Ithacating in Cornell Heights

So, perusing through the planning board meeting, this nifty little addition appeared for the city’s meeting Monday evening:

5. Site Plan Review
A. Site Plan Review, Delta Chi Fraternity Parking Lot Expansion, 102 The Knoll, Jagat P. Sharma,
Applicant for owner DCEF Cornell LLC. Lead Agency and Public Hearing. The applicant proposes to
expand the existing 10 car gravel parking lot along Barton Place to accommodate a total of 22 parking spaces. The proposed parking is one way, maintaining the current access and adding an egress point at the northern driveway on Barton Place. Proposed site work and improvements include removal of 2,700SF of trees, shrubs and vegetation, grading, new curbing at entrance and egress, relocation of guy wire, relocation of signage, landscaping, and installation of a masonry retaining wall approximately 4′ high and 80′ long along the northwest side of the parking area. Proposed surface of parking area is compacted gravel. This project received ILPC approval on 3-13-08. This is a Type 1 Action under both the City of Ithaca Environmental Quality Review Ordinance §176-4 B. (1) (h) [2] & [4] and an Unlisted Action under the State Environmental Quality Review Act and is subject to environmental review. (Materials sent previously)

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Are you serious? Jagat Sharma, the architect of the project, has made his name by designing the apartment towers in Collegetown and some of the luxurious lakeside mansions in the Ithaca area. And Delta Chi hired his firm to design…a gravel parking lot expansion? I mean, couldn’t you get a standard construction company to just tear a base into the ground and lay the gravel without paying all the extra money for a bigger-name architectural firm to design it? If Delta Chi were building an addition, I could understand, but a gravel parking lot? Talk about money to burn.

I was wondering why there were construction permit signs going up over there with Sharma’s name listed as the architect. I honestly thought at first they were building a gatehouse or something. The other items for the meeting are nothing special; a house, roofwork on Eddygate, and a subdivision.

 EDIT 8/27: It’s a news tidbit, so I though I ‘d throw it in here.

http://cornellsun.com/node/31200

It’a a sun article talking about how Cornell gets bashed and we should give our detractors a f*ck off farewell. While I agree with the article’s sentiment wholeheartedly, I should point out one little fallacy- those pins with the “I’m the Hottest” crap were free. We gave them out as a promo to get you to buy random crap, and we still have a sh*t ton of them somewhere in our warehouse across town.