Cayuga Green II (Cayuga Place) Goes Downscale

18 07 2012

ED. Please note the correction posted on August 11th.

Another incarnation of the Cayuga Green Condos has been proposed. First, the IJ article (for those without subscription, the Ithaca Indy provides another summary here). Now, first off, I would like to chastise the IJ for using an old image of the project – an image pulled from Bloomfield & Schon’s website of the modified third incarnation, which I include for reference below.

This is not the current proposal.

This is not the current proposal.

Notice that this has six floors. The revised version has four. This version also had 8000 sq ft of commercial space and 35 residential units. The revised proposal (which was only available in two thumbnail links, one of which was broken) has the same commercial space and 39 units, but less space overall – from 47,400 sq ft to 42,600. According to the IJ, development costs have been estimated to be about $8.5 million for this phase of the project.

I’m not even going to nice here. The design proposed does nothing good for the architectural pride of the development company. It’s essentially a glass box, with a little concrete filler. Boring, but okay. Even if it doesn’t have balconies, or even any shape to it apart from being a big glass box (heck, the earlier design the IJ tried to mislead people with is light-years ahead of this proposal). My issue is that it doesn’t even obscure the parking garage next to it, which overwhelms the proposed structure. It’s like they said, “hey, people will pay anything to live in Ithaca, so let’s try and squeeze as many as we can into as plain of a structure as possible” (I digress, this is the mantra of many low-brow developers, but I expected better from Bloomfield & Schon). Now, the last I checked, this was marketed as a luxury project. Nothing says luxury like being dominated by a parking garage next door. It’s just…mind boggling, in terms of planning and action. Cost of development aside, I’m having trouble imagining the developer getting these modifications past the planning board.

But, they kinda have to. In order for the developers to avoid issues with special resolutions from the city, the project needed to have financing and approval secured (i.e. construction starting) by June 30 – almost a month ago. So they’re already in hot water, and apparently, someone decided to water down the design, because I guess if you’re going to get on the bad side of city government, you might as well go for the gold. The prospects for development of this building are looking rather dim.

What a way to enjoy my morning – watching the IJ wrongfully mislead people with the incorrect design, and seeing the undersized box proposed. It’s mornings like this that I feel like I need to start drinking coffee.


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Ithaca’s Economic Mystery

25 06 2012

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One of the sections I tend to read in online news are local/state job reports, since they tend to be a bellwether for economic growth, and by extension new development projects that get featured in this blog. One of the things that has been of some curiosity to me in the past couple months is how poorly Ithaca’s economy appear to be doing. According to the NYS Labor Department, the state has seen about 2% in private sector jobs over the past 12 months – about 134,000. Not great, but not bad for a state that has been bogged down in economic doldrums since Gerald Ford was in office. As one would expect, some metros do better (Kingston, Utica-Rome) and two show remarkable decreases of -3.6% and -5.6%. These would be Elmira and Ithaca respectively.

Now, perhaps its just me, but if the economic shrank 6%in one year in a county of Tompkin’s size, you’d hear about it (and no, I don’t think there’s some vast political conspiracy by some partisan group to hide the figures). 3,200 jobs lost is something that can’t seem to occur unless there was very large company closing, something that would’ve been alluded to in the Ithaca Journal. As far as I know, Borg-Warner is still operating, and Cornell laid off at most a small fraction of 3,200 in the past year. There haven’t been huge decreases in sales of “essential” goods, not has help wanted advertising changed dramatically (assuming the monthly reports of Elias Kacapyr are correct, anyway). So for the longest time, I had been wondering what the heck was going on in Tompkins County.

Well, it would seem that I wasn’t the only one wondering about this. The local county development agency accuses the Board of Labor Statistics of undercounting jobs, a problem they state has been an issue in the recent past. As much as the cynic within me is tempted to see as someone just trying to downplay the number, I’m inclined to believe that they’re right, because the rest of the numbers don’t show the drastic changes such a sharp drop would entail. One would expect a large drop in help wanted advertising, a reduction in building permits, and a decrease in sales, especially luxury goods. While these all have had ups and downs, none of these have changed to a degree that would support such a steep job loss. So, it doesn’t pass the logic test (unless one argues there much more commuting to the 4,400 jobs added in Binghamton and Syracuse).

Of course, any job loss is a bad thing. But I wonder where in the world the Bureau of Labor Statistics is getting these numbers.


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News Tidbits 6/13/12: “Cascadilla Landing” Makes Its Debut

13 06 2012

For those who pay any attention to Ithaca’s physical plant, news has been floated around for a while of a proposed waterfront project next to the city golf course, which in reference, was referred to as the “Johnson Boatyard Development”, after the boatyard located on the current property.

Well, in the fee-to-see Ithaca Journal this morning, renderings were shown for the proposed “Cascadilla Landing” project, which is the official name of the development. More renderings are included within a PDF from John Snyder Architects hosted on the IJ website.

I would love to share some of the images, but now that content is pay-to-play, that puts me in a much more difficult position. It was one thing to share an image up from a free online paper. But now that content is not free, the legal waters have become a bit dicier. I will say this much: click the links, visitors have a limited number of article hits before content is no longer displayed. After that, there are several other ways to get around the content wall (or you can pay). If I see them hosted (i.e. not linked) on a “free” content website, I’ll include them here. But until then…yeah. It’s unfortunate.

Following the PDF, the project has 185 units – 6 in duplexs, 11 townhomes, 168 apartments. The mid-rise apartment buildings are furthest east, with the townhomes in the middle, and three three-story duplex buildings built around the traffic circle that completes the west end of the project. Phase 1 has two buildings of 82 and 44 units respectively, in three 5-story apartment buildings, two of which are connected by a skybridge. Construction would start on Phase I in Spring 2013. The main street appears to double as an internal promenade.

As for the design, John Snyder Architects opted for angular and ultramodern. The duplexs have gable roofs and wood trim, and bear superficial similarities to the buildings going up at the 900 block portion of Collegetown Terrace. The apartment buildings are an angular pastiche of windows of all shapes and sizes and random balconies and overhangs closer to the waterfront, and a bit more orderly further into the property. The colors as shown are rather muted whites and greys. No one will ever call it pretty, but it certainly stands out from the traditional built environment. The townhome designs are not really shown, they’re likely still in the initial design process.

Ithaca’s economy hasn’t been something to be too excited about lately, but this project shows there must still be some demand to live in the City of Gorges.

EDIT 7/18/12: The city has published the images. As a result, I’m including them below:


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News Tidbits 5/31/2012: New Apartments Squeezed Onto Thurston Avenue

1 06 2012

So, I’ve been waiting for this piece of news for a while, but it took a little bit of sleuthing to come up with details about a proposed project for Thurston Avenue. First, the location:

The location is a parcel next to the Rabco (Highland House) Apartments on the corner of Highland Road and Thurston Avenue. To give you a better sense of locale, its the woody, slightly hilly piece of land across Thurston from Seal & Serpent, and across Highland from Alpha Zeta. A highly trafficked area, the property was once home to the Wyckoff Mansion, which became the home of Phi Kappa Psi from 1915-1964. The Wyckoff property was torn down to make way for the Rabco Apartments, which were finished in 1966. This portion of the parcel has never been developed. I actually used to walk by here almost every day, but never felt the urge to get photos of a stand of trees and rocks.

The proposal is as follows: three buildings, clustered, four stories in height (est. height ~40 feet, within zoning regulation). 36 units and 88 beds, making it one of the densest properties north of campus. 40 parking spaces are proposed, but the planning board has expressed the desire to share space with the excess western parking lot on the Rabco property, and that will probably be a stipulation for approval. Time-wise, since this is the sketch plan, and given the size and location, don’t expect construction for several months (although they want city approval by late July – which is highly unlikely), and expect a year more before it is complete. The project lies within a contextually-sensitive area, the Cornell Heights Historic District, and its design will probably be much more scrutinized as a result. It may also be rather historicist, because I can’t anyone is going to approve a “modernist” or “contemporary” design in the heart of a historic district, even in a city that likes svelte modern boxes.

On another piece of news, the Johnson Boatyard project has realigned its entrance to be on Willow Avenue rather than Pier Road (not a big changed, it just means its moved from the north end to the east end of the property), and the number of duplexes has been decreased from eleven to six. The project still has townhomes [warning: Ithaca Journal link], which now vary from 1-2 stories in height. A small retail portion might be included in the first phase. After all the news about the original proposal, this first phase is a bit…underwhelming.


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The Keyword Bar XVI

24 05 2012

1. “chi omega” “cornell university” closed -“alpha chi omega” (5-23-2012)

Yes, and no. Chi Omega was active at Cornell from 1917 – 1963, and then again from 1987-2003, when low membership caused it national to shut its doors. The house at 10 Sisson Place is now occupied by Sigma Alpha Mu. In contrast, Alpha Chi Omega, which was established at Cornell in 1984, it still active on campus.

2. “cornell store summer employment” (5-16-2012)

If four years ‘experience is any indicator, they’ve already filled up. A bare-bones student staff of five or six stays on during the summer along with the full time staff, and most of those are current student employees (the year I worked through the summer, we all were). In sum, you can check, but don’t hold your breath.

3. “johnson boatyard ithaca” (5-16-2012)

If this is in any reference to the big mixed-use project underway for the boatyard site, then I have good news – they are making progress and gave an update to the city planning board just last night. As soon as those minutes areuploaded, I hope to include them in my next “news tidbits” entry. These entries will be pulled directly from the minutes,  since the Ithaca Journal, in a responsible but unfortunate move, now charges for article access beyond a nominal number of articles (renewed each month). Also on the docket – a redevelopment project for apartments on Thurston Avenue.

4. “location of former ithaca hotel, hotel leonardo aurora st, ithaca”

Going back in time, the Hotel Leonardo was located at 105 N. Aurora Street – at least, back in 1965. The address today pops up a location in front of Sushi O Sake (which is 107 N. Aurora). A search indicates that section of Aurora was known as the “Casey Block“, which was built around 1904 (the Wanzer (corner) Block was built the following year), but the stretch was renovated and substantially rebuilt in the 1990s. The Casey Block could be the building that Viva Cantina is now in, or it could have been in the 1990s renovation (the architects refer the original building as “burned out“) that now sits at 107 N. Aurora.

5. “vine street cottages ithaca ny how much are townhouses”

I’ll just link to this previous entry, in an effort to limit unnecessary visits to the Ithaca Journal pages.  Mid-200,000s expected. Definitely not a place to buy for your child- student. 10 to choose from, four styles.

6. “new townhome proposal for route 96 ithaca”

That would be the Holochuck Homes project. The plan is for 106 townhomes, one or two-stories, clustered together near the road. Final approvals were granted last month. This is about the only image I could find of them, from a now-inaccessable article in the Elmira Star-Gazette:

7. “new apartments 600 W. Seneca street ithaca” (5-11-2012)

Okay, I maybe dropped the ball on this one. Back in the summer 2010, a 24-unit, 3-story apartment building was proposed for the northwest corner of Seneca and Meadow Streets by Iacovelli Properties. It only recently started construction, and I know there’s a billboard standing on the property, and it shows the design of the new building(s).  I know this because I saw it the last time I was in Ithaca I passed the property, but I was driving and did not have my camera in hand (a blessing to all other drivers on the road), I was unable to get a photo. If someone does gets a photo of the project and wants to email that in, I would be delighted.


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Spring 2012 Construction Update

2 05 2012

I’m disappointed, and I’m not disappointed. I can’t be at Slope Day itself because of a morning meeting (and to seal my fate that day, I’m having new tires put on my car). On the bright side, I did get a chance last weekend to go to a Cornell alumni reception for my major, and the traffic, one could assume, was a lot better than it would be with thousands of young alumni driving back to the area. I took the downtime between alumni events as an opportunity to do some construction photo updating.

As nice as it would’ve been to report on some downtown construction, all the sites approved or of buildings “underway” appeared to be dormant from the outside – if they’ve started anything, it might be interior demolition, but there wasn’t any demolition equipment at Seneca Way or Breckinridge Place (which, as I have now discovered, is scheduled for May 15th); the latter had a tarp poster, shown above, but that was about it. As kinda expected, significant work has yet to start at the Holiday Inn, Hotel Ithaca and Cayuga Green II.

That being said, it’s not like there was no progress at all in the area. The Argos Inn is nearing completion of its renovation.

Comparably, construction in Collegetown has been rapid. Here, 309 Eddy is undergoing facade installation, and looks on track for an August completion date.

The progress at Collegetown Terrace has been nothing short of astounding. The following photos try to convey a sense of the size and scope of the construction, but I feel they fail to do so. By Ithaca standards, this project is enormous.

Definitely not a fan of the giant concrete pedestal.Here’s to hoping it gets landscaped into obscurity.

The Ithaca College Boathouse nears completion on Inlet Island.

So, this one I only came around by chance, as I was going out with old friends for dinner. Apart from them thinking I’m nuts for taking photo of a building under construction, I’d say this was a pleasant surprise. The building is Magnolia House, a 14-person women’s homeless shelter.

The Coal Yard Apartments Phase II is virtually complete. The 4-story building holds 25 apartments.

The Vine Street Cottages development continues, with the model unit currently the only building under construction. The project includes 19 houses and 10 townhomes.

Seeing as my computer is lagging substantially with the uploading of all these photos, I think I’ll cut myself some slack and upload the Cornell project photos in a later entry next week.


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When The Mayor of Ithaca Stood Up To Cornell

23 04 2012

So, this entry is a little delayed because I was at a conference doing what scientists do best, which is trying to explain their research and justify the grants that pay for it. Since my research (and by extension, my paycheck) takes priority, things got a little pushed back with the blog updates.

Anyway, I made a reference in the previous entry to how Cornell is both a blessing and curse for Ithaca; the blessing being the attention, the jobs and the steady economy, the curse is that Cornell pays a pittance towards the real value of their property in the city (as in, 4.5% of the assessed value). This is covered by the PILOT (Payment In Lieu Of Taxes) agreement. But how that agreement originally came to be is much more interesting as the situation it stems from.

Turn the clocks back about eighteen years to 1994. At the time, the mayor of Ithaca was avowed socialist Ben Nichols, who was a retired professor of electrical engineering from Cornell (he had also completed most of his education at Cornell).  Perhaps that makes this story all the more interesting; a David vs. Goliath, if Goliath had been supporting David’s career for forty years. Ben Nichols was first elected in 1989, and then again in 1991 and 1993 (two-year terms; these were increased to four-year terms shortly before he lost his fourth run for mayor in 1995).

In late fall of 1994, Ben Nichols, recognizing the dire situation of Ithaca’s budget, demanded for Cornell to pay a higher share for its use of city fire services and police patrols. Specifically, he wanted Cornell to pay an annual fee of $2.5 million, which he thought was adequate to cover dorms, fraternity houses, and the campus store, as they were not purely academic buildings. At the time, Cornell paid about $143,000 (this started around 1967, as a way to cover fire services and a PILOT for the ICSD), and perhaps in politer terms, Cornell told him to take a hike. What followed was a battle with jobs and laws as weapons.

After the rebuff, Mayor Nichols decided to fight back by denying Cornell construction permits, using a normally-unenforced zoning rule regarding the amount of parking spaces needed for a facility – Cornell had about 1/10th what was required for an enterprise of its size, a gross deficit of just under 9,000 spaces. So, no construction could be undertaken, nor renovations, unless those parking spaces were built. Mayor Nichols said that he had many meetings and pleasant conversations with the university, but no results.

To quote:

“Most universities say that they legally are not required to do this, and so the position that we took is, `OK, if you stick to every legal right that you have, we’ll do the same,” Nichols said. “And things like building permits and zoning law, we will adhere to every fine line of the law.’ ”

Cornell, of course, fought back using the hundreds of construction workers and tradesmen who suddenly found themselves without work; that May, they protested in front of city hall, demanding a lift of the ban. Furthermore, Cornell said they would consider paying only after the permits were granted. After the protest, Mayor Nichols relented, saying that the lifting of the ban had nothing to do with the protests, and everything to do with the belief that a discussion on an appropriate payment plan would take place at a “much more accelerated pace“.

In the interest of epilogues, eventually a revised and compromised PILOT agreement was hammered out later that year, which increased Cornell’s commitment (albeit still meager compared to assessed value). this was revised to be tied to inflation (Consumer Price Index) in 2003, and increased outright to a minimum contribution of least $1 million annually.

A Cornell supporter might look down on the mayor of the city for being petulant, but I am personally impressed that a Cornellian/faculty member stood up against the metaphorical 800-pound gorilla. Even if there is hardly a snowball’s chance in Hades I’d ever support a socialist candidate.


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News Tidbits 4/12/12: Ithaca Plots to Get Rid of its Lots

13 04 2012

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So, Ithaca has a lot of things going for it…and some things that aren’t. One of the unfortunate aspects of being a small city with a large university and a medium-sized college is that a lot of the local land is owned by said institutions, making it tax exempt. In fact, the proportion of tax exempt parcels in the city is right around 60.82 percent, 83.1 percent of which is owned by Cornell. So, this often results in a tight budget situation (Cornell, to its credit, has a Payment In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT) agreement that pays the city $1.1 million annually, or about 4.5% of the tax value of its holdings; Ithaca College, at last check, pays jack squat). As one might imagine, this is a huge source of controversy, more than enough to merit discussion in a future entry. Anyway, this year, like many, Ithaca is looking at a deficit, to the tune of $3 million. To alleviate some of this burden, the city hopes to sell some of its unused property (at least $120,000 worth) to put it back on the tax roll and hope that someone redevelops it, for further benefit to the community and the city’s bottom line. This entry takes a look at the properties.

First off, the process on how to get rid of the properties has been, for lack of a better word, a clusterf**k. Two parcels have been cleared for sale, since there are no major environmental issues – 213-15 Spencer Street, and 321 Elmira Road.

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213-15 Spencer Street is a 0.47 acre property with a value of $124,000. The property is planned to be transferred to the Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency (IURA), which then sells the property for some value to an interested buyer, which in this case looks to be INHS, the local real estate development NPO. In sum, probably going to be developed for an INHS house.

321 Elmira Road is a 0.40 acre property with an assessed value of $189,000, probably because it’s in the middle of the rapidly developing big-box chain district in the southwestern part of the city. The sale of this property will be done via auction with sale to the highest bidder. At 0.40 acres (17,400 sq ft, not including zoning restrictions), don’t expect development here to me more than a small chain store of some variety…if anything at all, given drainage issues on the site.

Cherry Street parcel 100.-2-1.2 (i.e. 300 block). Is an 8.25 acre property in an industrial park with an assessed value of $825,000. This property is tied up in red tape due to some wetland on the south side of the property, but once those 2.25 acres have been subdivided off, the other 6 acres will be given to IURA, to be sold to an entity that will provide “commercial development”, if it gets redeveloped at all (some are calling for no sale due to the sensitive nature of the neighboring wetlands).

Given the tax rate, if all three were sold and assessed at current value (saying Cherry Street’s 6 acres are $600,000 for the sake of argument), you’d get about $32,000 in property tax, not to mention the one-time revenue of the sale itself. All in all, these sales aren’t really anything special, but it will be interesting to see what gets proposed for the Elmira Road and Cherry Street properties if the sales are ever completed.


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This Old House

4 04 2012

In the years that I’ve written this blog, I have written many articles highlighting the history of the physical assets in the region, but as I’ve exhausted many of my sources, and my access to new sources has become more difficult post-graduation, I’ve tended to focus on new development in Ithaca and the colleges. I’m not saying that it’s necessarily a bad thing, but there are occasions where the acknowledgment of historical assets must be given its due.

When I visited for my last photo tour back before New Year’s, I came across an aging Greek Revival house on the north end of downtown that was in a deplorable state. The red siding was tired, the Doric columns of the porch chipped with the paint worn off, the foundation crumbling and the windows damaged, with sills breaking off, and missing panes in some places. I resolved that before something happened to it (most likely the wrecking ball), I was determined to take a few photos and share the house before it becomes confined to the old yellowing photos of times long ago.

Officially, the house is 102 East Court Street. Historically, the house is the “Judd House“. The house was built in 1828 – the same year Ezra Cornell had arrived in the budding town of Ithaca, which has hardly twenty years old. An estimate establishes the house as having about 3,100 sq ft, 4 bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. Furthermore, the assessed value of the house is $190,000, although given its condition the land it sits on is probably worth more then the physical plant itself.

Property of Cornell University Library (A. D. White Collection)

A casual online search reveals a photo from Cornell’s A.D. White Collection, which shows the house in a much better state of affairs in what the vehicle to the left suggests is the 1920s. Furthering searching indicates the house was most likely designed by Ira Tillotson, the same architect for the Clinton House, which is a contemporary to this home. The once-stately residence was built for Capt. Charles Humphrey, a veteran of the War of 1812, on what was then the corner of Cayuga and Mill Street. The house and a long-removed barn were constructed for a cost of $2,105.56, which places the cost of construction likely somewhere in the upper six digits to $1 million-plus today. The name Judd House comes from long-time owners of the house in the 1900s, who apparently took great pains to keep the house in good shape. Sadly, that is not the case today.

In a perfect world, someone would come along and renovate and restore the venerable house to its former glory (perhaps INHS? A Cornell or IC faculty member with ambition)? It would be a shame to lose such an asset to Ithaca’s history. However, the decay is advanced and renovation would be expensive, or may not even be viable given the precarious state of the foundation, which is continually harmed by the freezes and thaws of the Ithacan year. As time creeps forward and winters take their toll, the long life of this home may be coming to end.


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News Tidbits 3/16/2012: What Lies Ahead for Cook Street

16 03 2012

From Cornell Daily Sun. Image Updated 4/25/2012.

From the Ithaca City Planning Board:

Site Plan Review, Townhouse Apartments, 107 Cook St., Jason Demarest, Applicant for Owner, Dan Liguori. The applicant is proposing to construct two 2‐story townhouses with partially finished basement levels, four parking spaces, and asphalt‐paved access drive, walkways, and landscaping. The buildings are each 2,304 SF with 6,128 SF finished floor area, and contain two 3‐bedroom dwelling units, for a total of 4 new units with 12 new bedrooms. Proposed exterior finishes include brick, fiber cement board, cedar shakes, and stained wood lattice detailing. The project is in the R‐2b Zoning district. This is a Type I Action under the City of Ithaca Environmental Quality Review Ordinance and the State Environmental Quality Review Act (because the site is contiguous to a historic district) and is subject to environmental review.

If the address looks familiar, it should. The ca. 1912 house that stood on the property was engulfed in flames in May of last year, killing a Cornell student. One of the factors that was believed to have weighed in on the fire (which was accidental) was a confusing internal configuration due to subdivision of the original property from single-family into multiple tenants (there were eight units total, housing 13 students).

The first proposal for new development on the property was rejected for a couple of reasons – for not having a porch, and for having a mansard roof that wasn’t much of a mansard roof. The planning board has been fairly adamant that any new property on the street fits in with the current set of buildings. Well, that and fire safety. Old single-family houses that are subdivided are usually grandfathered from the sprinkler requirement as long as the alterations are strictly internal.  The new building would have to have a sprinkler system in order to be approved as a multi-tenant building.

So here we are on proposal two; townhouses, two units in each, 12 bedrooms, so two bedrooms less than the previous proposal and one less than the original building. Based off of description alone, with cedar shake and wood lattice detailing, it sounds like this structure is more in-line with the current style of buildings on Cook Street. I for one will be curious to see how it looks.

Arguably, from a purely financial standpoint, it would be a blunder to not redevelop the property – several new units close to Cornell would fetch a higher going price than neighboring houses, just for being newer and safer. Also, paying taxes on land as highly valued as Inner Collegetown’s probably dissuades the owner from sitting on the property. If one were planning on holding onto the parcel for the long-term, this could be a potentially lucrative setup for the small-scale owner/developer.

Taking a grander view, I wonder if projects like this could be a demonstration of what may lie ahead for some smaller Collegetown properties.  As large new developments open up (CTown Terrace, the Palms proposal, etc.), and assuming a static student population, the rates for older unrenovated buildings will go down and the owner’s revenue will take a hit. This will be further compounded on poorly-maintained properties; owners who suddenly have a building declared unfit by the city, and have to make costly repairs or rebuild (while being excoriated by local residents and officials).  Ii is possible that over the next decade or so, more projects that seek to build smaller but  student-specific properties will be proposed in the area. Quality of design and materials, of course, is up to the owner and requires the city’s approval. In summary, I see the redevelopment of 107 Cook as an illustration of what may lie ahead for Collegetown.


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