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BINDING CITY: Betting on habitability.

In the days when the frontier of the nation ended only about 50 miles from the
east coast, by a military strategic decision an advanced plan and protection along a
navigable river, a place that today is the City of Utica was located.
An extraordinary development came from its central location from Albany to the
west. Completed with the exploitation of natural resources waterways and railway
transport facilities. A long time before its origins and, mainly with the Erie Canal, the
growth of the city came from the hands of European migration.
Growth that remained and touched its best numbers in terms of population and
industrial production, when the country entered the Second World War but then
followed by a gradual decline in manufacturing, mainly due to competitiveness
factors that left it practically in an abandoned city.
Informs that the factors that gave origins to the city are no sustained. Today we talk about technology and
competitiveness. And there is a vital thread it, education.
The old industrial city has become an attractive destination for new settlers, refugees, and migrants, which
apparently have had an impact on the desertion of its population, which was in an alarming decline. Without going
into in-depth details with the above, today we find a politico-economic leadership that has more full purposes in
terms of making the necessary adjustments to guide it to an economically attractive and robust position.
Therefore, the urbanization that Utica exposes with some heterogeneity is part of the dynamics of historical
migration, which has been a permanent, semi-permanent and circular since its origins. Its particularities define
the different sectors of the city, an important detail to understand its cultural-social idiosyncrasies.
Today we have many officials and planners talking about getting a 'Vibrant City' but basically get to get it is to
realize the proper mechanics of transformation not only in the urban, without forgetting to integrate the cultural-
social part.
Recently in a meeting of the Mohawk
Valley Regional Economic
Development Council (MV REDC), we
saw between other things a summary
of different projects related to the
revitalization of Downtown Utica. The
approach was strengthened by the
amounts of investments, figures that
are motivating in terms of sectorized
architectural-urban interventions, I
mean Utica in particular. But more
interesting is to hear that MV REDC's
mission for our region is to go for the
search of a "Vibrant" future while maintaining an economy that capitalizes on technology and innovation.
Architecture as the instrument of socio-economic changes has its chance in the city, but they are times where
there are differences in the definition of the town itself. The urban form will have to change with the new
guidelines for urbanization created by a new context: globalization. Our city will have to adjust to the conditions
of competitiveness, an element that once out of the market but now in the times of 'information,' I'm seeing as
the leaders of the State move towards a system of flows, towards connectivity. Recognizing that New York is much
more than New York City, working for an interconnected network of locations, for a global state.
For many years I have been following the evolution of a particular project, the Mohawk Valley Health System
Downtown medical campus, with a combined investment of nearly $ 500 million. The MVHS will encompass
approximately 25-acres, which will be bounded by Oriskany street to the north, Broadway to the east, NYS Route
5/8/12 to the west, and Columbia street, City Hall and Kennedy Apartments to the south.
The project includes 670,000 Sqf hospital, parking facilities, office building. Also involves the acquisition of
properties and modifications to existing utility infrastructure.
Supported by the evidence that hospitals in city centers are strong anchors of economic power, the development
of the area has continued to create a booming Downtown, connecting West and East Utica more strongly, but
mainly serving as a generating point economic radiating to other areas.
Across the street, north of
the proposed MVHS Hospital
is the newly renovated Utica
Memorial Auditorium, -
opened in 1959- a particular
and famous structure of an
almost 4000 seat multi-
purpose. Adjoining the latter
is a combined project on
more than 5 acres, The "U"
District, a plan for the Utica arts, sport, and entertainment District, the site of the Nexus Center, a first-class sports
field facility. In addition to the unaccepted proposals of a Casino and the Beer Museum.
To the west of the hospital the existing Brewery District, which has affected the sector with good manners, without
forgetting Lofts at Globe Mill, a project to be developed with a mixed-use for modern loft style apartment, and
commercial and office space, on historic mill complex's brick four stories dating back to the late 1880's.
On the northeast side of the city near the
legendary Union Station is Bagg's Square East - a
district runs along Catherine Street to Second
Street and then north to the railroad tracks and
recently on the State Register of Historic Places by
the State Historic Preservation Office.

To the North is the Utica's Harbor Point development, more than

100 acres of real estate waterfront located around the City's
 historic harbor, between the Mohawk River and Erie
Canal. Areas for public activities and recreation spaces,
in waterfront and urban planning, (including the
preservation and re-use of two old buildings of the
place).
These projects that modify the urban profile must also
come from the hands of the human part of the
transformations. For economic success, the city must
be definitively converted into a commercial reality,
adding a mixture of business and social value. It is to
achieve that binding and distinctive character
between people and the community. It is to create a
vibrant, efficient and sustainable city for all people and
that this growth reaches everyone.
Every time I see new and attractive investments that
continue to come to the city, it is an environment that
is a reality that we expect so much growth. But we
should keep in mind that maintaining a sustained
growth of the population must have the social part.
We consider that to strengthen the identity, to enhance the attractiveness of our community, a real integration
so that we can say "I Love Utica."
Let's feel that we love it, that it hurts us that is ours and that we are part of City. With this we would be reinforcing
the human side, to gain sustainability in its process of economic solidity over time. Let's make it "A Binding City"
for us, for our families and accept
it. Let us show it with the pride it
deserves, as it was felt by the
ancestors who kept it for two
centuries.

References extracted from O+D Utica newspaper:

 https://www.uticaod.com/news/20181026/mvhs-releases-drawings-of-planned-downtown-utica-hospital
 https://www.uticaod.com/news/20181228/west-uticas-globe-mills-site-targeted-for-environmental-cleanup
 https://www.uticaod.com/news/20160928/baggs-square-east-recommended-for-historic-register
 https://www.uticaod.com/opinion/20190106/our-view-proposed-nexus-center-must-be-2019-priority
 https://www.uticaod.com/news/20180603/harbor-point-project-looks-to-take-strides-this-year

CESAR AL MARTINEZ / Utica, New York.

March2019