Restaurant owners feel forced out of former Skyline with building shuttered since March

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The owners of the former Skyline Apartments are preparing to welcome new tenants to the building in the coming months; this will have to include a new commercial tenant, with the owners of Korean restaurant Spoon and Chopsticks feeling forced out by mismanagement.

Kevin Ham said that his restaurant has called the building home for about seven years. He said its become impossible to operate under new owners, noting that while he knows tenants in the residential part of the building faced major challenges under problem landlord Troy Green and Green National, his restaurant never had much of an issue. Problems instead began under Clear Investment Group, which purchased the building from the Greens last year with a pledge to turn the building around under a newly announced name; The Metropolitan.

According to Ham, his new landlords failed to address problems like leaking ceilings and no access to hot water for months; all culminating with an accidental fire in an apartment unit in March, causing the city to shutdown the building entirely with an unfit declaration.

"We cannot wait anymore," Ham said.

He and his wife are in the final process of packing up the restaurant, hoping to reopen in their new location at the Asia Food Market on Erie Boulevard in September. According to Ham, Clear Investment repeatedly failed to address issues like leaks in the ceiling and no access to hot water, which persisted for months before the fire forced a shutdown. Ham said that while the fire didn't impact the restaurant, the company did not help to facilitate a way for them to reopen while renovations began in the residential part of the building.

Communication issues never improved, Ham said. He showed the I-Team a Syracuse Police report from June, describing their response to a robbery in the restaurant in May. An officer wrote that they were "unable to contact Lifestyle [Clear Investment]" at the time.

Donghoo Sohn, an attorney representing Spoon and Chopsticks, said that they are considering legal action to force Clear Investment to provide compensation for the money lost and the expense to move to a new location.

"We hoped to reopen in this place [The Metropolitan] but it's impossible," Sohn said.

Alexandra Horton, a marketing director with Clear Investment, said that they could not comment on ongoing communications with Spoon and Chopsticks.

Michael Collins, the Commissioner of Neighborhood and Business Development with the City of Syracuse, confirmed that the unfit declaration is still in place, and that the building owners need to address issues like the hot water and the longtime faulty elevators before apartments can be reopened. He said ultimately when it comes to the situation with Spoon and Chopsticks, its between the restaurant and the building owners.

"It's unfortunate that this has happened to that restaurant," Collins said.

Horton said that contractors have worked tirelessly behind the plywood since the fire, stating that the company is working to repair and install boilers in addition to modernizing the elevators. Horton also said that work on the lobby is underway, aiming to open The Metropolitan in phases, "floor by floor." The notorious twelfth floor units, she said, are already complete. They plan to host the first open house as soon as late August.