Syracuse, N.Y. — A nonprofit that helped bring $100 million in real estate investments to a poverty-stricken Syracuse neighborhood is in danger of losing one of its flagship properties due to fiscal problems.
State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, the trustee for the New York State Common Retirement Fund, has filed a foreclosure petition in state Supreme Court in Onondaga County against the Near Westside Initiative. The complaint said the organization, created more than 16 years ago by Syracuse University, has defaulted on a 2011 mortgage owned by the retirement fund and secured by three buildings with commercial and residential tenants.
The legal threat is the latest in a series of blows to an organization that for several years inspired hope for a troubled area of the city. The initiative started as the brainchild of a former SU chancellor who pushed the school to use its financial and intellectual resources beyond campus to help lift the neighborhood adjacent to downtown Syracuse. But after several years of major commercial and residential renovations, the university began shifting away from the effort about a decade ago, forcing the small nonprofit to try to stand on its own.