Ithacating in Cornell Heights

I’ll start off by saying I struggle with how to title this project. It has no official name, and the street address for the two new two-family homes has yet to be determined – presumably, they would be assigned addresses for the 200 block of Old Elmira Road. The developer, Charlie O’Connor of Modern Living Rentals, uses the address of the properties from which there were subdivided from – 312 and 314 Spencer Road, the two houses in the rear of the first photo.

Originally, 312 and 314 had three lots with some pretty unusual lot lines, but with .607 acres, there was a lot of unused backyard space, especially for city parcels. Seeing an opportunity, O’Connor negotiated a purchase agreement with property owner Giuliano Lucatelli, who ran a restaurant in the building adjacent to the houses (and perhaps a couple of readers remember Lucatelli’s Ristorante). With the benediction of the city, the project team consolidated the three parcels together, and then subdivided the newly-created parcel to create two buildable lots facing Old Elmira Road, and a third lot containing the two existing houses. The plans were approved back in June, and O’Connor officially purchased the houses and land for $193,000 in mid-July. On November 1st, the project received a $500,000 construction loan from local businessman Bryan Warren of Warren Real Estate. That would seem to cover most of the hard costs; the site plan review application estimated the construction cost at $513,000.

Plans call for two two-story houses with footprints of 23.5 feet by 48 feet (1,128 SF). Each floor will contain a three-bedroom, two-bath unit. The houses, designed by prolific local architect Noah Demarest of STREAM Collaborative, have been fashioned to blend into the early 20th century homes that comprise most of Ithaca’s South Side neighborhood – gable roofs, window bay projections, shake and lap siding, and modest porches. An earlier design shown on Modern Living Rentals’ website shows a larger and more contemporary window design on the buildings’ front faces, but it looks like that was scaled back to two more-traditional looking windows as the project went through planning board review.

To accommodate the new homes, some trees were removed, but as a mitigation measure, new trees will be planted closer to the street. The western tip of the properties intrudes into the 100-year flood zone, but that part should remain undisturbed. Each three-bedroom unit will have one parking space, in line with the city’s R-2a zoning (one space per three bedrooms).

An ad on Craigslist suggests the 3-bedroom units will be run for $1700 total, a premium price point as new units often are, but well below the prices that one would see in Downtown or Collegetown. Advertised features include stainless steel appliances, granite counter tops, in-unit washer/dryer, ample closet space and custom-tiled bathrooms. Parking will be in off-street gravel lots.

If the photos below are any indication, those tiled bathrooms and granite counter tops are still a ways off. The foundations have been excavated, formed and poured, but the framing has yet to begin. Subterranean utilities have been laid and prepped. Note that the foundation of the western house includes a bump-out for a window bay projection, but the eastern house does not.