Ithacating in Cornell Heights

I don’t mind doing these summary posts – I just wish that several projects didn’t start in the same two month span.

The Cherry Artspace, to be located at 102 Cherry Street in Ithaca city, is a multidisciplinary theatre and arts venue planned by The Cherry Arts, a performing arts non-profit led by Artistic Director Sam Buggeln (Bug-ellen). The building is intended to not only house performances by The Cherry Arts, but other local and traveling theater groups, concerts, poetry and jam sessions, and just about anything else in the name of creative arts and artistic expression. The building will join Ithaca’s active and productive performing arts scene, including venues such as The Hangar Theatre and the State Theatre. College towns like Ithaca love their arts, be they visual, spoken or both.

The plan is for a one-story, 1,900 SF space designed by local architect Claudia Brenner to blend in with the industrial architecture that comprises the Cherry Street corridor. To do this, the building is basically the big brother to the former Renovus Energy building next door – similar colors, similar materials, and a shed roof, which Renovus put on to make the 1,154 SF building more amenable to solar panels. The space on which it is being built previously housed parking spaces and a utility shed, since moved. Buggeln purchased the building and lot in August 2015 for $240,000, and the construction and furnishing costs for the Artspace are estimated at $375,000. The Cherry, which can host up to 180 patrons during performances, has a parking agreement with the business next door to use their parking spaces, and it works out since the two organizations will be busiest at different times of the day.

The approval process was a bit lengthy, all things considered. The city created its TM-PUD zone as a way to legally deter the Maguire car dealership proposal for the waterfront, but the Cherry Artspace fell into the waterfront zoning overlay as well, so it not only had to go through the Planning Board, but the Common Council. The Artspace held its public information meetings at the end of March and mid-April. It enjoyed fairly broad public support, but two of the eight voting councilmen still voted against its construction at the May meeting. One was concerned about noise, the other was kinda out of the blue. The project also had to apply for several zoning variances from the Board of Zoning Appeals.

Construction on the Artspace officially began November 7th. This was a few months later than originally anticipated, and according to Buggeln it was due to contractor delays. I a rather unusual setup, that’s a slab foundation going in, but it’s made of styrofoam blocks – given the waterfront location and high water table, the relatively light building will “float” on top of the blocks.