Ithacating in Cornell Heights

The Village Solars complex is a development project that never truly stops. Lifestyle Properties (the Lucente family) only builds two or three new apartment buildings each year, but after four years of construction, it has resulted in quite a large development. A visit to the site shows the next buildings are just getting underway – based off the latest site plan, it appears to be Building “L” and Building “K”, which is a little out-of-order in that these two were supposed to built in 2020-2021, after another phase that so far remains unbuilt. Building L’s foundation has been formed and poured, with all the utilities poking out of the concrete, to be routed into the framing as the building goes up; Building “K” looks like it’s still in the excavation stage. The crushed stone helps with drainage, site leveling and preventing cracks in the concrete due to settling. That water will be pumped out before the footers are poured.

Each of the two buildings, which have slightly different designs, is designed to host 24 units – 3 three-bedroom, 6 two-bedroom, 3 one-bedroom, and 12 of the one-bedroom “micro-units”, which are 400-500 square feet. Expect a mid-2019 opening for the pair. Next year’s phase likely involves one more apartment building in Phase “4”, as well as the construction on their mixed-use community center building (Building “F”), which will go in that empty space in the last photo. The town of Lansing’s Village Solars amended PDA law (#6 of 2016, to be technical) says the developers are only allowed one more building to be built before the community center must be constructed, and that the center must be built by the end of 2020.