Drive down Erie Boulevard East in De Witt and you will pass 65 acres of boarded-up entrances, weeds pushing through cracked parking lot asphalt, and graffiti on walls that once held a Macy's and a Sears. Residents who live nearby have been complaining about it for years. One neighbor told a local TV crew this spring that the county has "held hostage" a property that should have been fixed by now.
Meanwhile, homes in the Syracuse metro area, De Witt included, have kept selling fast and for more money. Over the three months ending in May 2026, Syracuse-area homes sold in about 33 days on average with roughly 4 offers per listing. Statewide, New York's median sale price rose for 30 straight months through early 2026. None of the county's press releases, court filings, or town hall meetings about the mall mention falling comps nearby. The story around ShoppingTown has been about blight, litigation, and broken developer deals. It has not been a story about property values.
That gap is worth sitting with if you are house hunting or listing a home within a mile of that site. The intuitive read is that six years of visible vacancy should be dragging something down. The data says otherwise, at least so far. Here is what is actually happening, and what the difference means for anyone with a closing date in mind.
The Site You Cannot Avoid Showing
If you are selling a home near ShoppingTown, buyers will see it. It sits on Erie Boulevard, one of the main east-west corridors through the town, and it is impossible to route around during a showing. Some buyers will ask about it directly. Others will just go quiet and you will not know why until the offer comes in lower than expected, or does not come at all.
The honest answer, based on everything reported about the site, is that nobody currently knows what will replace it. That uncertainty is the actual friction, not the vacancy itself. A buyer weighing a home two streets away is not pricing in a permanent eyesore. They are pricing in a question mark, and question marks make people cautious even when the underlying market is strong. Sellers who get ahead of that question with a clear, factual answer tend to have an easier conversation than sellers who hope it does not come up.
How ShoppingTown Got Here
The mall closed in 2020. In 2021, Onondaga County selected a joint venture called OHB Redev, made up of Redev CNY, Hueber-Breuer Construction, DalPos Architects, and Housing Visions, to turn the site into a $450 million mixed-use project called District East. The plan called for more than 900 residential units, a movie theater, a grocery store, and new sidewalks and bike paths tied into the Empire State Trail.
It fell apart. In October 2025, the county and OHB Redev ended their agreement because the developer could not secure control of two parcels still owned separately: the former Sears building and the former Macy's, the latter owned by Benderson Development. Sears agreed to leave within 30 days. Macy's did not, which pushed the county into eminent domain proceedings against Benderson.
That fight went to court, and in April 2026, State Supreme Court Judge Joseph Lamendola ruled that the Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency could take the Macy's parcel under New York's Eminent Domain Procedure Law, offering $2.5 million for a property Benderson can still contest in court. With that ruling, the county finally controlled all 65 acres for the first time since the mall opened in 1954.
County Executive Ryan McMahon opened a new request for proposals in March 2026, asking $25 million for the site but signaling the county would accept less for a strong plan. Unlike the housing-and-retail vision behind District East, this RFP explicitly invited developers to consider warehousing and industrial uses, a shift McMahon tied to the region's semiconductor growth led by Micron Technology's expansion nearby. Proposals were due by 3 p.m. on May 14, 2026. McMahon told reporters in March he expected responses back in about 40 days, which points to a decision sometime around midsummer. As of this writing, the county has not publicly named a chosen developer.
What Residents Actually Want
At an April 2026 town hall hosted by McMahon, residents pushed back on the industrial framing. De Witt Town Supervisor Max Ruckdeschel summed up the concern plainly: "people don't want to see manufacturing in a lot of neighborhoods around Shoppingtown." Residents at that meeting asked for green space, senior housing, and retail that feels like a return to what the site used to be, not a warehouse behind their backyards.
The town itself has limited say. Ruckdeschel has acknowledged that with the county leading the process and the courts involved, the town's role is limited. That matters for anyone evaluating a home nearby, because the decision that will shape this corridor for the next generation is being made at the county level, not the town level, and residents' preferences are input rather than veto power.
The Number Nobody's Connecting to the Mall
Here is the disconnect worth understanding. Every article written about ShoppingTown since 2020, and there have been dozens, covers the same handful of threads: vacancy, litigation, failed deals, resident frustration, and now a fresh RFP. Not one of them ties any of that to softening home prices in the surrounding De Witt neighborhoods. That absence is itself informative.
At the same time, the regional numbers describe a market moving the opposite direction. Redfin's data for Syracuse shows a median sale price of $180,000 over the three months ending May 2026, up 12.4 percent from the same period a year earlier, with the median price per square foot up 15 percent. Homes there are receiving multiple offers and selling in about a month. Greater Syracuse Association of Realtors president David Manzano described the broader environment as the longest stretch of seller's market he has seen in his career, driven in part by empty nesters staying in larger homes longer and keeping inventory tight.
Put those two threads together and the takeaway is not that ShoppingTown has no effect on the area. It is that whatever localized drag a vacant, litigated mall might create is currently being overwhelmed by regional forces: tight inventory, sustained buyer demand, and the ripple effects of Micron's semiconductor investment pulling workers into Onondaga County. A blighted 65 acres has not been enough to slow a market this constrained.
The Real Risk Isn't the Vacancy. It's the Tenant.
This is where the analysis should shift for anyone thinking long term about a home near this corridor. The vacancy itself has proven to be a wash so far. What has not been tested yet is what happens once a developer breaks ground, because the type of project matters enormously for nearby property values, and the RFP now on the table explicitly opens the door to industrial and warehouse uses that were not part of the original District East vision.
| What people assume | What the record actually shows |
|---|---|
| A vacant mall should be dragging down nearby home prices | No reporting on ShoppingTown, across five-plus years of coverage, has documented falling comps tied to the site |
| The county and town are aligned on what gets built | The town has pushed for green space and senior housing while the county's current RFP opens the door to warehousing and manufacturing |
| A developer will be picked and building will start soon | Proposals closed May 14, 2026, and no developer had been announced as of this writing |
A mixed-use project with housing, small retail, and green space near Ryder Park, Cedar Bay Park, Butternut Creek Park, and the Erie Canalway Trail would likely support the area's residential appeal. A warehouse or light-industrial tenant chasing Micron-adjacent supply chain demand could change the character of that stretch of Erie Boulevard in ways that matter to anyone buying a home within earshot or eyeshot of it.
What This Means If You're Buying or Selling Near ShoppingTown
If you are selling, do not let the site sit as an unaddressed question during showings. Buyers respond better to a straight answer, including the timeline of the RFP process and the fact that county-wide demand has stayed strong despite the vacancy, than to silence they have to fill in themselves.
If you are buying, treat the coming developer announcement as the actual signal to watch, not the current state of the lot. A decision that leans toward housing and retail is a different neighborhood outlook than one that leans toward warehousing. Ask your agent to flag county and OCIDA announcements as they come out, because this is a case where the next six months of news will tell you more than the last six years did.
A Few Questions Worth Answering
Will ShoppingTown become housing or a warehouse? Nobody knows yet. The current RFP allows for both, and the final call depends on which proposal Onondaga County selects from the bids submitted by the May 14, 2026 deadline.
Does living near ShoppingTown currently hurt a home's value? Based on everything reported so far, the broader Syracuse-area market has kept appreciating despite the site's vacancy, though individual buyer perception during a showing is a separate issue from area-wide price trends.
When will a developer be named? County Executive Ryan McMahon said in March 2026 that he expected proposal responses back roughly 40 days after the May 14 deadline. No developer had been publicly announced as of this writing.
If you are weighing a move in or around De Witt and want a read on how a specific block near this corridor is likely to be affected once a developer is chosen, that is exactly the kind of question worth a direct conversation rather than a guess. Lee Baldwin has been tracking this market from the ground in Central New York and can walk through what the ShoppingTown timeline means for a specific address you have in mind. Schedule a free consultation and get a straight answer before you write an offer.
