Ithacating in Cornell Heights

Figure Cayuga View can probably go under the “under/construction” column. Finally.

Cayuga View Senior Living, street address 16 Cinema Drive, is one of several Ithaca-area projects attempting to make a dent in the county’s lack of senior housing. Along with affordable housing and special needs housing, senior housing is often cited as something that the county needs a lot of more of, and soon. The county’s just-released housing strategy cites the need for 100-200 subsidized units by 2025, as well as a new skilled care facility. Various forms of senior care are expected to drive demand for an additional 750 units. A fully independent market-rate senior project like this isn’t explicitly categorized, but would potentially address some of the demand for senior housing in Tompkins County.

Cayuga View is a mixed-use 60-unit project on the last vacant high density-zoned parcel in the village of Lansing. Like many projects, the Thaler Family and their business partners have taken years to get to this point. The Thalers have owned the land since 1971, and have divided it up over the years, for example subdividing the property in 2000 to accommodate the construction of the CFCU branch next door. The first record of Cayuga View is really for an entirely different plan by the Thalers – in fall 2012, they proposed “C.U. Suites”, a 3-story, 43,000 SF building with 39 apartments geared towards Cornell graduate students. Along with those units were 26 covered parking spaces and two commercial spaces.

However, after getting approval for C.U. Suites, they decided to re-tool the project. At about this time, Taylor The Builders, a construction firm based out of Rochester, came on board as the general contractor, and it was determined that the student market angle “didn’t work very well”. In 2014, the revised plan, for “Cayuga View Senior Living” was rolled out. This was larger, 4 stories and 87,515 SF, with 59-62 apartment units depending on the iteration – Manley Thaler stated it wouldn’t be affordable or take federal funds, but he hoped to fill a niche below Kendal in the senior market.

It took some time to go through Lansing village boards, planning and zoning. Cayuga View required a number of zoning variances and reviews of its legalese to clarify the rules for a 55+ community in Lansing – namely, the boards didn’t want the project to revert to general housing, and there was debate over a 10 year stipulation vs. a 20 year or 30 year stipulation (I’ve honestly never heard of senior housing switching to general housing). One BZA person was upset by the height of the building and wanted it to be one floor less, and a planning board member was upset by the lack of parking, about 100 spaces.

After approvals for a tweaked 87,359 SF building were granted in Spring 2016, the project entered a sort of stall mode while it tried to obtain financing. Cayuga View Senior Living managed to land a construction loan earlier this year. According to a construction loan filed on May 25th, Five Star Bank of Warsaw (Wyoming County) is loaning the Thaler family and their associates $10.88 million to make their project become reality. Along with the loan, the Thalers and their business partners will be putting up $1,796,450 in equity to move the project forward, bring total costs to $12,676,450. It comes out to about $145/SF, a little less (~10%) than a comparable project in Ithaca city.

Included with the project are 12 1-bedroom, 1-bath units (725 SF), 48 2-bedroom, 2-bath units (three floor plans, 900-1,110 SF), and 2,680 SF of retail space, with preference towards coffee shops, small eateries or services like a salon or barber shop. The webpage comes with rendered 3-D tours; I dunno about you folks, but if there are two glasses of wine sitting on the kitchen counter at 10 AM, my concerns aren’t going to be about unit availability. 5% of the units will be built handicap-accessbile, but all will be handicap-adaptable.

The units will be priced upmarket, $1,550/month for a 1-bedroom, $2,250-$2,775/month for a two-bedroom, plus $200/month for top floor lake view units. With that comes a community center, in-unit washer/dryer, trash removal, fitness room, wi-fi, library/computer room, intercoms, rooftop garden, basic cable TV and pets under 30 lbs. for an additional monthly fee. Hot water shouldn’t be listed as a feature, but what do I know.

According to their Facebook page, Cayuga View S.L. will be ready for occupancy by Spring 2018. NH Architecture‘s Roger Langer is the project architect. Note in the foundation excavation photos that the building will be built into the slope of the hill – four floors in the front (east), five in the back (west). There has yet to be an updated site plan posted, but parking will mostly be on the side facing the bank.

At the end here is a shot of the Triphammer Apartments/former Chateau Claire renovation across the street. That is a separate $1.14 million project by Park Grove Realty to renovate 64 ca. 1960 apartment units (kitchen and bathroom remodeling, washer-and-dryer installations, roof repair, new balconies, gutters, landscaping and lighting), add parking stalls and a 425 SF rental office.