While the city debates the details of the Collegetown Crossing and Cascadilla Landing projects, here’s a couple of new interesting little news tidbits from this month’s planning board agenda:
Planned Parenthood, the bane of most social conservatives’ existence, is building a new Ithaca (Southern Finger Lakes) facility. The two-story, 9,000 sq ft building will be built on half an acre of land occupying 616-626 West Seneca Street (WHCU claims 16,000 sq ft – I trust the planning board more). The new structure, its 27-space parking lot and landscaping will require the demolition of four homes. I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around the configuration of this, since the Iacovelli apartment building is going up next door, and AFCU’s new accessory lot on the vacant property on the corner of Fulton and Seneca. I had to check the photos I took last month to verify there were still two homes on the Seneca side of the proposed property, and since there are in fact two homes, I think the diagram below looks about right. The photo above is one of the homes, which I had initially intended in a gritty Ithaca photo blog entry somewhere down the line.
On to the other piece of news, INHS, the NPO developer of affordable housing in the city and town, is in the initial stages of its latest project, a 35-unit complex at 400 Spencer Street. This is on the edge of big box land, and the southern edge of residential Ithaca, in an area best described as low-density commercial/industrial hodge-podge. The project as proposed offers up two rows of townhomes (16 units), and a 3-story apartment building (19 units). INHS has been on a roll the past couple years, with the 39-unit Cedar Creek project completed, the 50-unit Breckinridge Place project downtown, and 11 townhomes underway in the town of Ithaca (with 11 more planned in a second phase of the “Holly Creek” project). This is in complement to their normal single-family renovation/new-construction work.
So, “affordable” housing projects, and a new building for Planned Parenthood. I’d say those fit the political interests of left-wing Ithaca fairly well.
Ithacating in Cornell Heights 
Good to see the West End getting some more development, but the traffic grid down there is not the easiest place to navigate as I recall.
If you get a chance check out The Ithacan (IC’s newspaper) online. There’s an article ref: the Ithaca Hotel site in the Sept 12th issue which bodes well for that project finally getting some movement.
[…] this would seem to be the future site of Planned Parenthood along West Seneca St. At the time of Ithacating’s Article, the houses were still up, but they’ve since been demolished and trucked away, leaving behind […]
[…] and waterproofing are complete at Planned Parenthood’s new 16,000 sq ft location (not 18,000 as I initially wrote last year), located northwest of downtown on West Seneca Street […]