Ithacating in Cornell Heights

It’s not often that I run into someone who’s aware of this blog, let alone while taking site photos. When I arrived at the Village Solars property off of Warren Road in Lansing, I was immediately surprised to see they were taking down one of the older 1970s 10-unit properties, 102 Village Place. A salvage job this is not; the excavator was actively tearing through the brick veneer and wood window frames, leaving them in a pile as it slowly worked its way through the building. A gentlemen with a hose was spraying the fresh debris down to keep airborne dust to a minimum. To be honest, even if the building has little historic value, there’s always a bit of a bittersweet feeling to see a place that hundreds called home fall to the march of progress.

And the march of progress it is. As readers of the Voice may be aware, the plan for the Village Solars has been changed up. The next few phases will remove the 1960s-1970s 8-unit and 10-unit (all 1-bedroom) buildings and build new Village Solars buildings on their foundations. The net gain in units will be 70, bringing the number built and to be built from 502 to 572, and a gain in bedrooms of about 124.

It’s a bit complicated of a breakdown – four of the new building planned – 24-unit “K”, 24-unit “L”, and 18-unit “M” – were originally to be the next phase. When all that was said and done, Building “F”, which will host retail components, a community center and 20 studio units, was to be built. Those are being pushed off in favor of the replacement units. For example, 102 Village Place, coming down in the photos below, will be replaced with a 24-unit building that will also be called 102 Village Place. It’s five peers closest to the Village Solars will also be coming down for the construction of 18 or 24 unit apartment buildings on their footprints. There will be five phases, and it looks like two older buildings will come down and have replacements built each year for the next three years, with the last two being the all-new K/L/M and F. The designs for the six new buildings will be similar to the existing Village Solars.

So while taking photos, I happened to see a gentleman in a wide-brimmed hat and loafers, drinking a couple beers. I intended to not make waves and to just walk past when he broke the ice by saying “I’m surprised there aren’t more neighbors out watching. You don’t see something like this everyday.” I ended up making my acquaintance with Jon Lucente, the son of Rocco Sr., brother of Steve and uncle to Rocco Jr. – so, not as directly involved as the others, but still aware and knowledgeable. Turns out he lives in the Village Solars.

One of our conversation topics swirled around the hassles of regulation – a little talk on the Briarwood mess ten years ago, a little bit about Varna, and a lot about the Village Solars. To be frank, he had nothing but great things to say about Lansing town government. But he complained some of the building code regulations created headaches for his family and their in-house contracting team. For example, the buildings had be earthquake-proof, and the expensive sprinkler systems over the balconies are only legal until 2022 but they were the only type approved for use. Interestingly, they originally wanted to do four floors but building codes say an elevator is required for 4 or more floors (this tripped up Ecovillage as well as few years back). Jon brought this all back to the cost being passed on to tenants.

On my end, it was mostly just polite acknowledgement. I understand his point, but details like the elevator rule are in the building code for safety reasons. The thing is, building codes are an imprecise science – they may be too stringent in some circumstances, but lacking in others, so as a result they’re constantly re-evaluated. Given an event like the London Grenfell Tower fire disaster, where the Reynobond aluminum panels were stuffed with polyiso insulation, which is a risk because it can produce toxic fumes if it burns, there’s always good reason to take a hard look at the codes and reassess. For the record, polyiso is a common insulation material, although in the local cases I’m aware of, it goes on over the fireproofing and under the cladding, meaning it would be very difficult to set it on fire, and the Grenfell case implies the panels may have created a tunnel effect for heat and flame. The specific cladding that was used on Grenfell Tower is banned for use on buildings taller than 40 feet in the U.S.  

Anyway, I still enjoyed an opportunity to chat with one of the Lucentes. Building “I” is occupied and Building “J” will be open for occupancy at the start of July – just a little exterior trim left to do on the outside. The photos below have a close-up of the fiber cement board used on the Village Solars, which apropos to this post, doesn’t burn because it’s basically sand and concrete mixed with wood pulp. Won’t make the same claim about those wood-grain trim boards though.