McMahon proposes moving inmates to Jamesville, repurposing downtown jail site

Ryan McMahon proposed shifting county inmates from the downtown Syracuse Justice Center to Jamesville Correctional Facility and redeveloping the 555 S. State St. site for housing or a luxury hotel, a move he pitched as part jail policy and part downtown reinvention. The county executive framed the idea as a way to consolidate operations, build a new public safety campus in Jamesville and free a valuable Syracuse parcel for higher-end development.

The Jamesville facility, southeast of Syracuse, can hold 538 inmates and opened in June 1983 at a cost of $9.8 million. The downtown Justice Center opened in 1995 and was considered state of the art when it opened, according to Undersheriff Jeffrey Passino, but it now needs renovations to meet new solitary-confinement rules.

McMahon’s proposal did not emerge from nowhere. County leaders first moved toward consolidation in 2022, when McMahon and then-Legislature chair Dave Knapp proposed closing Jamesville. The Onondaga County Legislature approved a merger in February 2023, but Sheriff Toby Shelley objected and sued to stop the plan. In April 2025, a state appeals court upheld a lower-court ruling that Shelley could not block the closing of Jamesville prison.

The latest version goes further by tying the jail move to a broader downtown land strategy. McMahon said the Justice Center site could be repurposed for housing or a luxury hotel, a possibility that comes as local leaders search for ways to strengthen the county convention district. Visit Syracuse president and CEO Danny Liedka has warned that hotel conversions have already left the convention center short of rooms for groups considering events downtown.

That shortage has become more visible as downtown and university-area properties keep changing use. Syracuse.com reported in early 2026 that 596 hotel rooms had already been converted into student apartments in the area, while another downtown hotel project was delayed by economic pressures and pushed back from a summer 2027 target to likely 2028. The pressure on room supply has sharpened interest in whether the Justice Center site should become more hotel space, more housing or something else entirely.

McMahon also folded the jail proposal into a wider 2026 State of the County agenda that included a new public safety campus at Jamesville, 30 acres of vacant county land for housing, larger housing subsidies and a county-owned solar farm. For Onondaga County, the debate now reaches beyond where inmates sleep; it goes to what kind of downtown Syracuse the county wants to build next.