Ithacating in Cornell Heights

Now that the fairly complicated foundation work has been completed, things are moving along at a good pace over at the Marriott construction site in downtown Ithaca. Concrete has now been poured up to the seventh floor of the ten-story building. USG Securock glass-mat sheathing panels are being attached to exterior metal stud walls erected over the lowest levels. The floors are covered in plastic sheets from about the fourth level down, a sign of sprinkler fitting and major utilities roughs-in underway (given the major heat wave in the medium-range forecast, they may not be needed much longer).

A story I’ve heard through the grapevine is that Marriott worked with developer Urgo Hotels to design a new room design format for this Ithaca project. The rooms will be at a premium price point, but somewhat smaller than most comparable hotel rooms, so Marriott is approaching the hotel and the rooms themselves with new styling concepts that make efficient use of the space while maintaining a high-end look and feel to each hotel room. Marriott has a history of working with Urgo for new design areas, so if done well, this will be yet another proverbial feather in their cap.

This project gets a lot of flack from certain angles for not being “Ithaca-like”, but given that the site had been a small, awkwardly-accessed parking lot since the Green Street garage was erected in the early 1970s, it’s a huge, huge improvement. The hotel’s 160 rooms are expected to average occupancy between 70 and 80% (the market average is closer to 60%, but new hotels and downtown locations tend to have higher occupancy rates). That translates to 112 to 128 travelers on any typical day who will literally be able to walk right out onto the Commons, eating at restaurants, shopping at the boutique stores and spending their dollars on the “Ithaca-like” businesses that people hold near and dear. Not only does the project create dozens of jobs downtown, it has a real stabilizing effect on other businesses by offering a steady stream of well-heeled customers that will buoy bottom lines and be an asset to shopkeepers and restaurateurs as they ride out slow periods. For nearby businesses, there’s reason to look forward to its August opening.

The $32 million hotel was designed by  Cooper Carry Architecture of Atlanta, and Binghamton-based William H. Lane Inc. is the general contractor.

With the foundation work completed, the downtown Ithaca Marriott is heading skyward, now up to the third floor as of these photos from last week. From Green Street, one can see the rising south stairwell, the future trash and recycling room (basement floor), future restrooms and offices on the lobby floor, and hotel rooms on the floors above the lobby. Also on the basement floor are the fitness center, maintenance and linen rooms, storage space and utilities. Delivery trucks will pull in and unload under the cavernous space on the left side of the second photo.

The lobby area facing Aurora Street may just be a concrete shell with some temporary lighting rigs at the moment, but in a year or so, that space will host a new 80-seat restaurant, which will be combination of lounge seats, bar seats and traditional tables. The kitchen and prep area will be set back from the street, facing the Green Street garage.

The second floor facing Aurora Street, which will have a glass curtain wall (or as it’s called in the elevations, a “thermally broken translucent linear channel glazing system”), will contain two large meeting rooms. 4 guestrooms will also be located on the second floor. Above that, the third floor will have 14 guestrooms, assuming the 2013 construction docs are still accurate.

The 10-story, 159 room hotel is expected to cost over $32 million and. According to the Ithaca Times, a general manager has been named and the hotel will officially open for its first guests on August 23rd, 2016. Suburban D.C.-based Urgo Hotels is the developer, Atlanta’s Cooper Carry Architecture is the designer, and William H. Lane Inc. of Binghamton (with a new Ithaca office as of last year) is the general contractor.

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.