Ithacating in Cornell Heights

The timber piles are in and the 6″ concrete slab has been formed and poured, thus completing the lion’s share of foundation work for the 323 Taughannock residential project. The orange tarp is to allow curing without snow or rain penetrating and potentially upsetting the curing process and damaging the concrete, and ituility connections poke out through the slab. As previously mentioned, this a modular wood frame, and the pieces will be framed and sheathed off-site by Benson Wood Products, and then assembled on-site by local firm D Squared.

An interesting little note from Matt Butler’s piece at the Times, Flash initially intended for a five-story design, but found it cost-prohibitive. According to co-developer Steve Flash, “(w)hen we did soil samples and had a system for a five-story building, the costs of the foundation were too much for the number of units we could create. That might be different in a larger project where you could spread the costs out a little bit […] None of it was a surprise, we knew it going in […] We knew what we were getting into. It’s a challenge.”

To be a little more explicit, the larger the building, the heavier it would be. Given the waterlogged soils, the heavier the building would be, the deeper the piles would need to be, and likely, the structure would be too heavy for the budget-friendly wood timber pile system. They would have had to use much more expensive steel piles. In general, building denser is going to be more cost-efficient, but if it creates a sudden jump in hard costs, then it’s not in that “sweet spot” for construction costs vs. revenue, and out of the realm of economic feasibility.

Anyway, look for the pieces for the eight townhouse-like units (a studio and 2-BR in each), to start showing up over the next several weeks. Completion is expected this summer.