Local investors buy Syracuse’s Equitable Towers, plan major rebuild

Local investors have bought Syracuse’s Equitable Towers and say they are prepared to put tens of millions of dollars into a rebuild of the city’s largest office complex, turning a long-troubled property into a test of downtown Syracuse’s next chapter.

The twin 19-story buildings on South Warren Street and Madison Street hold 685,000 square feet of office, commercial and retail space, making them one of the most visible pieces of the city center skyline. The first tower opened in 1966 as the MONY Building, followed by the Carrier Building in 1971. The weather star atop the complex has been a Syracuse icon since 1966, even as the property’s fortunes have faded with the office market.

The towers fell into foreclosure in 2023 after Towers Realty defaulted on a $28 million mortgage. Court records showed the original loan was $33.2 million in 2012, the balance stood at $28.4 million in 2020, and the debt was due in full on July 1, 2024. By then, vacancy had already become the central problem.

That pressure intensified in 2022 when Equitable Financial Life Insurance Co., the towers’ largest tenant and naming-rights holder, said it would cut its office space in half and move about 700 jobs from downtown Syracuse to the Inner Harbor. The departure deepened doubts about whether older downtown towers could hold onto large tenants in a post-pandemic market shaped by remote work, downsizing and higher financing costs.

The new owners now inherit not just a landmark, but a complicated redevelopment puzzle. Syracuse.com reported in 2017 that upgrades were planned to keep major tenants in the towers, and in 2019 the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency considered contributing $1.5 million for plaza and garage renovations. Those earlier efforts underscore how long the building has been in need of a larger answer.

The sale also reflects a broader local wager on downtown. If the investors can phase renovations, line up financing and attract a tenant mix that supports modern office space and luxury uses, the project could strengthen South Warren Street and Madison Street and help refill aging office stock that has weighed on the core for years. If they cannot, one of Syracuse’s most familiar towers could remain a symbol of what downtown still has to overcome.