© Ithaca Builds, 2026
November 27, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
I actually drove by yesterday and now the project is fully closed-in with glass-mat sheathing and the window openings covered with plastic sheeting. Here are some photos taken this past Sunday. We may not see much outside change on this one until it’s time to put up the facade in slightly better weather, but it’s been quite a fast project so far.
November 26, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
The State & Mitchell Intersection now has poles installed for the future traffic lights at this crossroad of over 17,000 vehicles per day. The temporary all-way stop has generated some backed-up traffic for the past few months, especially during rush hours, but it looks as if the lights will be installed within a month.
November 25, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
The Thurston Avenue Apartments project has a construction fence up, and has cleared all the site trees and brush in prep for site excavation.
The plan is to build four 3-story multi-unit buildings for a total of 2 one bedrooms, 15 three bedrooms, and 3 four bedrooms (44 beds total). Here’s a link to the previous post containing the full site plan review materials, and the project itself was given final City of Ithaca site plan approval back in June. The buildings have been designed to match the character of their surroundings, and I think HOLT Architects did quite a nice job on this one.
I’m not entirely sure, but since there’s a crane on site already and the floor plan layouts have some uniformly-spaced wall breaks, there may be some modular components to this project. Should be nice to watch either way- if it is modular, then once the foundations are in, we should expect to see these go up quite rapidly, much like houses at Belle Sherman Cottages.
November 24, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
Got a chance to swing by each site today, so I’ll be releasing a bunch of photos this week. Even in the cold, everything seems to be moving along nicely.
The Collegetown Terrace project has kept pace with construction on Building 5 & 6. This phase has seen the project transfer from Hayner Hoyt to Welliver for general construction and management. Welliver is also working on Gates Hall for Cornell, and the Law School expansion/renovation project, which I haven’t covered much here, but there’s a brief write-up from Cornell here and some photos from Ithacating’s blog.
Facade-work has progressed on the southern face of Building 5, and has just begun on Building 6, where the wrap material (I think it’s one of the polypropylene woven types) is covering over the sheathing before panels are placed on top. There’s also new sheathing on the third level of the far east section of Building 5, where the concrete floor was poured not long ago. Building 6 has begun its final level of exterior wall framing, as the sixth level is being built-up on the southern face.
Building 5 also has a new section on the top floor of the northern side that has been covered in glass panels, so it must be a future common area, and I think the opening is for the landing of one of the bridges that will span across the gap. Mitchell Plaza now has painted illustrations in the window boxes- some plants and birds, looks nice.
Looking north from hillside:
Westward to Building 5:
Building 5 northern face:
Building 6 western and northern faces:
Building 6 southern face:
Building 5 northern face:
November 20, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
To expand on Ithacating’s excellent post last month about the plans Cornell has for its Veterinary College, I thought I’d post the images of the preliminary floor plans from Cornell’s page and also point out that the architects Cornell has partnered with may sound familiar: Weiss/Manfredi Architects actually designed the Museum of the Earth that was built back in 2003 on West Hill next door to Cayuga Medical Center (in addition to a lot of other nice projects)- and Michael Manfredi got his Masters of Architecture at Cornell. Both Michael Manfredi and Marion Weiss have taught at Cornell, and their firm is based out of New York City.
As far as funding, the project cost is pegged at $63 million. The Vet School is State-funded to the tune of about 25%, with the remainder from sponsored programs (I suppose a mix of outside scholarships/assistance and private or federal research program initiatives like grants), sales and service, tuition and alumni support.
The Overall Site Plan:
Two additional lecture halls:
The James Law Auditorium replaced by a three-story structure with Administrative offices on top:
The second-story “Modular Resource Center”:
And the first-story Library adjacent to the Muenscher Poisonous Plants Garden :
A central cafeteria:
November 20, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
Here are some site plan review materials for Benderson Development‘s proposed 14,744 Gross Square Foot retail expansion to the south of the new Hobby Lobby store off Meadow Street/Route 13 from Carmina Wood Morris architecture and engineering. Carmina’s actually engaged in an interesting project in Buffalo at the moment, working on a planned major reuse using the shell of the old 8-story A&P Warehouse and the Buffalo City Mission as an anchor tenant. The Buffalo City Mission has pulled-out of the deal, and has hired McGuire Development for relocation assistance.
Not much to say about this one, besides it just being a big box plaza expansion for a future retail tenant. The planning meeting is slated for Tuesday the 28th (next week), and as mentioned before, the proposed expansion actually sits on the site of the former K-Mart garden center. The already-built vestibule for Hobby Lobby is incorporated in this plan, since it was never aired before site plan review.
The full PDF file can be downloaded here.
November 17, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
The site plans and elevations for this proposed “All Suites Hotel” project by Ithaca Hotels, LLC have been disclosed and are embedded below. Here’s the previous post noting that the plan includes:
“A 4-story, 11,769-SF hotel with approximately 76 rooms and 76 parking spaces. The 1.4‐acre project site contains two contiguous tax parcels, containing a 7,500+/‐ SF office commercial building, fronting Elmira Road, and an auto‐body shop in the rear ― with access from Spencer Road and large paved parking areas.”
I’m not certain that this is an actual franchise, but the elevations look typical of one, and may perhaps be a Holiday Inn Express or similar brand from InterContinental Hotels Group. The plans were done by Silvestri Architects out of Amherst, NY. Silvestri has some current projects going up, mostly in Buffalo- most recently, St. Martin Village apartment complex in Buffalo, which included the remodel of a former German Catholic Orphanage building. As far as hotels go, they’ve previously done a Best Western, a Fairfield Inn, and are working in a Holiday Inn Express in Pennsylvania.
November 13, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
I can see that some of the interior walls have been framed-out as more glass-mat sheathing has been going up along the exterior walls. Once the exterior walls are closed-in, we’ll see a colorful variety of fiber cement panels installed to compose the facade of the building, along with a brick layer to form the base. There will also be some metals panels around certain window popouts. The site plans were posted here back in May, and the renders of the outside along with exterior details are on the last page.
November 12, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
INHS’s Breckenridge Place site has new paving, striping, landscaping, pillars at the entry, and the windows for the central popped-out bay along Seneca Street are going in. The two locust trees between Breckenridge and the property next door have been removed, giving a better view of the eastern facade. The 50 new units are still slated to open-up for early 2014.
November 11, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
I was in the area so I took a few photos of this site. Most of the fencing has been installed along the edges, along with the section for the baseball diamond and asphalt basketball court. Poured and tamped gravel form the pathways along with sections of concrete walkways, benches are in place, and some shrubs and saplings have been sunk in the soil. The parking lot was finished a little while back, and all the exposed soil has straw spread over it.
For the better part of the past two years, this site was remediated along with sections of adjacent roadway due to coal tar contamination from the former New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) operations that processed coal tar to fuel gas (coal tar is carcinogenic due to the chemicals generally found in high concentrations). There was an enormous tent over the site, lots of trucks, and street closures. The Ithaca City School District (ICSD) owns the block, and sought plans to demolish the former industrial Markles Flats building back in late 2009, but lost that initial decision in a ruling before the Ithaca Landmarks Preservation Commission (ILPC). Two subsequent rulings (an appeal before the Tompkins County Court, then the State Supreme Court Appellate Division) allowed the demolotion to move forward due to the conclusion that the ILPC could not determine what the school district could do with its property. There was considerable local discussion on the disagreement (one, two, and three). I never took a photo of the building myself, but here’s an image link of the former building.
The old remedial plan PDF from the NYSDEC is embedded below, along with a shot of the groundwater results- the plan presents some maps towards the end showing where contamination had to be removed or neutralized.
