Stand at the corner of East Adams and look around. Not long ago, this stretch of Syracuse was defined by aging public housing towers, McKinney Manor, a neighborhood that had seen decades of disinvestment, its residents bearing the weight of policies that prioritized highways over communities. The elevated I-81 viaduct didn’t just carry traffic overhead. It carved the East Side off from downtown like a scar.
That’s starting to change. And the groundbreaking of The Langston, a $102 million mixed-income, all-electric housing development on the East Adams corridor, is one of the most tangible signs yet that something real is happening here.
Named for a Pioneer
The name isn’t arbitrary. The Langston honors the late Judge Langston C. McKinney, who died in May 2024 at 79, and who spent his life bending Syracuse toward something better.
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McKinney grew up in Miami, came to Syracuse as a chemist at Carrier Corporation, the first Black scientist in their R&D division, then went back to school at Syracuse University College of Law. He co-founded the SU chapter of the Law Students Civil Rights Research Council, spent a summer doing civil rights legal work in the South, and came home to Syracuse to build a career advocating for people the system had overlooked. He helped create the first Black law firm in Syracuse, co-founded the William Herbert Johnson Bar Association, and in 1986 became the first African American City Court Judge in Syracuse history, appointed by Mayor Tom Young and then elected three times over.
For 23 years on the bench, McKinney believed in a simple idea: justice shouldn’t depend on how much money you have. He helped launch Syracuse’s Community Treatment Court, pushed back against cash bail being used as a tool of preventive detention, and mentored a generation of local lawyers. A courtroom at Syracuse University College of Law was dedicated in his honor just months after his passing.
Naming a new neighborhood anchor after him isn’t symbolism. It’s a statement of values.
What’s Being Built
The Langston replaces the outdated McKinney Manor public housing complex with 132 mixed-income units across a four-story building, a three-story building, and a series of townhomes. Of those units, 63 are reserved as replacement homes for former McKinney Manor and Pioneer Homes residents. Fifty-four are available to families earning up to 60% of area median income, and 15 will be market-rate.
This is phase one of an 11-phase East Adams Neighborhood Transformation Plan, a 118-acre, 27-block undertaking that will ultimately build or preserve approximately 1,500 homes. The Syracuse Housing Authority is partnering with McCormack Baron Salazar, a national developer with deep roots in urban neighborhood revitalization.
The development is fully all-electric and built around a ground-source geothermal heat pump system, clean energy that lowers utility bills and carbon output simultaneously. Residents will also have access to a community room, fitness center, business incubator space, and indoor bike storage. A new street running through the site will be named McKinney Street.
The $102 million price tag is backed by a carefully assembled stack of financing: $42 million in Low Income Housing Tax Credit equity, $45 million in New York State subsidy through Homes and Community Renewal, $8 million from Empire State Development, and $2.6 million in combined City of Syracuse, HUD CNI grant, and bond funds. Vertical construction is expected to wrap up in 2027, with all former residents guaranteed the right to return.
The East Side Is Moving, All at Once
What makes this moment feel different isn’t just one project. It’s the convergence.
Less than a mile away, on South Wilbur Avenue, the long-abandoned Syracuse Developmental Center, a 600,000-square-foot complex that sat vacant for more than two decades, is being demolished and cleared. The Albanese Organization has purchased the 48-acre site and is preparing Phase I of a $100 million mixed-use development that will include more than 250 housing units, 7.5 acres of green space, and 3,600 square feet of retail. Phase I construction is expected to begin in 2026.
Meanwhile, the Environmental Facilities Corporation has approved $22.8 million to replace 2,790 lead pipes across the city, infrastructure investment that disproportionately benefits older neighborhoods on the East Side that have waited far too long for clean water infrastructure to catch up.
And then there’s the larger economic engine humming in the background: Micron’s $100 billion semiconductor campus in Clay, New York is already generating momentum, with thousands of jobs coming to Central New York over the next two decades. New housing in walkable, transit-connected neighborhoods, like the East Adams corridor, positions working families to actually benefit from that growth rather than get priced out of it.
New Chancellor Mike Haynie has also signaled a deepened commitment from Syracuse University to the city beyond the Hill, a posture that, combined with SU’s existing investment in neighborhood partnerships, adds another thread to the fabric being woven here.
What It Means for CNY Families
It’s easy to read the dollar figures and lose the human story. But what’s happening on East Adams is fundamentally about families, the ones who stayed in McKinney Manor through decades of neglect, who are now guaranteed a seat at the table in the new development. It’s about kids who will grow up in clean, energy-efficient homes with a fitness center down the hall instead of a crumbling stairwell. It’s about the East Side finally getting the quality of investment that other parts of the city have long taken for granted.
Judge McKinney spent his career insisting that justice be accessible to everyone, not just those who could afford it. The Langston carries that forward in concrete and steel: a neighborhood where income level doesn’t determine the quality of your home, your environment, or your future.
Syracuse has a lot of big moments on the horizon. Micron. I-81. Downtown redevelopment. But the quiet, block-by-block work of rebuilding the East Side may be the most meaningful of all, because it’s the work that brings the city’s most longstanding promises closer to being kept.
The Langston groundbreaking ceremony was held on December 3, 2025, at 100 Angelou Terrace, with Mayor Ben Walsh, Mayor-elect Sharon Owens, and state officials in attendance. Vertical construction is underway, with the development slated to open in 2027.
