construction | Ithacating in Cornell Heights

Belle Sherman Cottages Construction Update, 8/2015

12 08 2015

Normally, construction workers pay me no notice. This trip was a little unusual.

“Oh my God, is he taking photos of us!?”

“This is not my good side!”

“Worst glamor shots ever!”

Well noted gentlemen.

Workers from Ithaca firm Carina Construction continue on the last stage of the 29-unit Belle Sherman Cottages project just over the city’s eastern boundary line, in the town of Ithaca off the 800 block of Mitchell Street. On the first set of townhouses (lots 25-29), one gentlemen was busy cutting trim boards as exterior finish work was being wrapped up in time for the fall semester. Asked if he knew when the next modular units would arrive, he said “oh, just a couple weeks from now”. Since these photos are almost a couple weeks old now, one could say any day now, if they haven’t arrived already.

Unlike the five units already built, these will have Pacific Blue Certainteed clapboard siding instead of Autumn Red, and the garages will be in the back instead of the front. The Concrete Masonry Unit (CMU) block foundation walls are being assembled in preparation for the arrival of the Simplex modular units (covered in great detail by Ithaca Builds), which will be brought in and fitted before the leaves turn. Interior finishing and exterior work such roofing, siding. and porches will be completed over the next couple months and into the fall. The stand-alone homes, apart from whatever’s going on with lot 9, have been sold and assembled.

A quick glance at the sales records filed with the county shows a nice mix of buyers; retirees moving in from around town and from outside the Ithaca area, and a number of professionals who are making the jump from renters to owners. Prices for the homes started at around $330k, and in the mid $200s for the townhouses.

For those looking to buy in, you might have missed your chance; all the units are sold or reserved, and developer Toby Millman of Agora Homes and Development LLC says there are no current plans at the moment for another BSC-style development in Ithaca.

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Tags: belle sherman cottages, construction, construction (planned), ithaca, news, photos
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307 College Avenue (Collegetown Crossing) Construction Update, 8/2015

11 08 2015

The last in the Collegetown trio of midrise apartment buildings underway, and the biggest, is Josh Lower’s Collegetown Crossing project at 307 College Avenue. Like 205 Dryden and 327 Eddy, it’s time to give this building its first progress report.

A telescoping boom crane looms overhead as work continues on the foundation of the new building. An excavator is at work digging down to the appropriate level for foundation piling. The two-story concrete masonry unit (CMU) box that previously stood on-site has been demolished. Apart from the murals, there won’t be much missed about the ca. 1980 structure. 307 College had been home to a branch of Kinney Drugs up until about 2006, and afterwards, its commercial space was partially occupied by Ithaca Carshare. The second floor contained several apartments. The Lower family, who run the Urban Ithaca rental company in Collegetown, bought the property for $1.725 million in 2007.

Plans for the property were first announced back in 2009, but with parking requirements still in place, the project would have needed a zoning variance of 57 parking spaces, which the city was uncomfortable with. The project stalled and was unable to move forward with further review until the city passed revised zoning codes for Collegetown in March 2014. There were actually two notable impacts as a result of the zoning code update – one, that it could be built in the first place; and two, that the rear portion, which had been six stories like the rest of the building, had to be chopped down to 4 stories since it fell into a different zone (the building straddles two lots; the rear one is part of the new CR-4 zoning, which only allows four floors, and the front portion is MU-2). This reduced the number of bedrooms from 103 to 98, and later, 96. The final plans were approved last September, and the groundbreaking ceremony was just last month.

Collegetown Crossing will have 46 apartments with 96 bedrooms when it opens in August 2016. Along with those units, the project will host a 3,200 SF branch of local grocery co-op Greenstar on its ground floor. Two smaller commercial spaces are also included. A heated bus shelter and a narrow “pocket park” traversing College Avenue to Linden Avenue will also be available for public use. With a true grocery store coming to Collegetown, residents have generally been in favor of the project.

There’s no construction loan on file, but the FEAF estimated $5 million to build. The grapevine says it actually might be more in the line of $7-8 million. Also a plus, there were no tax breaks requested or given.

Local architect Jagat Sharma can put another feather in his cap, as this project is another of his designs. Syracuse-based Hayner Hoyt Corporation will be in charge of construction.

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Tags: collegetown, collegetown crossing, construction, ithaca, news, photos, student housing
Categories : collegetown, construction, ithaca, news, photos, student housing

327 Eddy Street (Dryden Eddy Apts) Construction Update 8/2015

10 08 2015

Another Collegetown construction project is getting its first real progress report. This time, it’s 327 Eddy Street in Collegetown, also known as the “Dryden Eddy Apartments”.

Excavation has been underway for a little while now, since the old Club Sudz/Tung Fong Grocery came down earlier this summer. The Club Sudz building had been built around 1910 as a 3-story building, but the structure was partially destroyed by a fire in 1970, and only the bottom two floors were rebuilt.

These photos are nearing two weeks old now, but a more recent photo taken by Mark Anbinder shows steel sheet piles on site. The project will use “flowable fill” to a depth of three feet in its foundation. Flowable fill is an alternative to concrete and is often used in roadwork or as retaining wall backfill.

What comes in its place is a 5-story building broken into three stepped sections. As elevation increases going eastward, the building steps back to another five-story section. Initial plans approved in 2014 called for a 6-story building with a different crown treatment (which looked better, in my opinion). Somewhere along the way, the building lost a floor, and then very shortly before construction began, the crown was changed from a triangular prism to a glass box. Presumably, this doesn’t affect the appraisal for the crown projecting into the city’s right-of-way.

The new 5-story building will bring 1,800 SF of retail space and 22 new units with 53 bedrooms to the market in August 2016. Longtime Collegetown landlord Steve Fontana (of the Fontana’s Shoes family) is the developer, Jagat Sharma is the architect, and GM Crisalli & Associates of Syracuse will be overseeing construction. A construction loan of $4,824,000 is being provided by Tompkins Trust Company.

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Tags: 327 Eddy, collegetown, construction, ithaca, news, photos, student housing
Categories : collegetown, construction, ithaca, news, residential life, student housing

205 Dryden Road (Dryden South) Construction Update, 8/2015

9 08 2015

Demolition work has commenced at 205 Dryden Road, also known as “Dryden South”, in Collegetown. Only a pile of debris indicates where the old Kraftee’s building once stood. Once the site is cleared, Excavation work and pile driving for the foundation can begin. When completed in August 2016, 205 Dryden, a 6-story, 65-foot structure, will house Kraftee’s in 2,400 SF of retail sapce on its ground floor, and 2 4-bedroom apartments on each of the upper five floors, for a total of 10 units and 40 bedrooms.

Kraftee’s is one of the local private college department stores, and opened its second location in Ithaca in December 2002 (the first store opened in Herkimer in 1989, moved to Oswego in 1990, and is still open today). Owner/developer Pat Kraft bought 205 Dryden in August 2004, and in January 2008, moved the store to the old convenience store next door (325 College Avenue, now the home of PopShop). In fall 2011, Kraftee’s moved back into the Dryden Avenue space after 325 College was sold to John Novarr, and he decided to not renew Kraft’s lease. Now, with the new build underway, Kraftee’s is temporarily housed at 315-17 College Avenue, in a space rented from the Lambrou family.

As previously discussed, plans for a new building on the Kraftee’s property have been in motion for a while – since at least 2009, according to Dryden South’s website. Formal plans, however, were not presented until May 2014, after the new Collegetown zoning went into effect. Plans were approved last August, but given the student renting cycle and rented units in the upper floors, work on the site began only recently.

According to county records, the project was extended a $6,400,000 building loan from Oswego-based Pathfinder Bank on July 14th. Prolific Collegetown architect Jagat Sharma handled the design, and Rochester-based LeChase Contruction is in charge of the build-out.

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Tags: collegetown, construction, dryden south, ithaca, news, photos, student housing
Categories : collegetown, construction, ithaca, residential life

Ithaca Marriott Construction Update, 8/2015

4 08 2015

Over at the Marriott Construction site at downtown Ithaca’s 120 South Aurora Street, all of the caissons have been drilled and work is continuing on the foundation of the new 10-story hotel. Concrete foundation footers have been have been set on top of the caisson piles, with rebar sticking out to tie-in the walls as they’re built up. The foundation walls are being poured in a range of sizes, depending on how much weight they’re going to hold. A couple footings with much taller re-bar likely indicates the location of future stairwells, elevator shafts, and utility space.

Note the plywood on the Green Street parking garage in the first photo. As workers were drilling the last caisson, the rig broke, tipped over and smashed into the wall of the garage. Thankfully, that section had already been closed off due to the construction, and no one was hurt.

Maryland-based Urgo Hotels plans on opening the $32 million, 159-room hotel during the third quarter of 2016 (July-September time frame). The hotel will include a host of amenities, a fitness center, a restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating, and 3,000 sq ft of meeting space. Atlanta-based Cooper Carry Architecture did the design, and W.H. Lane of Binghamton is the general contractor.

The project, which replaces a small parking lot. could be considered the culmination of an effort to bring a hotel to this site since 2008, when Rimland Development proposed the “Hotel Ithaca”. The previous Hotel Ithaca once stood on part of this site and the Rothschild’s Building, before it (and every other building in its city block) was demolished during 1960s urban renewal.

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Tags: construction, downtown ithaca, hotels, ithaca, ithaca marriott, Marriott, photos
Categories : construction, hotels, ithaca, photos

Lofts @ Six Mile Creek Construction Update, 7/2015

30 07 2015

This will probably be the last update written for the Lofts @ Six Mile Creek apartment project; it’s very nearly complete. The lower floors already have their first occupants, while on the upper levels, the Pella windows still have labels on them, indicating that interior finishing is still taking place on the most lofty of the loft units. Outside, workers were busy cleaning off newly-laid sidewalk; exterior landscaping is up next, which will consist of weed-whacking, laying down soil, grass seed and new plantings that will hopefully enhance the Creekwalk.

It’s been nice watching this building go up, through here and on Ithaca Builds. It’s been a long, long time coming, and well-designed additions to the increasingly under-served housing market are welcome.

The Lofts at Six Mile Creek project consists of a a 7-story, 49,244 square foot structure that will contain 45 rental apartment units: 3 studios, 21 1-bedroom and 21 2-bedroom units. The building is being developed by Bloomfield/Schon + Partners out of Cincinnati, and construction is being handled by Turnbull-Wahlert Construction, also based in Cincinnati.

Leasing is being handled by CSP Management, and interested readers can apply for an apartment here or call 607-277-6961 if they feel so inclined. Prices range from $1,220 to $2,655 per month, depending on size and location of the unit.

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Tags: construction, downtown ithaca, ithaca, lofts at six mile creek, photos
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Carey Building Construction Update, 7/2015

28 07 2015

At the Carey Building in downtown Ithaca, work continues on the structural steel beam assembly of the new 5-story vertical addition. It looks like the lowest two floors of the addition have steel decking, and cross beams are being installed on the third floor. The top two floors, which are smaller, have yet to be built, but one can get an impression of their height by looking at the joining plates attached to the vertical steel columns. Note the “kink” in the structural steel above the front entrance, and how it relates to the design of the apartment floors.

The previous estimates of a late summer/early fall completion have been too aggressive, especially since the addition had to sort out fire code issues, as well as anything else that comes up when working on a 90 year-old building. It would seem that late winter or early spring is more likely, but the steel work should be completed by the end of this summer. No word on if the Canopy Hotel developers still plan on sharing the telescoping boom construction crane.

The Carey Building addition will add a third floor and 4,200 SF to the Rev business incubator (nearly doubling it to 8,700 SF), and on floors 4-7, there will be 20 apartments. Floors 4 and 5 will have 16 studio apartment units that average only 400-500 sq ft, their small size enabling them to be rented at a lower price. The 4 units on floors 6 and 7 will be larger 2-bedroom units. The $4.1 million project is being developed by local firm Travis Hyde Companies. LeChase Construction is handling the build-out process.

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Tags: carey building, construction, downtown ithaca, ithaca, photos
Categories : construction, ithaca, residential life

206 Taughannock Boulevard Construction Update, 6/2015

30 06 2015

These photos date from the 13th, but they’re still worth sharing (and technically, it’s still June, so calling it a June update is valid). The fiber-cement siding has been attached to most of 206 Taughannock Boulevard, where a 2-story furniture store and warehouse built in the 1970s is being converted into a mixed-use building with 7 apartments (4 1-bedroom, 3 2-bedroom). A few sections still have insulation and (what I think are) wall studs showing.

A drawing of the new plans posted in a ground floor window gives more information about the project. “The Apartments at 206”, as the new building will be called, bears only a moderate resemblance to the render provided in the window. The rendering posted, which dates from September 2014, indicates that the residential conversion was designed by local architect Claudia Brenner. Brenner designed the renovation of the Lehigh Valley House next door into a mixed-use building with ground-floor commercial spaces, other active-use (a branch police station), and six condominiums last year. It looks like the work on the Lehigh Valley House’s ground floor is still wrapping up.

Some of the trim boards are missing, the roof-line doesn’t match, and the materials don’t look quite right, especially the seemingly random gray cementboard next to the garage. Dunno what exactly is going on here, but since this didn’t need planning board review (there was no change in square footage, only a re-pruposing of the structure), the regulations aren’t there to make the structure to look like its render. Facade details and the sunscreens will be installed at some point, presumably. The renovation, estimated to cost $350,000, is the work of the Zaharis family, who owned and managed the furniture store before it closed in Spring 2014.

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Tags: 206 taughannock, construction, ithaca, photos
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Kendal at Ithaca Construction Update, 6/2015

22 06 2015

There’s a bit of a story behind this one. Originally, there was photo update planned for April, but it was going to be an article for the Voice. The plan was to do an interview with the operators of Kendal. Photos were taken and the bare bones were drafted, but then after the initial phone call, there was no response. Finally shrugging my shoulder (and the Voice having moved on to other article ideas), the photos were going to be posted here.

That was when the marketing director responded. She gave a bunch of dates that worked for her, I tried to select a date, but she never responded back. But I did take a second round of photos in prep for the second interview. And now all the photos are finally going up.

The neat thing about these photos is that, since the construction schedule for the new wings is staggered, multiple stages of construction can be seen at once.

First, there’s the initial wood framing, followed by the installation of the roof trusses. This is followed by what appear to be two separate types of sheathing. One is Georgia-Pacific DensGlass sheathin g, the yellow boards seen below. These are gypsum panels coated with fiberglass mats, designed to limit heat loss and keep moisture out. The dark red panels are plywood ZIP system roof and wall sheathing, which uses seams and tape to save time vs. traditional sheathing such as Tyvek housewrap. The difference between the two appears to be that gypsum is fire-rated. The Kendal expansion has both apartments for independent seniors, and a skilled nursing facility (comparable to a nursing home in its level of care; the three degrees of independence are independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing). It seems likely that regulations mandate fire-rated construction for skilled nursing facilities, but not so in the case of senior apartments for independent living. Hence the two different sheathing types.

A sample wall on-site shows how the window installation and siding will look – the new addition will be designed to blend in with the original 20 year-old building. The newer photos are about a month old now, and since then many more windows have likely been installed in the rough openings of the apartment wing, and interior rough-in will kick in as the walls are framed out.

In the earlier photos from April, cinder block stairwells poke out from the first floor of framed and sheathed walls. The skilled nursing wing had yet to rise from ground-level.

Kendal at Ithaca is currently in the midst of a $29.3 million expansion. Three new wings will be built on the northeast side of the property as part of a new 48-bed skilled nursing center, an increase from the 35 beds currently available. On the southeast side of the complex, a new 2-story, 24-unit apartment complex is being built for independent seniors. A new entrance, cafe, fitness center, and health center are also included in the additions, as well as major interior renovations. Landscaping additions and a 26-car parking lot are also planned.The construction project is aiming to achieve LEED Gold certification.

Construction began this past January, and is supposed to wrap up in January 2016. An estimated 20 to 25 new jobs will be created by the expansion, most of those in service positions that pay $24-$45k.

Kendal was granted the privilege to issue tax-exempt municipal bonds by the county legislature to finance the construction of their new wings, but is not seeking any property tax abatement.

Local architecture firm Chiang O’Brien has partnered with the NYC office of Perkins Eastman to design the Kendal expansion. National contractor Lecesse Construction, with an office out of suburban Rochester, is in charge of general construction.

Photos from April 5th:

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Tags: construction, kendal at ithaca, photos, tompkins county
Categories : construction, news, photos, Tompkins County

Village Solars Apartments Construction Update, 6/2015

19 06 2015

Out in Lansing, the first phase of the Village Solars Apartments is starting to allow tenants to move in. Building “A” looks to be substantially complete, with tenant vehicles parked in the gravel lot, and a guy preparing a grill session out back. The unvarnished wood siding was a bit of a surprise, but it goes well with the natural color tones of the siding. Building “B” in the middle is due to receive its first tenants around July 1st, and building “C” on the east end might be planning an August 1st move-in date, based off the dates in the rental advertisements. These dates have been pushed back from the May and June dates that were noted back in the February post, and those had already been a push back from original dates in March and April. Further pushbacks are unlikely, if only because the developers risk losing out on the large and lucrative student market, which revolves around the start of the fall semester in late August.

Building “B” still has some sheathing showing, but is quickly attaching the remaining exterior trim, and building “C”, which is the same configuration as “A”, is still bare sheathing and waterproof wrap, but all of the windows and doors have been fitted. Without looking inside, I’d imagine “B” is polishing up the last interior finishes, while “C” is still installing appliances, flooring and the like. Interior rough-in probably wrapped up during the spring.

Judging from the revised Craigslist postings, Lifestyle Properties has had some success with filling the units, with some of the floor plans sold out. The one-bedroom units will rent for $1050-$1145, two-bedroom unis rent for $1235-$1369, and three-bedroom units will rent for $1565-$1650. Prices vary a little depending on what floor the unit is on, the higher up the more it costs.

Currently, some of the land has been cleared for the next phase (2 and possibly 21, which have 41 units and 10 units respectively). I checked with someone familiar with the project to ask when phase two would begin construction, and they said that there’s been talk of starting the second phase, but he wasn’t sure when it would start.

The Village Solars apartments are a large apartment complex located in the town of Lansing off of Warren Road near the county airport. The complex takes its name from what the Craigslist sales pitch calls “their passive solar design and energy saving features”. The four-phase project calls for an initial build-out of 174 apartment units, with a second addition yet to be approved that would bring the total number of units over 300. With the third phase of Collegetown Terrace yet to start, this is currently the largest residential project under construction in Tompkins County.

The Village Solars are being developed by local company Lifestyle Properties. Lifestyle is run by Steve Lucente of the Lucente family, who have been major builder/developers in Ithaca since the 1950s. No word on the architect. Upstate Contractors of Syracuse appears to be handling the construction work.