 million. Benderson pushed back in court. On March 30, 2026, Justice Lamendola ruled for the county under New York’s Eminent Domain Procedure Law. Benderson can still contest the final valuation in court.
District East Project by the Numbers
A new developer search, and why the old one walked
On October 23, 2025, OHB Redev formally ended its partnership with Onondaga County after roughly three years of work. The original site plan had called for more than 900 residential units plus commercial space, a mix the partners could not pull off without control of the Benderson parcels. McMahon said the site control problem had dragged on too long and the county’s vision for the land had grown beyond what OHB signed up for.
“I think we’re better positioned,” McMahon told reporters on October 23. “They helped get us to a point, but they can’t do what we can do, essentially, and I think overall, with our broader vision that we got going on, this was the right move.”
Hueber-Breuer Construction, one of OHB’s partners, is led by President Andy Breuer, a sixth-generation family owner of a Syracuse firm founded in 1872. Breuer, an Emory University graduate who returned to Syracuse from Atlanta in 2002, earlier framed the project as a “centralized heart within the community” and told officials the team took “very seriously this responsibility to repurpose this site, and to establish District East as the new crossroads between the east side of Syracuse, the future Route 81, and the eastern suburbs.” Hueber-Breuer has built the Nexus Center hockey complex in Utica, the NYS Fairgrounds EXPO Center, the Destiny Embassy Suites Hotel, and supervised the primary construction phase of the 17,500-seat Lakeview Amphitheater on Onondaga Lake, which opened September 3, 2015.
Housing Visions, the other CNY anchor of the team, incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in February 1990 to tackle distressed urban blocks through a scattered-site infill model. Founder Kenyon Craig ran the organization for 27 years before stepping down as CEO in 2017. President and CEO Ben Lockwood now leads the group, which owns and manages more than 1,600 affordable units across 16 communities in Upstate New York and Pennsylvania. Recent Syracuse work includes the Moyer Carriage Lofts, which delivered 128 units inside the historic Moyer Carriage factory buildings, and the Butternut Crossing initiative adding 53 rental apartments.
With OHB out, the county issued a fresh request for proposals on March 10. Responses were due April 27. McMahon said the county expects to pick a winner in June. Benderson Development, the Buffalo-based family real estate firm founded by Nathan Benderson in 1949 and now run by managing director Randall Benderson and his sons Shaun and Evan, still owns 1,065 properties across 40 states totaling 55 million square feet. The company, which celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2024, is best known regionally for Nathan Benderson Park, a Sarasota rowing venue built on a former shell excavation pit.
Any new plan will still face the same zoning, traffic, and retail demand questions. Ed Michalenko, who has served as DeWitt supervisor since 2007, has publicly rejected a simple big-box strip center, calling that use “antithetical” to the town’s focus on “building community.” McMahon has said the final mix could include high-tech manufacturing, housing, and retail, with part of the footprint feeding the workforce pipeline around the Micron megafab rising in Clay.
Micron’s shadow over the DeWitt housing math
Micron Technology has committed to a $100 billion semiconductor campus in Clay, about 12 miles north of ShoppingTown. The company projects 9,000 direct jobs at its first fab when Fab 1 opens, and Empire State Development expects 40,000 indirect jobs across the CNY supply chain, with over 50,000 total promised across the 30-year buildout. Analysts commissioned by the state estimate the region will need roughly 30,000 new housing units over the next 30 years to absorb the demand. McMahon has said grubbing and excavating on Fab 1 will run through 2026, with 3,000 to 4,000 construction workers on site during the build phase.
Governor Kathy Hochul launched a $150 million Housing Central New York Fund in early 2026 to seed 2,500 new homes. Micron added $30 million of its own to that fund on March 27, 2026 as part of a broader $35.5 million package for CNY housing, education, workforce training, and transportation. The package also included $2.2 million for a new Centro bus route between Syracuse and Clay to move workers without clogging Route 481. The $500 million Green CHIPS Community Investment Fund layers $250 million from Micron, $100 million from the state, and $150 million from local and national partners. McMahon has said Onondaga County alone needs 20,000 new housing units to keep pace.
ShoppingTown’s 65 acres sit along one of the region’s most-traveled commuter corridors and within 20 minutes of the Micron site. DeWitt’s median sale price was $311,000 in February 2026, down less than 1 percent year over year, while the median price per square foot climbed 17.4 percent to $175, a pattern that shows smaller homes selling at a premium as inventory tightens. Homes close in 32 days. That math, plus proximity to Micron, is the reason McMahon keeps floating “high-tech manufacturing with housing” as a possible use for District East.
Reeds Jewelers opened a flagship across from the DeWitt Wegmans
While the mall waited on the courts, something quieter but concrete happened one mile east. Reeds Jewelers moved out of its longtime Syracuse store and into the former Ethan Allen Galleries building at 100 Dewey Avenue in Fayetteville, directly across from the 160,000 square foot DeWitt Wegmans on East Genesee Street. The family-owned chain, founded in 1946 by Bill and Roberta Zimmer with a single storefront in downtown Wilmington, North Carolina, cut the ribbon on Tuesday, March 3, 2026, the date a nod to the 80-year mark the company hits this year.
The new showroom is the fifth Reeds location overall and only the second company location authorized as an official Rolex retailer, a status Reeds has held for more than 40 years and one that requires full factory training, secured inventory systems, and an approved service bench. In-house technicians handle Rolex service work on site. Roughly 90 percent of the chain’s bridal jewelry is custom-made at a company factory in Wilmington, matched to the customer’s selected diamond. Customers are offered champagne or espresso during appointments. The 100 Dewey property offers up to 15,500 square feet available for lease, positioning Reeds as the anchor for a planned cluster of luxury tenants.
“We’re thrilled with this location,” President and CEO Jeffrey Zimmer said at the opening. “It’s a wonderful location with wonderful people.” Alan Zimmer, Bill’s son, joined the company in 1981, took over merchandising as Executive Vice President, and has served as CEO since 1985. Reeds now operates more than 65 stores across 13 states and is still privately held by the Zimmer family after a 2004 management buyout. The Fayetteville move ended a 47-year run at the company’s previous Syracuse-area showroom.
The rest of the development map
A 2,650 square foot Taco Bell with a drive-thru is rising at 5840 Bridge Street. Demolition of the old building on the site started April 14. The franchisee is Hospitality Restaurant Group, an Upstate New York Taco Bell operator run by President and CEO Marty Lobdell that will soon cross the 100-restaurant mark across New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. HRG already runs 56 Taco Bells across the Syracuse, Rochester, Albany, Utica, Watertown, Cortland, and Ithaca markets, plus several Taco Bell/Long John Silver’s and Taco Bell/KFC combined units in the greater Albany area. HRG targets a late July or early August opening on Bridge Street.
Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers has proposed its first Central New York location at 3159 Erie Boulevard in the DeWitt Town Center, on a parcel now occupied by an older Taco Bell that will close when the Bridge Street store opens. The plan calls for a 3,472 square foot building with a dual drive-thru and 13 employees. It would be store number 951 or later for the Plano-based chain, which is separately opening its first Western New York store in Amherst and its Times Square New York City flagship this year. The proposal is in front of the DeWitt Planning Board.
Burlington is finalizing interior work at DeWitt Town Plaza at 3179 Erie Boulevard East for a reopening later this year. The former Rescue Mission thrift store in the same plaza was demolished in March after sitting vacant since 2022.
Active Projects in and around DeWitt, Spring 2026
DeWitt by the numbers
The Town of DeWitt had a population of 26,074 at the 2020 census across 33.87 square miles. It hosts Le Moyne College, Carrier Corporation’s engineering and design center known locally as the Carrier Campus, Hancock Field Air National Guard Base, and Clark Reservation State Park, which sits atop a 180 foot escarpment that was once a giant waterfall fed by glacial meltwater from Glacial Lake Newbury some 12,000 years ago. Four school districts pull from town addresses: Jamesville-DeWitt, East Syracuse-Minoa, North Syracuse, and Fayetteville-Manlius.
The Jamesville-DeWitt Central School District, which enrolls roughly 2,700 students across three elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school of 820 students, presented a proposed $74,962,459 budget for 2026 to 2027. The budget stays under the calculated tax levy limit but raises the levy 2.63 percent to $47.5 million. Utility costs rose 18 percent year over year. Health insurance premiums rose 10.5 percent. Commercial insurance rose 13 percent. The district outlined a roughly 35-position reduction to close a $5 million gap. State aid covers $22.9 million of the proposed budget. Voters go to the polls on May 19.
Jamesville-DeWitt 2026-27 Budget Snapshot
What DeWitt residents are watching next
Supervisor Ed Michalenko, a Ph.D. environmental scientist from SUNY-ESF who has served DeWitt since 2007, spent years trying to revive ShoppingTown with the town’s own tools. The town offered a $250,000 marketing grant, NYSERDA efficiency enrollment, a mixed-use overlay district, and a five to ten year PILOT proposal to phase redevelopment. Michalenko, a two-time EPA Environmental Quality Award winner (2008 and 2012) and President of the Onondaga Environmental Institute, described the mall’s arc in October 2022 in plain terms: “ShoppingTown’s gone through a traumatic decline, but it’s bottomed out, and the goal here today is to work with these developers to make sure that it rebounds.” His public writing has framed the work as “a history of aggressive effort on the Town’s part to redevelop Shoppingtown” alongside a “bright future” in partnership with the county.
None of the town’s tools moved the needle until the county took over. The town’s role now shifts to zoning, code review, and public hearings on whatever plan emerges from the new RFP. Planning Board meetings on the Raising Cane’s proposal and any future District East rezoning run at the DeWitt Town Hall on Butternut Drive, named for Butternut Creek. The creek’s 75 square mile watershed runs through the heart of the town, fed the ancient waterfall at Clark Reservation, and sat at the center of traditional Onondaga Nation lands where, according to a 1681 account by Father Jean de Lamberville, the main Onondaga village stood about a mile south of present-day Jamesville. McMahon and county legislator Don Romeo hosted a community meeting at DeWitt Town Hall on Monday, April 6 from 5 to 7 p.m. to take public input on the new RFP.
For residents in Jamesville, around Fiddlers Green, or along East Genesee Street, the near-term story is simpler. A new luxury jewelry anchor just opened across from the DeWitt Wegmans. A fast food drive-thru will open on Bridge Street this summer. A chicken chain wants in at Erie Boulevard. The biggest piece, the mall site itself, has full site control, a court ruling behind it, a fresh RFP in, and a June decision coming.
After six vacant years, that is more than DeWitt has had in a while.
Sources: Spectrum Local News, CNY Central, LocalSYR, Central New York Business Journal, iHeart 570 WSYR, Onondaga County IDA filings, WAER Public Media, Urban CNY, Eagle News Online, NCC News Online, Jamesville-DeWitt Central School District, Governor Kathy Hochul’s Office, Empire State Development, Onondaga County Office of Economic Development, Hueber-Breuer Construction, Housing Visions, Benderson Development, Reeds Jewelers, Mall Hall of Fame (2009), Redfin DeWitt market report, Town of DeWitt, Wikipedia (ShoppingTown Mall, DeWitt NY, Butternut Creek).
