Ithacating in Cornell Heights

Out in Caroline, work at the Boiceville Cottages siteseems to have switched gears. Since the last update in May, the blue stucco houses with teal trim have been faced with stucco and had interior and exterior finishing completed (and occupied, judging from the 20-something I saw carrying boxes into one of the houses). Work at the site is less concentrated on cottage construction at the moment, and more focused on laying out where the rest of the homes will go as the loop road circles back around to Boiceville Road/ County Rte. 114.

Three concrete slabs indicate where new cottages are likely to be built in the next few months (I feel like the blog or the Voice should do a reader poll on what colors to use next). Scattered along the rest of the undeveloped area are cleared sites with layers of dirt and gravel. These are the sub-slab bases on which future concrete slabs will be poured. Survey work was enlisted to stake out the corners of the future cottages, with poles inserted into the  to indicate the corners of the planned units. In total, there were at least a dozen bases, and over the following months they will become the next dozen or so cottages.

Schickel Construction / Schickel Rentals of Dryden is developing and building out the project. Developer Bruno Schickel’s unusual design was inspired by cottages in a storybook he read to his daughter. The construction cost of the 75-unit addition (total 135 units) is at least $7.654 million – a loan for $5.454 million was given by Tompkins Trust in April 2013, and an additional loan for $2.2 million ($2,098,479 of which goes towards hard construction costs) was granted by Tompkins Trust in April of this year. The loan granted in April funds up to 15 2-bedroom and 16 1-bedroom units, and the legal date on file for completion is May 1, 2017.