Pictures of Syracuse’s largest suburb –Clay, NY (New York: houses, neighborhoods)

[bellafinzi]

The Town of Clay is a northern suburb of Syracuse, NY. It is only a town, but it has more population than cities like Utica, NY or Binghamton, NY. Much of the population growth of Clay came in the 1970s & 80s. Lately retail growth has taken off. With prime land still available along Route 31 (the main east-west road in the northern suburbs) including a shovel-ready chip fab site, you can expect to see Clay undergo further development. Clay is home to Great Northern Mall, one of the three major enclosed malls in the Syracuse area. Commercial growth has clustered around the Mall on the Route 31 corridor. In recent years, the Town of Clay has experienced a commercial boom. It hasn’t ended yet with at least two proposed strip malls under review today. The Liverpool and North Syracuse school districts make up the majority of the town.

Clay is a very safe community (check the stats on city-data). A proposed development way up north in the Central Square school district called Riverwalk promises to bring half million dollar homes located along the Erie Canal to Clay. The developer said that he had people interested to move there from RI, Conn. and other states.This project was scaled back after the State environmental department said that it would have two much effect on wetlands. The original plan was to create a neighborhood of man made canals (like they have in Florida) linked to the Erie Canal so homeowners could take off with their boats from their own backyard docks and cruise the Erie Canal. Now the plan is just 300 upscale homes. There is also a plan to create a walkable community with shops and an entertainment district near Three Rivers (an area where the Oneida River meets the Seneca and Oswego Rivers). Clay is home to a very large State protected Marsh.

Clay has three major Parks which are called Clay Park South, Clay Park Central and Clay Park North. The newly expanded YMCA is located next to Clay Park Central. Near Great Northern Mall is an enclosed Golf Dome for those who want to practice during winter. Clay also has a medical complex including a large five story building with emergency rooms. Compared to the eastern or western suburbs of Syracuse, Clay has very flat terrain.

Town of Clay population is about 60,000

Now my little tour of Clay



























Clay Park South



Clay Park Central



North Medical Center



Clay Town Hall



Route 31 commercial corridor











Great Northern Mall



Bridge over I-481



Hope you liked the tour of my town!

[bellafinzi]

Clay continued... I could not fit this in the above thread because it went over 5000 char....

To help clear things up mailing addresses are a quirky thing around here. Several of our zip codes cross village/town lines. Only a small built up area in the northeast part of the Town of Clay actually has a zip code called “Clay, NY”. Most of the Town of Clay is called “Liverpool, NY” or “North Syracuse, NY”. The Liverpool part is the western half of Clay, North Syracuse is the southeastern part of Clay. Most likely, if you live in an address for Liverpool, your school district will be Liverpool, the same can be said for North Syracuse. The Liverpool school district is good and is better than North Syracuse. Both are large districts, Liverpool has over 8,000 students. North Syracuse has over 10,000. Of the suburban school districts in Upstate New York only Greece (outside Rochester) is larger than North Syracuse. Hope this explanation helps a little!

[WN737]

Wow, Clay looks like a beautiful city. I would not mind living there. Your photos of the Syracuse area look great!

[bellafinzi]

WN737, thank you! I'm glad you like the pics of my town.

[homansweets]

Hey great info for Clay......we are moving there Jan2.....so any other info on it would be great. I have lived in IA my entire life & so this is going to be quite the change (never been to CNY, only NYC)......

Well, can you tell me what part of Clay is the new subdivisions on Cairnes Trail? And is that the Liverpool school district? Thanks

[bellafinzi]

Thanks homansweets!

Cairnes Trail is located in the northeast part of Clay in the North Syracuse school district. Sorry, not the Liverpool school district. That part of Clay is more connected with the Town of Cicero than the rest of Clay. Clay is divided into three distinct sections. The northeast part where Cairnes Trail is located...is separated from the rest of Clay by I-481 and The Clay Marsh, officially called "Hamlin Marsh State Wildlife Management Area". The Marsh is a huge area just south of I-481 with no roads going through it. That part of Clay is actually called "Clay" for your address and zip code. Liverpool zip code part of Clay is the western half of Clay. The North Syracuse zip code part of Clay is southeastern Clay.

In my opinion, the most attractive residential neighborhoods and where demand is the highest is the southeastern part of Clay, outside the village of North Syracuse. This is where I live and this is where some of the higher end homes are located. We get fliers in our mail box telling us who to contact if we want to sell our home because there are buyers looking to buy here. Half of the this area (southeastern Clay) is the North Syracuse school district, half is the Liverpool district. These neighborhoods are off Buckely Road, and Bear Road. The North Medical Center is close by and the Taft Road Wegmans is close too. There is only one new development in the southeastern part of Clay, it's off Bear Road near Taft Road.

The Northeast part of Clay, south of Route 31, where Cairnes Trail is located is like a huge development all off one road...Caughdenoy Road. This area hasn't really filled out yet, so there are some old barns and such around there. Caughdenoy Road leads right into Route 11 in Cicero, the main road north-south road in Cicero. Wegmans (Grocery Store) is right there so is Home Depot, Lowe's, Wal-Mart and a Target is under construction. There is high traffic on Route 11 as commuters use it to go to I-81. Cicero wants to build a new I-81 exit at the end of Caughdenoy Road to ease traffic on Route 11, but if it does happens... its years away from reality. I-481 is close to Caughdenoy Road but there is only an off ramp, no on ramp. Therefore commuters need to go to I-81 in the morning, but can use the off ramp on I-481 in the evening.

The Caughdenoy Road housing development area where Cairnes Trail is located... is all south of Route 31, the main east-west road in the Northern suburbs. Route 31 is "built up" in the northwest part of Clay to the west and in Cicero to the east, but in the northeast part of Clay(right in the middle) it's all rural open fields. Therefore, Cairnes Trail is located on the fringe of the suburbs, but if you go east or west, it's built up. Route 31 to the west of Cairnes Trail is where Great Northern Mall and all the srtip Mall stores and restaurants are located. Route 31 to the east of Cairnes Trail is where Cicero-North Syracuse High School is located. Most of the Caughdenoy Road housing developments were constructed in the 1970 and 1980s. In the 90s very little development took place there. There has been a increase of construction there lately, but nothing like what is taking place in Cicero or Lysander. Near the Caughdenoy Road housing developments, but on the other side of Route 31 to the north is the Chip Fab shovel ready site. AMD announced this summer they are building near Albany, so I doubt that any time soon there will be a chip fab plant built there. It's a great location for a chip fab, but the demand for computer chips isn't that high right now and Albany needs to build out first before most companies would consider coming here. Bristol Myers Squibb almost built another campus on that chip fab site that would have employed over 500 high tech workers, but this spring Senator Kennedy got them to move the campus to Boston instead.

Some things I don't like about the Caughdenoy Road housing development area is that a swampy area (not Clay Marsh) divides it from Cicero, Lawton Road... that runs through that area is a very narrow main road, and the Lawton Road intersection with Route 31 is kind of wacky right now. You need to go left onto Crabtree Lane to get to Route 31. My hope is that as that area builds up with more development, the infrastructure will improve and the barns and other eyesores will be replaced with more attractive structures. Not to go off topic, but IMO the Syracuse area really needs a population boom so that areas that have been left behind get more investment. That's why I believe Charlotte and other southern metros look so nice, everything is so new. And if there are properties that don't look nice, someone buys it.. fixes it up and sells it as a profit.

Overall, the Cairnes Trail area is nice, but it's not the best area of the northern suburbs. I think as the Route 31 corridor becomes more built up, that area could turn out to be an ideal location though. Don't haste to ask me more questions.

[homansweets]

Wow, that's a whole lot of information to take in! But thanks, I think I understand, lol. I am sure it will take awhile to figure it all out!

So, I guess to me it seems like Cairnes Trail is kinda "deserted" in a sense? I mean, boon dock status a little bit? That would be awesome if you could take some pics of that area/neighborhood, the marsh you are referring to.....would that be crazy of me to ask? I was just thinking that since you posted those other pics of things around Clay, that it would be nice to get a picture of the actual area I would be moving to. We don't know a soul in Syracuse, so it is hard to figure anything out until we do move January.

Well, let me know if that is something you would be willing to do for me (hey I will make you a cake when I get settled in, lol......that is what I do, cake decorating). Thanks again for all that information, very helpful Have a ncie day~Gwenn

[bellafinzi]

Your welcome Gwenn! Cairnes Trail isn't really deserted it's more just like an isolated area that hasn't seen much growth for a couple decades because there are other more desirable areas that didn't fill out yet. I can imagine that as the other areas fill up with homes in the next two or three years, the Cairnes Trail area will start seeing more growth. Especially if something is built at the chip fab site.

I found the one picture that I have of the Cairnes Trail area. The picture was taken two years ago, so there are more houses there today. It was taken from Route 31 looking south at the housing development. Here it is



Of course it will look different when you come in the winter.

Also, more news in the paper today about that chip fab site:

Biotech company may move into CNY
Officials from company, which was not identified, toured Clay site.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
By Rick Moriarty
Staff writers
Five months after losing to Massachusetts in a bid for a large pharmaceutical plant, a site in Clay is being considered by an international biotechnology company. Domestic and international representatives of the company met Tuesday in Syracuse with local officials trying to recruit it to the area. The officials did not identify the company. Attending the meeting were U.S. Reps. James Walsh, R-Onondaga, and John McHugh, R-Pierrepont Manor; Onondaga County Executive Nicholas Pirro; and Irwin Davis, president of the Metropolitan Development Association.
Pirro said the company is looking at several sites in the area, including the Clay Business Park, at the northeast corner of Route 31 and Caughdenoy Road. He said the Syracuse area is one of about 10 being considered by the company, adding that it might be one of the last "five or six places" under consideration.…
The vacant, 250-acre site in Clay is owned by the Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency, which spent $1.21 million to buy it over the past several years. Its goal is to attract a high-value development, such as a biotechnology company or semiconductor manufacturer.
In the summer, Bristol-Myers Squibb Inc. considered the site for a $660 million large-scale biologics manufacturing facility that would have employed 550 people. The company decided to build the plant at a former Army base in Devens, Mass."

http://www.syracuse.com/business/pos...040.xml&coll=1 (broken link)

(looks like we almost posted at the same time ~ edited my post)

[homansweets]

ooops, I see it all now, for some reason it wasn't showing up the first time I came to the site..........
thanks for the picture, yes I am quite sure the nice greenery in the picture won't be there when I get there! So, I haven't paid much attention to the weather there yet, have you gotten any snow yet? Our weather has been crazy, it was 30* on halloween evening & then the past couple days was 70-80*!!

[bellafinzi]

Don't worry about the cake! If I get a chance, I'll try to get better pictures for you. As for the weather. No snow here yet. September was more like October, October was more like November. And now its November and today it was close to 70! Average high is more like the low 50s. I enjoy talking about the Syracuse suburbs, so I'll be happy to answer any other questions.

Good luck with the move. It might be a little difficult moving to Upstate NY during the middle of winter. But it shouldn't be too bad as the snow removal is really great around here.