Regardless of where you stand on the Carousel Center/Destiny issue — love it or hate it — it’s easy to forget that the project is being run, and built, by local residents.
Which is why we were so intrigued by the concept for this week’s feature story. What statistics, projections and facts about our community does the Destiny team know that we don’t?
What does someone from outside the community need to know about Syracuse to make this community an attractive one from a business and profit perspective?
We were suprised, and hope that you were, too, to learn about what details about the Syracuse area go into “selling” it to potential tenants.
The history of Onondaga Lake and the Oil City site acting as selling points completely blew us away. After all, these are not things we boast about amongst ourselves — why would a developer openly tell these reputation-tarnishing tales to potential tenants?
Because it shows that our community is improving, of course, Destiny’s Director of Marketing Marc Strang explained. Stories of rectifying wrongs shows commitment and persistence, and outsiders are better at focusing on the improvements being made, and to be made in the future, than we are.
There’s a lesson there, hidden among the slides of the presentation Strang shows to potential tenants, and one that we’d be wise to remember.
Despite the day-to-day complaints we may have about our community — the mistakes we’ve made that we’re still working together to clean up, cover up or contain — somebody sees an opportunity here. Someone hopes that Route 81 won’t be torn down, because our easy and quick commute is an advantage for the entire region. Someone else sees Ontario plates in a parking lot and knows that Canadian shoppers make up a significant portion of the money spent shopping in Syracuse.
Next time you’re wondering why you stick around here (you know, about mid-October when the snow starts to fall) try to see this city through the filter of a marketing team, and you’ll remember what it is that keeps you in Syracuse.
