Ithacating in Cornell Heights

Visum Development’s townhouse project at 902 Dryden Road in Varna is coming along. The 8 new townhouses are divided up into three building sections – 3-unit section “A”, closest to Fall Creek; 3-unit section “B”, closer to Dryden Road, and 2-unit section “C”, which has a shared wall with the existing two-unit house.

“B” appears to be the furthest along – fully framed (wood frame), roofed, sheathed with ZIP panels, and windows have been fitted. “A” is undergoing framing of its second floor, and “C” is waiting for its foundation to be poured, with forms in place and underground utilities routed and capped.

Visum’s Facebook page says 32 new beds, which is half-right; the eight new townhouse units will have 26 bedrooms. The other six bedrooms come from the existing two-family, which will be renovated. So it depends on one’s definition of “new”. The final product has eight 3-bedroom, 2 bath units and two 4-bedroom, 2 bath units.

While Visum and Modern Living Rentals are different entities with partial ownership lap, MLR handles all of the renting and property management for Visum. The four-bedrooms are renting for $2400/month, and the 3-bedrooms for $1,500-$1,950/month. Quoting the ad:

Varna has lower premiums on land, taxes and somewhat lower development costs, and those are all savings to the developer. But because it’s not a captive market like Collegetown, or as desirable as Fall Creek, the rents are lower. In short, Varna has lower development costs and also lower revenue. In this case the project team feels those two overarching factors balance out, and the townhouses are able to provide a comfortable return on investment.

All units have August 1st as the move-in date. STREAM Collaborative is the architect, Bella Faccia Construction is the general contractor, and Emery Construction of McGraw is doing the framing. More information on the project can be found here.