I-81 viaduct project is impacting small businesses, but how much is yet to be seen

The I-81 viaduct is coming down, with the first section expected to fall sometime between late 2026 and the end of 2027. Big changes are on the way for downtown Syracuse.

With Phase Two of the historic I-81 viaduct project ramping up in 2026, vast amounts of construction are expected downtown. For the small businesses that line the corridor, the impact is still unknown.

“It’s gonna be a big mess. How big of a mess, I don’t know yet,” said Francesc, the owner of Pronto Fresh, a sandwich and salad shop on Erie Boulevard East, one of the corridors hit hardest by construction. “This road is gonna be shut down. I don’t know when or for how long.”

Photo by Hannah Peters

Pronto Fresh sandwich and salad shop sits on Erie Boulevard East in Downtown Syracuse, N.Y.

Francesc is staring down a road closure he cannot plan around because nobody has told him what to expect.

Erie Boulevard East is the main access route customers use to drive to his store. When that access point closes, so does his business’s accessisbility for anyone arriving by car.

“People aren’t gonna be able to come in from this door anymore,” he said. “It’s gonna affect business. I just don’t know how much yet.”

That uncertainty, not knowing how bad or for how long, runs through nearly every conversation with business owners along the route. And almost universally, they say the city has not reached
out to help them prepare.

Joe Driscoll, the city’s I-81 coordinator, said the project is largely on track and urged drivers to stay patient.

“It will be disruptive, but if people are cooperative with each other, it shouldn’t be crippling,” Driscoll said.

At Soul Society, a juice bar and raw cafe on West Genesee St. just two blocks from the highway, employee Abby Correla has been through this before. She remembers how quietly a business can disappear.

“When I first started working here in 2022, West Genesee was pretty much all closed down, and nobody even knew we existed,” Correla said. “When that street opened up, it was like a year
later, and everybody was like, ‘Did this place just open?’ And I’m like, ‘No, we’ve actually been open for a good year and a half.’ I feel like that’s probably gonna happen again.”

Soul Society sits on a side street that already makes it hard for new customers to find. More closures, Correla fears, will make them invisible again.

“Are they gonna close the street again? I honestly don’t know. I hope not,” she said. “There are some really prominent businesses in this area, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. I would expect that if it’s
gonna affect them, they should get a notice.”

As for the city reaching out?

“I haven’t been told anything about it,” Correla said. In Phase Two, the entire I-690 corridor through downtown will be rebuilt from scratch.

The stretch from Leavenworth to Crouse Avenues will get new interchange connections to West Street and the future Business Loop 81, the street-level roadway that will replace the viaduct.

Managing traffic through a full downtown reconstruction, with 37 bridges coming out and 28 going in, will be unlike anything the city has seen, according to Scott Butler, the state’s I-81 project assistant.

At Cake Bar, a cafe and bakery also on West Genesee, employee Sandy Gardino says she has already noticed more traffic on her commute and tries to avoid the highway entirely. Beyond the
personal hassle, she worries about the broader toll on residents near the viaduct, particularly those in affordable housing who may be displaced as the project intensifies.

Photo by Hannah Peters

The Higher Co. cannabis dispensary sits on North Salina St. in Downtown Syracuse, N.Y.

Not everyone is dreading what’s coming. At The Higher Co., a cannabis dispensary on North Salina St., manager Harmony Ramos says the business opened in June 2024 knowing construction would be part of the deal.

“We kind of knew it was going to be a couple of years of possibly slower business,” Ramos said. “But not too bad.”

Ramos is looking forward to Phase Two’s finish line. The new street-level roadway is planned to run down North Salina, bringing easier access to the shop.

“I know eventually it’s supposed to come down onto this street like an off-ramp,” she said. “It’s kind of like a waiting game, because when that happens, we’ll definitely get a lot more business.”

In the meantime, employees who commute from Cicero and Liverpool via I-81 have already started leaving earlier.

“There have been a few days where they’re calling, like, ‘We’re trying to get there,'” Ramos said.

Correla, for her part, supports tearing the viaduct down. She just wants the city to do it right.

“I definitely support it being taken down,” she said. “I just hope it’s done in a way that doesn’t totally disrupt the flow of the city. Soul Society is a community space — a place for people of all backgrounds to gather — not just for a certain demographic. I hope getting it taken down will just diversify the city even more.”

For now, downtown businesses are watching, waiting and largely on their own, trying to prepare for the storm before they can see what’s on the other side.

For real-time lane closure and detour updates, drivers can use the I-81 Connect app.