Cayuga View Senior Living Construction Update, 9/2017

2 10 2017

The official groundbreaking for the Cayuga View Senior Living project was back on August 9th. Since that time, the basement level of the Cayuga View Senior Living project has been built out work has begun on the ground level floorplate, and the construction of masonry stairwells and elevator cores. It looks like the big supplier for the CMUs is Zappala Block out of Rensselaer (“REN-suh-lur”).

The Taylor the Builders (general contractor) press release alternately states 50 units and 60 units in the mixed-use project, but the number I’ve long heard is 60, 48 2-bedroom and 12 1-bedroom. The 2,680 SF of first-floor retail is split evenly between the two wings of the building’s ground floor. One of the things that pops up fairly often in the marketing literature is the attempt to sell it to snowbird retirees who leave the area during the cooler and cloudier months for more pleasant climes, which the Thaler family co-developing Cayuga View has long done.

“We are proud to partner with Manley Thaler and Rochester’s Cornerstone Group, to bring this scenic mixed-use development to the Village of Lansing,” said Taylor president Karl Schuler at the groundbreaking. “This project addresses a specific niche and community need for market-rate senior housing, while doing so with an overall development that more than satisfies a lifestyle choice among the growing populous {sic} of mature adults in this market.” It’s going to be a busy time for Rochester-based Taylor, as work is also getting underway in Downtown Ithaca on the 12-story Harold’s Square project this month.

Noting the gaps above the window and door rough openings, my semi-educated guess would be that it’s set aside for later architectural finishes, maybe polished stone or similar. It’s a little hard to cross-check with renders because 1) only one render of the project has ever been formally released, and 2) that render does not really show the slope of the site of the walkout basement level. An earlier render from a couple years ago predates the current window layout, but lends credence to the possibility. The below-grade base of the concrete foundation (or will be, once backfilled) looks to be insulated with Dow rigid foam board insulation with a black waterproofing membrane over the top.

The project timeline calls for a Spring 2018 opening. A synopsis of the project can be found here.

 


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News Tidbits 3/18/17: Shoveling Snow to Dig Foundations

18 03 2017

1. A lot of Lansing stuff this week. Let’s start off with a brief update. It’s been about a year since the Thaler family received approvals for their 60-unit mixed-use Cayuga View Senior Living project on Cinema Drive in the village of Lansing. Well, it looks like they are finally ready to get under construction. The County Office of Aging included the project in their list of projects underway, and a check of the project’s Facebook page says they are starting construction this spring for a Spring 2018 opening. The upmarket project will contain 48 1-bedroom units and 12 2-bedrooms units, on a vacant parcel that is one of the last undeveloped high-density properties left in the village. Taylor the Builders will be the general contractor.

2. For a while now, the town of Lansing has been touting a figure of about 900 housing units being held up by the gas moratorium. Here are the statistics to back that up.

Now, the document from town planner Mike Long suggests that for multi-phase projects with some units already complete, the balance has been applied to the summation. If that’s the case, than Village Solars is shooting for a much larger buildout than originally anticipated. The doucment says that still plan on building 423 units. That’s a lot more than the ~310 currently on file. The first stage was increased from 174 to 206 as the result of unit-splitting, so the second set of phases may now have 217? That seems to be what’s implied here.

Note that the gas moratorium is a complication for the Village Solars, but not a project stopper. The newer buildings use electric heat pumps, which are a little more expensive than conventional gas, but they were able to pass the costs on within the rents (+$50/month) without much issue.

3. On another note with that town study, most of the projects noted have already been aired – Cayuga Farms on North Triphammer Road, the Pinney duplexes off of Scofield Road, Schickel’s Farm Pond Circle, and so on. However, a couple are new.

One appears to be a project called “English Village”. It consists of 59 townhomes and 58 single-family home lots. The other is “Cayuga Farms with Lake View”, which lists 30 units. The next has been cast for information, so watch this space.

4. Eric Goetzmann’s senior housing is finally ready to move forward, according to Dan Veaner at the Lansing Star. Lansing Meadows looks to be aiming for about 20 units of senior housing on Oakcrest Road, and a small commercial retail component that complements the housing – an idea being tossed around in the Star article is a coffee shop.

Technically, a coffee shop isn’t allowed in the 2011 PDA that approved BJ’s and the units, but it’s a minor change from the neighboring zoning, and likely to pass without issue. The senior units have been delayed for several years because Goetzmann bit the bullet and built wetlands to replace those that would be disrupted by construction, as required by state law; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had to review and sign off on the newly-created salt marsh as satisfactory. That only happened last October.

5. The Ithaca Landmarks Preservation Commission is looking at options for a Collegetown Historic District. Initially, they wanted the 400 Block of College Avenue, the 100 Block of Oak Avenue, Cascadilla Hall, the College Avenue Bridge and 116 Summit Avenue. Then after consultation, they realized that may be a little too much to try and justify to the rest of the city, so it seems they want to move ahead with two individual designations instead – the CTB Building (403 College, the Larkin Block), and 411-15 College Avenue (Stella’s, the Chacona Block). Both are older buildings in the valuable MU-2 zone. The Avramises, who own the Chacona block, did talk about wanting to redevelop it at some point, but that was almost a decade ago, and there haven’t been any formal plans. I can see some kvetching from the ownership, but it seems unlikely that the city will argue against historic designation for these two properties if it moves forward.

6. Looking at the agendas for local planning boards – the town of Ithaca will be looking at a renovation at East Hill Plaza (former Wings into Sedgwick Office Interiors), a 2-lot subdivision on Bundy Road, and a 10,100 SF warehouse/industrial operation at Greentree Nursery’s new building at 142 Ithaca Beer Drive. The Bundy Road subdivision is the big purcahse mentioned a couple of weeks ago – the buyers want to subdivide a 2.27 acre section and have no plans for other 64.7 acres.


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News Tidbits 12/26/15: Do You Hear What I Hear

26 12 2015

1. Not as visible, but still important – Student Agencies Inc. has secured a $3 million construction loan from Tompkins Trust Company for a major renovation of its building at 409 College Avenue. Although details about the project itself are a bit scarce in the paperwork filed on the 18th, it is likely the eHub entrepreneurial space being built for Cornell students, faculty and staff. The eHub space will include space for PopShop (a space for student business planning and development), the eLab business incubator, conference space, mentors-in-residence, and basically all the physical space and things a budding businessperson would like to help them succeed.

According to a previous write-up by the Cornell Chronicle, the lab should be open later this Spring, with 10,000 SF on the second and third floors of 409 College Avenue, and 4,000 SF of space in Kennedy Hall on the Ag Quad. STREAM Collaborative of Ithaca will be the interior architect for 409 College, and Ithaca-based Morse Project Management LLC is the general contractor.

Now, this could be a great thing for Ithaca, because it leverages Cornell’s presence to foster business development. Sort of like a Cornell-centric Rev. And Rev, for what it’s worth, has had several successful associated firms in the past couple of years – Ursa Space Systems was named a STARTUP-NY partner and will be hiring 22 people, and Ithaca Hummus is looking at hiring 50 over the next five years. Even the Ithaca Voice grew from what was basically a one-person operation when it launched in June 2014 (hat-tip to Jeff Stein), to having several full-time staff as well as giving Ithaca a higher profile through viral hits like the Key West promotion and the Harry Potter Wizarding Weekend.

Anything that allows Ithaca to grow and diversify its economy is a great thing, and if it can utilize Cornell’s presence to help that cause, all the better.

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2. The Lansing Star is reporting that 2015 was a banner year in Lansing, with 200 single-family homes, apartments and townhouse in the works. Along with the 20 or so plans reviewed, the town is also looking at revising its Comprehensive Plan, and the town may even consider the adoption of form-based codes in certain locations such as the proposed and stalled Lansing Town Center.

One caveat I’d add is that the key word is reviewed, meaning approved. Not underway. The 102-townhome Cayuga Farms project still had major issues to work out with its proposed package sewer system. If one were to look at permits, it’d probably be 36 or so units with the Village Solars, and probably as many with scattered single-family homes and duplexes, which would make for an average-to-above average year – final 2015 values will be available from the HUD in March. The village could see a big boost from its usual single-digit permit total, if the Cayuga View project gets its construction permit this year.

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3. Speaking of Cayuga View, the price point came up at a Lansing village meetings, the minutes of which came online this week. Drumroll please—

The targeted price point is $1600/month for a one-bedroom, one-bath unit (of which there will be 12), and $2700/month for a 2-bedroom, 2-bath unit (of which there will be 48).

That’s quite a high figure. Applying the standard 30% affordability threshold, the targeted income bracket for seniors is $64,000-$108,000/year. That’s comparable, or a little more than, the Lofts @ Six Mile Creek. It also draws parallels to inner Collegetown projects like Dryden South, where rents will be $1350/bedroom. But those projects fall in traditionally high land-value areas.

If it’s financed, then a lender must believe there’s a market for it, and given the general difficulty in financing projects in this region, that really is saying something. Increased affluence and number of retirees moving in? Hoping to capture the older, richer Cornell faculty/staff crowd? Bad judgement? Who knows.

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4. In the briefest of blurbs, the Times’ Josh Brokaw, who I applaud for attending even the less interesting city Planning Board meetings, reports that the Tompkins Trust HQ has been approved, with a permit likely once they get a minor curb-cut issue worked out. The contentious Printing Press Lounge debate also received the Planning Board’s go-ahead, if not necessarily its blessing. Expect a late winter or early spring construction start with the Tompkins Trust HQ, with completion the following year.

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5. A couple of interesting developments for the Biggs Parcel in Ithaca town. According to the Times’ Jaime Cone (new writer, guys?), a member of the ICNA, Roy Luft, is prepared to make an offer for the Biggs Parcel that would preserve the vast majority of the land. Luft owns a 10-acre parcel to the south (street address 1317 Trumansburg Road). He proposes to take a non-wetland portion on the southern end of the Biggs Parcel, combine it with the open field behind his house, and pursue a cluster subdivision of homes intended as owner-occupied senior housing, which on the surface seems like a decent plan and location, given that owner-occupied senior housing is in demand and the land is adjacent to Cayuga Medical.

With this offer aired, the county, in a 4-1 vote, is giving the ICNA until January 15th to make an offer, otherwise they’ll put the land for sale on the general market. There is no assessment figure publicly available (though a new value has been determined); the ICNA says that’s unfair, while the county legislators have countered by saying not having the assessment value doesn’t stop the ICNA from making an offer, and that the neighbor group has already had a year and a half to make an offer.

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6. Once again, a double-feature house of the week. The theme of this week – high-end homes. Here we have home #1, 8 Pleasant Grove Lane in Cayuga Heights. The house has been mostly framed and the sides have been sheathed, but from the looks of the exposed roof trusses, if would seem that when this photo was taken a couple of weeks ago, the dormers still needed to be decked and the interior was still just stud walls and rough openings.

Design-wise, the home seems to fit in pretty well with its neighbors, which were mostly built in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The property was purchased in 2012 for $132,500 by an LLC traceable to a coach for a Cornell athletics team. Previously, the lot had been owned by its Pleasant Grove Road neighbors, and was sold in an estate sale.

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7. House of the week #2. I couldn’t pass up the chance to see the one house under construction that seems to have the entire lakefront mansion community so utterly pissed off. For the record, this house on the Captains Walk cul-de-sac has been under construction for years – you can see it in the satellite imagery for Google maps, which dates from 2013. It also appears to be even larger than many of its million-dollar neighbors. Three-car garage? Check. Courtyard-type entry? Check. Windows have been fitted, the roof has been shingled and the exterior has been sheathed with Huber ZIP System panels. A spring finish would be a good guess. Records indicate a couple from Pennsylvania, the founders of a chain of assisted care facilities, bought the undeveloped parcel for $213,800 in 2013.


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News Tidbits 12/19/15: So New Even the Pavement Shines

19 12 2015

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1. We’ll start off this week with some eye candy. Over in Lansing village, the planning board is hammering out details regarding signage and covenants related to the Cinema Drive senior housing project. But it also gives the project a new name – from C.U. Suites to “Cayuga View Senior Living“. Lo and behold, one types that into Google and up comes the following partially-finished website. The name sounded familiar, and as it turns out there’s a good reason for that – Cayuga View is also the name of a portion of the Linderman Creek apartment complex in the town of Ithaca.

According to the website, the 55+ (“55 and BETTER”, as they tout on the page) apartment building at 50 Cinema Drive will contain 48 2-bedroom units and 12 1-bedroom units with four different four plans. The 4-story apartment building will have retail space on the first floor, “and will offer underground parking and storage, wireless internet, cable, business center, fitness center, rooftop garden, and scenic views. A companion dog or cat under 30 pounds will be allowed.”

No word on the project architect, but the project is being developed by the Thaler family, and Taylor the Builders out of suburban Rochester is the general contractor. The site was originally conceived as an office building several years ago, and then around 2012 it was proposed as a 39-unit mixed-use apartment building with an eye towards graduate students.

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2. Sticking with residential development and fancy renders, here’s the latest render for New Earth Living LLC’s Amabel housing development, courtesy of their Facebook page. Final approval was granted just this week by the town of Ithaca. The 31-unit eco-friendly housing development (consisting of one standing farmhouse and 30 new homes facing inward from a loop road) will be located on undeveloped grass/woodland behind 619 Five Mile Drive. In the project literature, the site is said to be designed around a “pocket neighborhood” concept, with the houses facing towards each other for interaction, and away from the street for privacy. The houses may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but are designed for net-zero efficiency. Houses range from 1-3 bedrooms and 1,200-2,100 SF. No specific prices yet, but expect marketing to begin sometime early next year.

3. For the aspiring developer who wants to get a head start on planning – the 11.71 acre Bella Vista site at 901-999 Cliff Street in the city’s West Hill neighborhood is for sale for $395,000. As the advertisement on Homefinder notes, the project has received approvals for a 44-unit apartment or condo building (what it doesn’t say is that those would have to be renewed via a reaffirming vote by the planning board, since the project was approved more than two years ago). The property is currently assessed for $210,000.

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Primary Developers Inc., a company founded by local businessman Mauro Marinelli, purchased the land for $175,000 in 2002 and received approvals for the 44-unit Bella Vista project in 2007, and the units were marketed by local realtors as condominiums. But as the recession set in, sales foundered and the project never moved forward. Primary Developers Inc. sold the medical office building on the adjacent southern parcel and two other neighboring parcels of land to another local real estate company for $945,000 earlier this year.

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4. Some minor tweaks to the Chapter House project since its November sketch plan presentation to the Ithaca city planning board, which looks to mostly be a slightly lighter brick color and a little more detail on the rear wall. From top to bottom, the Chapter House reconstruction proposes Rheinzink zinc shingles, white trim of unknown material, a Redland Brick Heritage SWB bricks, Inspire Roofing Aldeora Slate Coachman (790) simulated slate shingles over the first floor bump-out, SDL (Simulated Divided Lites) transom windows with LePage Morocco textured glass glazing over the picture windows, Sherwin Williams “Tricorn Black” paint on the Chapter House bar exterior trim, and genuine bluestone not unlike the famous Llenroc bluestone used in many of Ithaca’s historic buildings. As far as they look online, they appear to be attractive, premium finishes.

The owner, Sebastian Mascaro of Florida and represented by Jerry Dietz of CSP Management, hopes to start construction in late January or early February for an August 2016 opening.

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5. Note that there was ever much doubt, but it looks like local developers John Novarr and Philip Proujansky have secured the construction loan(s) needed to build 209-215 Dryden Road in Collegetown, a six-story academic and office building in which Cornell has committed to occupy 100% of the space for use in its Executive MBA program. According to loan documents filed with the county, there were two loans, one for $6,482,295.33 and the other for $9,430,528 (for a total of $15,912,823.33). Wells Fargo Northwest was the lender, and it looks like some of the funds are going through a “pass-through” trust.

The 73,000 SF building will host about 420 Cornell MBA students and staff when it opens in late Spring 2017, later increasing to 600 as Cornell fills out the rest of the square footage. Hayner Hoyt Corporation of Syracuse will be the general contractor. Ikon.5 of Princeton is the project architect.

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6. Going to do a double-feature for house of the week this week, mostly because I have a backlog of images. Here’s number one.

The last house is underway at the Belle Sherman Cottages. After not hearing anything about it, I had presumed they had just decided not to build Lot #9, which is smaller than the other lots and was going to have a unique “cottage” design. Well, color me surprised. The town of Ithaca issued a permit in early November, and by the 5th of this month, the CMU block foundation was excavated and poured. Looking at builder Carina Construction’s facebook page, the modular units have since arrived and have been hoisted onto the foundation, assembled and secured. Custom interior finishes, porch framing, siding, backfilling and landscaping will follow as the house moves towards completion.

No renders for the finished house, unfortunately, although I suppose STREAM Collaborative might have something on file. Agora Home LLC of Skaneateles is the developer of the Belle Sherman Cottages, which includes 18 other single-family homes and 10 townhouses, all of which have been completed and sold.

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7. Now for House of the Week #2. 424 Dryden Road’s subdivision earlier this year turned the rear parking lot into a second lot, and the owners, William and Angie Chen of Lansing, decided to build a duplex on the land, which has been bestowed the address of 319 Oak Avenue.

It seems a little odd that the trim already seems to be applied to the house when the windows haven’t been fitted yet. The standard Huber ZIP System sheathing is being covered with a mahogany-colored vinyl siding. Wooden wall studs can be seen from the rough window openings and there appears to be electrical wiring on the rear of the house, so it’s a fair guess that utilities rough-ins are probably underway.

Local architect Daniel R. Hirtler of Flatfield Designs penned the design, and according to the construction loan agreement on file with the county, Tompkins Trust Company lent the Chens $400,000 to help bring their duplex from the drawing board to reality.

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8. For those hoping for something new and exciting in next week’s Planning Board agenda, it’s going to be a downer month. Here’s what’s planned.

A. Revisions to the internal sidewalk plans at 804 East State Street to allow stripped asphalt vs. concrete.
B. Tweaks to the signage for the downtown Marriott currently under construction.
C. The “Printing Press” bar debate at 416-18 E. State Street, again.
D. Final approval for Tompkins Financial Corporation’s new HQ.

The agenda also includes a couple zoning variance reviews for house additions at 105 First Street in North Side, and 116 West Falls Street in Fall Creek. The board is planning a joint meeting with the ILPC to review and comment on the Travis Hyde plan for the Old Library site, tentatively scheduled for January 12th.


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News Tidbits 5/9: Changing Elevations

9 05 2015

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1. Looks like the CU Suites project is in fact the render shared by Taylor Contractors. Readers might remember these elevations from last week for a proposed “Cinema Drive Senior Housing”, but that the image didn’t match up with the proposal, a 3-story, 43,000 sq ft structure. According to the village of Lansing’s Board of Zoning Appeals agenda, the project is now a multi-story mixed-use building with a size of 87,515 square feet, which looks about right for the building proposed above. The project is seeking rear yard setback and height variances for not enough of a rear yard parking setback from the lot line, and for exceeding the maximum height allowed by zoning (which is 35 feet).

Doing some back of the envelope calculations, if one calls only the top three floors senior housing ((3/4.5) * 87515 = 58343) and uses the rough guidelines of 15% for circulation/utilities and 980 sq ft per unit, then one gets about 51 units, which makes this a pretty sizable project by local standards.

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2. Now for a change or perspective – new perspectives of the 210 Hancock project, in the form of elevations found in higher resolution here. Now you can see what all of the buildings look like as a whole, rather than the simulated viewpoints previously shown. The elevations heights give the apartment building’s height at about 40 feet. Apart from some tweaks to the way the first-floor parking is screened, there haven’t been a whole lot of changes since the last planning board meeting. Note that the buildings are tucked in or pushed out and separated by “hyphen” connectors so they don’t present one continuous street wall. The design is by local firms TWLA and HOLT Architects.

Am I the only one who finds the lime green and goldenrod to be a bit..intense when compared to the other facade materials?

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3. You want more new drawings? You get more new drawings! This batch represents the latest incarnation of the duplexes proposed for 112 Blair Street / 804 East State Street. Renders copied from here, project narrative here. Developer Demos / Johnny LLC (the Nestopoulos family) is still trying to have these ready in time for the Fall 2015 school year. Rather than continue seeking an area variance in zoning, the project is back down to two duplexes with three bedrooms and ~1,235 sq ft each (12 bedrooms total). After meeting with neighbors, it was decided to move back to surface building to reduce building height, and to add expansive front porches, which gives the otherwise bland duplexes a little character. Site Plan Review will take place this month.

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4. Looks like there might be an expansion of senior care facilities in Ithaca town. The Ithaca Town Board is set to discuss changes next week to the Planned Development Zone (PDZ) for the Sterling Heights / Clare Bridge Cottage assisted living facilities, located on Bundy Road just north of the city-town line. Sterling House is a 48-unit assisted living facility, while Claire Bridge Cottage is a 32-unit facility specializing in memory care (Alzheimer’s and dementia). The new building, a 23,200 sq ft 32-unit facility to be called “Clare Bridge Crossings”, is designed to bridge the gap between the two – patients who might be in early stages of illness and experiencing mild symptoms, but otherwise still capable of some degree of personal independence.

The new building appears to be a one-story addition tucked between the other two structures, so it won’t be visible from the street. Along with the new building, there will be updates to parking, landscaping stormwater facilities, and the addition of a couple of courtyards between the buildings. The architect is PDC Midwest, a Wisconsin firm that specializes in memory care facilities.

Now, some readers might be saying, “who cares?”. There’s a couple of reasons to care. For one, this is important from a quality-of-life perspective. Picture a senior couple where one is reasonably healthy and the other has memory care needs. It means a lot to have a facility nearby that can care for their loved ones. Secondly, an expansion would bring with it a number of jobs to support the new residents – nurses, maintenance, kitchen staff and so forth. So there’s an economic benefit as well.

Full disclosure – my mother is a nurse who works for an assisted living program that includes clients with memory care concerns. So I’ve heard a thing or two about a thing or two.

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5. On a parting note for the week, here’s a little more information on Cornell’s redevelopment plans for East Hill Plaza. According to Planning Committee minutes from the town of Ithaca, Cornell will be taking part in a multi-day design charrette hosted by form-based zoning proponents FormIthaca in early June. Form-based zoning in a very small nutshell is zoning that focuses on design elements rather than use. Cornell is interested because the plan will hopefully lead to a regulating plan for the “compact mixed-use” development Cornell hopes to build to build in that area. The plan could provide language for a new Planned Development Zone that would potentially allow Cornell to move forward with a housing/retail mix at East Hill Plaza.

Cornell has sought to redevelop East Hill Plaza and surrounding parcels (most of which they already own) for several years. A vision for the plaza shows up in Cornell’s 2008 Master Plan (the so-called “East Hill Village” shown above), and given the need for housing in the area, East Hill Plaza would likely be one of the location where opposition would be less likely, given the the lack of homeowners nearby and the site’s proximity to Cornell.

 


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