© Ithaca Builds, 2024
October 10, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
Seneca Way’s EIFS facade is still coming along, with most of the faces either fully finished, or installed and base coated, and the eastern parking lot has been curbed and paved with asphalt. The future commercial office second story has new bays of windows on the east and west sides (you can see the grey steel frames), and the curved side will have full top to bottom windows.
October 4, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
Sort of a minor item here, but just imagine you’ve rented a brand new apartment or office space on the Commons with a fantastic southern view, but as soon as you open the window, it smells like trash. As explained in the project description below, it looks as if there’s been an agreement made to prevent this scenario.
Currently, there’s a large City trash compactor and recycling dumpster sitting in a recently gated block-enclosure on the northern ground level of the Green Street Parking Garage, and the proposal below intends to move the operation to the Center Ithaca alley service area, and reconfigure the space won for eight additional parking spaces. Site plans and renders from STREAM Collaborative below:
October 4, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
Seneca Way is looking more and more like Seneca Way as the weeks go by. Facade installation has been going at great pace, and I imagine the interior is shaping up since all the windows have been in since early September. There’s a shot of the sidewalk view from the steep section of Seneca St in the tiled photos below showing little public visibility of the northern facade.
Seneca Way’s site also has some new interior render images of the apartments: see the bottom of the floor plans page here.
September 26, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
EIFS base coat and finish coat texture applications are following-up right on the heels of the insulation material installation on the southern side of the Seneca Way facade. Southern side looks about half-way through, and the eastern side is nearly complete.
September 19, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
Seneca Way’s EIFS (Exterior insulation finishing system) facade is going up quickly, as you can see the eastern side is nearly complete, and the southern side is progressing nicely. With some more fine weather on tap for next week, I doubt this part of the project will take longer than expected. The posts with flags on the roof makes me think there’s material going up there as well, I’d bet a membrane EPDM (ethylene propylene diene monomer, lots of four-letter acronyms here). If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the website for Seneca Way, which contains full information on the amenities and floor plans.
September 13, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
Swung down to the Making Room Exhibit in NYC this week and wanted to share some photos from this project put on by the Citizens Housing Planning Council. The Making Room initiative works on:
“cutting-edge housing and demographic research, new design proposals, and pragmatic policy recommendations that would expand housing options in New York City to meet the needs of our diverse and growing population.
The Making Room initiative is specifically focused on three new housing types for the New York City marketplace:
1. Small, efficient studios designed for single person households;
2. Legal shared housing options for unrelated adults;
3. Accessory units to make a single family home more flexible for extended families or additional renters.”
Many of the zoning and building codes in NYC and across the US were written under the premise that housing rules could enforce a lifestyle of traditional households and “the ideal American family.” Over time, it’s led to the development of a housing stock that leaves out a large portion of the population that would prefer to live in units or developments that have been made illegal. The mismatch of supply and demand primarily hurts housing consumers.
The plan has been to identify these specific issues, inform, and analyze what policies should change in order to allow for the development of a better housing stock.
By far, the most interesting thing in the exhibit is the micro-unit (it’s 325 square feet, but you’d be amazed by how big it actually feels, due to the clever design, and space-saving built-ins- here’s a link to better images of the unit). Parts of the showcase included information on other projects that are being planned or have been built all over the world. All in all, it was very interesting.
Ithaca-based Taitem Engineering is working on LEED, Commissioning and more in collaboration with nArchitects, the adAPT NYC Design Winners for the My Micro NY project [thanks Jan!].
September 12, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
More photos here of the eastern side, taken a couple days ago.
September 9, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
Couldn’t resist snapping a few shots today and last Thursday. Much of the eastern facade is now covered in EIFS material, and the gray base coat is making its way around. Three cherry-pickers and a full platform seem to be doing the trick. It’s been great to watch the pace of this project throughout the Summer. The limestone-like color (Lite Cinammon) and dark gray (Antique Gray) at the northeast corner of the facade are two of the final finish-coat colors.
September 5, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
Lifts with crews are making their way up the exterior facade to install insulation before the facade is applied, much like Breckenridge, although the facade material will be much lighter on Seneca Way than the brick facade on Breckenridge (brick has also become quite expensive these days). The insulation material is a form of EIFS, which stands for Exterior Insulation Finishing System, which is generally paired with a mesh, a base coat, then a finish coat of an acrylic or latex-based textured finish.
September 3, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
Along with 130 E Clinton St and Cayuga Green II, Harold’s Square was approved at last Tuesday’s Planning Board meeting, and here is the final set of site plans. The final build is as follows:
140‐foot tall
11‐story
132,000 Gross SF
11,000 SF of ground‐floor retail
41,200 SF upper‐story office (three stories)
Six stories of residential (up to 36 units)
As described in the Planning agenda, the project as proposed may require a State Building Code Variance, a Type I Action under both the City and State Environmental Quality Review Ordinance/Act: rules found here. The referenced actions are for construction [on] a historic structure (1)(h)[4], a development with more than 15 dwelling units (1)[k], and a development with more than 50,000 Gross SF (1)[n]. The referenced State rule (SEQR Act 617.4 (b)(9)) is for historic considerations as well.
