Baldwinsville gets $1.7 million for bocce venue, village gathering space

Baldwinsville’s old VFW building is on track for a new life as a bocce venue and community gathering spot, part of a county-backed push that officials say is meant to strengthen downtowns and reuse vacant property for public benefit.

On Monday, May 18, Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon announced that $1.7 million has been invested in Baldwinsville through the county’s Main Street Revitalization Program. County planning documents describe the program as a broad grant effort that pays for facade work, streetscape improvements, demolition or acquisition of eyesores, and other projects meant to make village centers more attractive and useful.

Baldwinsville has now received more than $1.7 million in county Main Street funding since 2019, supporting 46 different projects across the village, according to WSYR-TV. County leaders have framed the spending as part of a wider strategy to help villages, hamlets and town centers reinforce their retail districts and local identity, rather than leaving key properties idle.

The highest-profile project is the conversion of the former VFW post at 50 Salina St. into a bocce ball facility operated by the Waterside Club. WSYR-TV reported the project is more than halfway through construction and is expected to open later this summer. Gabe Quattrocchi, identified as a partner in the project, said the site is meant to be a family place that brings in youth as well as bocce players.

That mix of sports and social use is central to the project’s pitch. The club says it wants to make Baldwinsville the bocce capital of New York State, but the new venue is also expected to give the village a place to meet and hold events, turning a long-empty building into something that draws people into the commercial core.

The redevelopment also carries a neighborhood-repair angle. The VFW building had remained empty after its charter was canceled in September 2023, and reporting in 2024 said teens had broken into the vacant property. Reusing the site could help address a problem property at a visible corner of the village while adding a destination that brings more foot traffic to Salina Street.

Waterside Club already operates a bocce facility in Phoenix, New York, along the Oswego River. The club says that site, established in 2016, is a 4,500-square-foot renovated private club with two regulation synthetic indoor courts and a lounge, suggesting the Baldwinsville project is being built by an operator with an existing local model.

The county money is also going to other Baldwinsville projects, including work at Olive’s Eatery, Sheehan’s Appliance, Sirius Orthodontics, Ledden & Huegel Law Offices and The Family Dentistry, with improvements ranging from siding and windows to painting, signage and flagpole replacement. Another project will add ADA-accessible parking at the Meadow Street lot near the Community Park trailhead. Mayor Bruce Stebbin said that work will make the trail open to everyone by providing accessible parking where it had been lacking.

McMahon announced a separate $4.63 million investment in Camillus the previous week, underscoring that the Main Street program is being used across multiple villages. In Baldwinsville, the payoff is more immediate: a reused vacant building, a better gathering place and a downtown that looks more active than it has in years.