Downtown Ithaca will be getting another large addition in the next couple of years, if Tompkins Financial Corporation has their way.
The local financial services company has announced plans for a new headquarters in downtown Ithaca. The location of the proposal, 118 East Seneca Street, is between the DeWitt Mall and Seneca Place on the Commons. The site is currently home to a small drive-thru branch of Tompkins Trust Bank.
The sketch plan can be found here. Currently, there is no specific design, only a massing diagram (local firms Trowbridge Wolf Lansdcape Architects and HOLT Architects will be designing the new building). Potentially, the project could be seven floors, 100 feet tall, and about 110,000 GSF. Plans call for a small amount of enclosed parking on the first floor behind the building footprint, with floors 2-7 being built out and over the parking.
The bank branch would be moved across the street to 113-119 East Seneca, and though it’s a little hard to tell from the images provided, it looks like the buildings on site will remain in place, while major renovations are applied to the ground level. 113-119 East Seneca currently has a surface lot topped by three floors of offices.
The project has a fairly quick schedule, with formal plans expected at next month’s Planning Board meeting, and final approvals for the headquarters expected by June. According to the blurb on the Ithaca Times, completion is anticipated by January 2017.
Tracing its history back to 1836 and the establishment of Tompkins County Bank, the Ithaca-based company offers retail and corporate banking, insurance, and asset management services. Along with Tompkins Trust Bank, TFC operates several other subsidiary banks, including Tompkins Bank of Castile on Western New York, and Tompkins VIST Bank in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Collectively, the company holds about $5 billion in assets and employs 1,000, including 400 in its headquarters.
On a final note, it’s worth noting that TFC turned down participation in the U.S. Treasury’s TARP program, otherwise known as the “bank bailout”, and was did not offer subprime loans during the 2000s housing bubble.
Ithacating in Cornell Heights 
