This project isn’t 100% complete – some stone veneer still needs to be applied, and the landscaping needs to be seeded – but for practical purposes, the new wing is ready for occupancy and this project is done. The first hotel guests in the new wing are unpacking their bags this month, and already there are chairs out on the balconies. The project began in March 2016, which gives a period of about 15 months from launch to opening. Interior and balcony photos can be found on The Hotel Ithaca’s twitter account.
As a project, it’s not inspiring architecture, and rather than market growth, it’s more about keeping the Hotel Ithaca successful in Ithaca’s upward trending downtown market. But it adds a few jobs, it’s a $15 million investment, and it demonstrates strong, sustained support for Ithaca’s leisure and hospitality market.
Hart Hotels of Buffalo, founded by David Hart in 1985 and operating locally under the name Lenroc L.P., was the project developer. Krog Corporation, also of Buffalo and a favorite of Hart Hotels, was the general contractor. NH Architecture of Rochester, another frequent partner of Hart Hotels, was the project architect. NH Architecture is rather busy lately, as architect for both Dryden’s Poet’s Landing, and Lansing’s Cayuga View Senior Housing.
Side note – I’ve heard through the rumor mill that the owners of the Sunoco next door have been offered very lucrative sums to sell their gas station, as it’s on a choice corner for development close to the Commons, and allows a 100-foot tall building. But alas, the owners have had no interest in selling.
Ithacating in Cornell Heights 
What exactly was keeping windows from the front (Cayuga St.) facade again? It’s not like there could be elevator shafts on either side of that pointy bay window, could there?
Sad news about the Sunoco. NYS has very loose laws about what constitutes blight for eminent domain purposes (gas stations are definitely included within precedent) and Ithaca should consider applying them to some of the automotive business in the way of needed housing development downtown.
South side is a stairwell. North side has laundry on the first floor, storage rooms/cleaning closets on the upper floors.
Eminent domain is the planning equivalent to the nuclear option. Housing is needed, but I can’t imagine most elected officials supporting such a heavy-handed move.
[…] finished late last fall, the 76-room Holiday Inn Express was completed a couple months earlier, the Hotel Ithaca went with an expansion that actually reduced the available number of rooms by ten a…, and one of the suburban hotels, a 37-room independent boutique hotel, was cancelled. They all came […]