Gallery: See what’s under construction around the rest of Ithaca this fall – The Ithaca Voice

ITHACA, N.Y.To finish out this months series of construction updates, well be taking a look at projects under construction elsewhere in and around the city of Ithaca. If you want to see the previous installment, you can find the Cornell campus updates here, the Collegetown updates here, and the Downtown updates here.

Use the below table to navigate the gallery if youre interested in a specific project.

Not all new projects are big and flashy. Local developer Stavros Stavropoulos has commenced construction of his infill housing development in Ithacas West End. The $1.276 million project is replacing three dilapidated houses at 615 Cascadilla Street, 617 Cascadilla Street, and 513 North Meadow Street with four new two-family houses that include eight market-rate rental units.

All of the units will be three-bedroom apartments with 2 or 2.5 bathrooms, ranging from about 1,000 to a little over 1,400 square feet. Residences will have open floor plans, eating bars/islands and walk-in closets. The replacement unit at 617 Cascadilla Street has a finished and partially exposed basement level, while the trio at 615 Cascadilla (615 A/B/C) have crawlspaces instead.

Meanwhile, on the outside, plans call for new sidewalks, bike storage, lighting, landscaping and an off-street parking lot for eight cars accessed from North Meadow Street. Curb cuts on Cascadilla Street are being removed, and the housing is grouped closer to the northeast corner and adjacent residences to maintain a quieter and more residential atmosphere. The rear yard at the south end of the property would be a shared outdoor space for the residents.

The foundation has been poured and the duplexes are fully framed. The roof work was in the process of being completed when these photos were taken earlier this month. These are fairly simple wood-framed structures with Huber ZIP Panel plywood sheathing, so framing is a relatively quick and straightforward process. The buildings will be finished out with fiber cement siding in shades of tan, grey and sage green.

Local architect Daniel R. Hirtler of Flatfield Designs is the designer who penned the building designs. Seven Valley Siteworks of Groton and Hollow Creek Builders of Ovid are handling the excavation and buildout. An early- to mid-2024 completion would be a fair estimate for this project, shortly after Stavropoulos opens a new two-family rental on South Hill at 205 Hudson Street.

The Squeaky Clean project, which replaces the former Lama retail plaza that occupied the triangular site, calls for a new 1.5-story automated car wash tunnel building, equaling approximately 35,500 square feet. The site will also include vacuum stations, site pavements, utility extensions and improved landscaping. Access will be from South Titus Street, as there was a high risk of backups if they tried to keep a curb cut on South Meadow.

The building is fully framed with concrete masonry block and plywood Huber ZIP roof and gable panels, and windows have been fitted. Installations of interior utilities and equipment is underway, and from the outside, one can see the concrete bases and utility hook-ups for the vacuum units that will be installed. The ribbing being attached to the CMU walls will be used to attach the fiber cement siding, and a stone veneer will be applied to the base. The teal foam insulation boards will be buried behind backfill material as the project comes along.

D Squared Construction of Lansing (Doug Dake and Doug Boles) is the construction manager for the development. A building loan filing from last winter states that Community Bank N.A. of Albany is lending Sloan $3.525 million in construction financing for the car wash.

Readers may recallwhen the Tops Supermarket at Tops/Creekside Plaza closed, and plans came out last October for Dicks Sporting Goods to relocate into 45,486 square-feet of the former Tops space, with the remaining 16,918 square-feet at the south endcap of the strip for a future tenant. As of late October, the new location is open for business.

The South Meadow Dicks is about 50% larger than its location at the Ithaca Mall, though there has been some online frustration at the new locations selection choices. Still, its a feather in the cap for the city of Ithaca, whose retail strips are holding their own in an increasingly internet-driven retail world, and another loss for the Shops at Ithaca Mall in Lansing.

According to a posting on Creekside Plaza owner DLC Management Corporations website, the endcap space, currently just a temporary masonry enclosure wall, will be occupied by OReilly Auto Parts, a national auto parts chain with about 6,000 locations, but so far lacking an outpost in Tompkins County. Bids for the outfitting and furnishing of the endcap were first posted last spring, and construction on the new location is expected to start in April 2024, with an opening in July.

Meanwhile, just south of Dicks, outdoor goods enthusiasts will find complementary offerings from the new REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.) Co-Op planned for the former Staples space at South Meadow Square.

In the retail musical chairs, Staples moved southward along the plaza strip to the former Hobby Lobby space now shared with Ulta Beauty, which also moved into the city from the Shops at Ithaca Mall. Those moves opened the approximately 17,000 square-foot space that REI will now take for its own. REI already has a store open in Rochester, but has been pushing further into New York State, with a new store opening this month on Long Island, and another store planned to open next year in suburban Albany.

The press release from REI corporate states the store will be open for business next summer, and will employ about 50 people. Along with the usual REI inventory of running, camping, and hiking and fitness gear, the store will have a full-service bike sales and repair shop, and a ski and snowboard shop as part of its offerings to Ithacas outdoor-minded residents.

When these photos were taken in late October, the Staples facade had been torn off and the steel and concrete shell space was draped in plastic sheeting to allow work to continue even as Ithacas weather becomes less amenable. New curbing is also being installed along the plaza strip courtesy of Architectural Concrete Plus of Dundee. As REI has already signed the lease, the interior will be fitted out with new fixtures, lighting and furnishings, to be handled by a contractor of REIs choosing.

Full disclosure: This project is in the town of Ithaca, not the city. But its just over the boundary and it has been quite a while since our last check-in. Homes are being built and occupied at a steady clip at theAmabel cluster developmenton Five Mile Drive.The project, by Sue Cosentini of New Earth Living, calls for 31 for-sale homes (30 new, one renovated) in the town of Ithacas Inlet Valley corridor at 619 Five Mile Drive.

The project will have a community garden, recreational green and childrens play area surrounded by the homes; the front entrances face inward towards the community spaces, while the rear facades, including driveways and garages, face a loop road that encircles the development. This makes it so social interactions face inward toward the community features and neighboring porches instead of away from them towards the road.

According to Amabels website, every homesite is sold.The development offers four home styles, ranging from a 2-bedroom 1,092 square-foot home, to a 4-bedroom 2,136 square-foot model. Prices ranged from $340-$540k, depending on the unit and the finishes.

All units come with designer wood cabinetry, a choice of wood or stone flooring, a variety of fixture and countertop options, and all homes are designed with air-source heat pumps and can be made net-zero energy capable. Exterior finishes include engineered wood (LP SmartSide) siding and trim, pressure-treated porch decking, and a few different choices of architectural shingles for the roof.

Contracts are settled months before home construction, and because New Earth Living is not a big construction firm, they can only undertake two to three homes at a time. About 20 have been built and are completed or nearly completed, with two more undergoing excavation and foundation work. With any luck, as the last homes are built, the construction staging areas will be re-seeded and the community spaces in the center of the property can become better established.

Frankly, given the extreme scarcity of conveniently located for-sale housing, the Ithaca market could theoretically use more development like Amabel. However, Cosentini says on the Amabel website she is not planning any further Amabel-like home developments at this time.

Readers often email asking how there could be housing issues with so many projects under construction. These roundups are designed for just about every sizable project (3+ housing units) under construction. The many articles written about an individual project are but snapshots in a years-long process of concept proposal, approval, getting construction funding, and actually building out the project. Its not uncommon for a project to take 5-7 years from first proposal to opening.

In addition, many developers are holding off on projects right now due to high interest rates. Just as the rising cost of taking out a mortgage sidelined many aspirational homebuyers, the higher interest rates make borrowing money to build new multi-family and commercial buildings more expensive. In terms of cooling off inflation and the economy like the Federal Reserve intended, real estate development is one of the economic sectors most impacted by that effort.

The city Planning Board has acknowledged they are seeing a substantial slowdown in project reviews and pre-development meetings, which is an ominous sign for Tompkins Countys rapidly worsening affordability issues.

Anyway, in the Southwest retail corridor, a number of projects have been approved and could start construction at any time. This includesa 15,700 square-foot complementary retail building that Wegmans gets re-approved every two yearsjust in case, and two Benderson Development retail outparcels at South Meadow Square sized at 7,000 square-feet and 3,200 square-feet respectively.

Plans by local hotelier Pratik Ahir for a 70-room Comfort Inn are still being re-reviewed by the town of Ithaca, and plans for a 24,700 square-foot self-storage facility at 602 Elmira Road are also under review. Meanwhile, on adjacent South Hill, SouthWorks (formerly Chain Works) has received some grant awards and preliminary plans have been revised, but theres no individual plan before either the city or town Planning Boards at this time.

Turning to the West End, the Aeroplane Factory has yet to start its phase two with Taber Tower. As both phase one and phase two were approved in July 2020,and phase one has since been buillt, it does not seem like the project team will have to seek re-approval even though it has been taken more than two years for phase two.

Visum Developments plans for the Hive at 132 Cherry Street are approved but uncertaingiven the difficult financial lending market. Joes Restaurant at 602 West Buffalo Street has been torn down to make way for Visums 80-unit The Citizen workforce housing project this year, and work on the 58-unit Stately lower-moderate income apartment development is expected to begin at some point this fall.

City Harbors second phase, with its waterfront bistro and 156 apartments,has yet to commence with construction. The second phase of Cayuga Park, to be composed of retail and 127 market-rate apartments, is also uncertain at this time. The timeline for The Breeze apartment project is listed as July 2023 in construction bids, but a recent site visit by this reporter didnt show any indications of current work, and it would be more dependent on progress with soil remediation anyway.

Meanwhile, the Ithaca Farmers Markethas canceled their new buildin favor of renovations and a few additions on the ends of the existing pavilion. In downtown, plans to convert office space at 115-121 and 123 South Cayuga Street into 16 apartments with renovated ground-floor retail are supposed to get underway in January, according to online construction bid documents.

As for what we might see this year coming through the Planning Board, we knowArnots Waters Edge plan is expected to begin review at some point, which will involve about 500 residences in two phases of construction. Amixed-use proposal for an apartment hotel, 55-unit low-moderate income housing development, and recreational facilities for a city-owned parking lot on Inlet Islandis expected to begin review at some point in the relatively near future.

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Gallery: See what's under construction around the rest of Ithaca this fall - The Ithaca Voice