Slow down at the light near the Home Depot on Route 31 and you can still watch excavators picking apart a building that used to be the biggest thing in town. Great Northern Mall opened in October 1988 to shoppers who called it clean and bright. Thirty-eight years later, on July 22, 2026, demolition crews from Sessler Wrecking started dismantling the main entrance, and the work is expected to run through the fall.
That alone would be a story about decline, another dead mall in a county that has watched roughly a dozen of them fade. But the mall is the least interesting thing happening on Route 31 right now. Look at what is opening around it, what money is moving toward the waterfront a few miles away, and what a semiconductor plant seven miles from that mall is already paying the town to exist, and a different pattern shows up. Clay isn't cleaning up after a slowdown. It's building ahead of a population surge that, technically, hasn't landed yet.
The Mall Coming Down Is A Bet On Who's Coming Next
Developer Guy Hart bought the mall property for $9 million and closed it in 2022 to clear the way for redevelopment. The plan on file calls for as many as 1,700 apartment and condo units, a hotel, retail and entertainment space, and a medical campus for Upstate Medical University, which is currently the project's first confirmed tenant. The old Dick's Sporting Goods building is staying put, and the former Macy's is already serving as the headquarters for Dunk & Bright Furniture.
What's notable is who's paying attention. Hart told CNY Central his brokerage team now has roughly 35 potential tenants interested in the site, a level of outside interest he says wouldn't have existed a few years ago. As he put it, "You're in a market where there is nowhere else for anyone to go." That's not a comment about nostalgia for a mall. It's a comment about site scarcity in a county where developers are suddenly competing for land.
What's Actually Replacing The Empty Storefronts
While the mall comes down, three separate projects on the same corridor are moving in the opposite direction.
| What's arriving on Route 31 | Status as of August 2026 |
|---|---|
| Tully's Tenders, 3567 State Route 31 | Open since June 16, first drive-thru of its kind in Onondaga County |
| Salt City Coffee drive-thru | Announced, opening date not yet set |
| Ross Dress for Less, Sierra Trading, Boot Barn, Five Below at COR Center | Under construction in the former Price Chopper building, openings expected fall 2026 |
| Upstate Medical University campus | First confirmed tenant on the Great Northern Mall site |
The COR Center piece is worth sitting with for a second. That center already carries Target, Home Depot, Kohl's, T.J. Maxx, Old Navy, Ulta, and PetSmart across more than 515,000 square feet on a 100-acre site, and four more national retailers are moving into the old grocery box this fall. Retailers that size don't sign leases based on foot traffic that already exists. They sign based on models of who's about to be here. Tully's Tenders opening on the same stretch, built specifically as a quick-serve drive-thru format rather than a sit-down restaurant, reads the same way. So does Salt City Coffee choosing a drive-thru for its Clay location instead of a café. Both are format bets on volume that isn't fully here yet.
The Money Is Already Moving Toward The Waterfront
Route 31 isn't the only place Clay is spending ahead of demand. Off Route 57, at the confluence of the Oneida, Oswego, and Seneca rivers, sits Three Rivers Point, the former site of the Three Rivers Inn nightclub, which once hosted acts including Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington before it burned down. The town has owned and slowly developed the 65 acres around the old inn site for years, mostly as a park with three gazebos and a weekly summer classic car cruise-in.
That changed this year. New York State awarded the town more than $1.1 million in combined grants: $973,987 for shoreline improvements and $149,578 for a car-top boat launch. Town Supervisor Damian Ulatowski had been chasing this funding for years before it came through.
"We applied and applied and applied and finally rung the bell."
The town's own read on the timing is direct: the grant approval likely tracks with Micron Technology's semiconductor plant, under construction seven miles away at White Pine Commerce Park. The Clay Town Board voted 6-0 to approve an agreement under which Micron pays the town $30 million to host the plant, which is projected to create 9,000 jobs in Clay and draw more than 40,000 additional jobs across Central New York. Ulatowski has said the town plans to seek development proposals for the waterfront closer to when Micron's construction is well underway, because that's when interest in the site will be highest. In other words, the state didn't fund a boat launch because Three Rivers Point is busy. It funded one because officials expect it to become busy.
What's Already Here, Construction Aside
None of this means Clay is currently a construction zone to avoid. Most of what makes the town livable right now has nothing to do with any of the projects above, and it's worth separating the two.
- Freight Yard Brewing, a family owned New York State Farm Brewery at 4975 State Route 31, runs trivia nights, open mic nights, live bands, and a rotating daily food truck schedule out of a 7,000-square-foot building built in 1921 as a feed mill. Summer means outdoor seating and fire pits.
- The town's amphitheater at Clay Central Park hosted a stop on its summer concert series on July 21, part of a recurring calendar that runs through the season.
- The weekly classic car cruise-in at Three Rivers Point is still happening this summer, ahead of any of the waterfront construction described above.
These are the things a resident actually plans a Tuesday around, and they're not waiting on any grant or lease to open.
Why The Comparison To DeWitt Matters
The clearest evidence that Clay's redevelopment is unusual isn't anything happening in Clay. It's what's happening a few miles away in DeWitt, where ShoppingTown has sat empty for more than six years under Onondaga County control, stalled by legal holdouts and developer withdrawals. County Executive Ryan McMahon said in late July that two qualified proposals were under negotiation, but neighbors near that site told CNY Central they've heard promises before and aren't holding their breath.
Both malls closed around the same era. Only one is currently being torn down with a confirmed anchor tenant and a redevelopment plan that's already drawing 35 interested parties. The difference isn't the buildings. It's that Clay sits directly on the corridor Micron is building toward, and every dollar moving through the town right now, public and private, is positioned on that bet.
If you already live in Clay, the practical takeaway is timing, not urgency. The mall site won't look like anything for at least another year past this fall's demolition timeline. The COR Center tenants open before the Great Northern site does. The waterfront request for proposals hasn't even been issued yet. You're watching the early moves of a longer build, and the version of Route 31 you'll recognize by next summer is already being decided in contracts signed this year.
We track these shifts closely because they shape what a home in Clay is worth to buy into now versus in three years, and because people who already live here deserve to understand what's actually changing around them, not just that something is. If you're weighing a move within Clay, thinking about timing a sale around this kind of growth, or just want a second opinion on what any of this means for your own street, the Faatz Team is glad to talk it through. Schedule a free consultation whenever you're ready.
