© Ithaca Builds, 2026
October 20, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
The Tompkins Community Action Magnolia House has a new sidewalk poured along Meadow Street, and there’s some new wood fencing being put up along the entryways and back side. Pavers have been installed on the north and south side entrances, and will continue along the back to form a patio area with flagstone benches. I’m not sure when the building is going to be completed, but there are still materials and tools on the inside.
October 17, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
The electric duct running around Goldwin Smith from East Ave. has been wrapped and is being covered-up again with soil and stone. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but the inner southern wing of Goldwin Smith has scaffolding running all the way up the side of the building. It looks like there’s new metal standing seam roofing material along the roof edges (the old lead coated copper stuff is going away), as called for in the roof replacement documents. Also, the plan is to cover all of the windows with sheathing to minimize any damage from the construction, especially the blasting of the hill to excavate for the retaining wall along East Ave.
October 17, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
The Seneca Way EIFS facade is almost entirely complete, with the exception of that one section on the eastern face that was passed-over when that side was being assembled and coated around a month ago. I imagine it’s staying unfinished until all the building materials have made their way inside through those windows from the lifts. The terrace looks due for its railing soon, and we’ll probably see the EFCO Sunshades go in above the windows as well. The second story bay windows for the office level have been installed, and the sidewalk stretching around the curve has been fully poured and floated.
…And they’re signing leases- move-ins begin January 2014, less than 3 months away.
October 16, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
Novarr-Mackesey’s Collegetown Terrace project is still moving right along, with the enormous Building 5 (stretching the length of about two football fields) showing northern-face western facade installation, eastern-end additional wall stud framing, exterior wall wrapping and window installation.
There’s also fresh concrete poured over the ground level floors, additional wall sheathing and wall stud framing in the middle section all the way to the top level, and we have a full level of precast concrete planks laid out for the eastern section of Building 5 with wire mesh being set in place, perhaps for screed then a concrete floor float (see floor section detail below for a typical assembly).
Building 6 sits at the far north-eastern section of the site and I’m seeing steel framing for what may become an elevator/stair tower on the closest end, but also wall stud framing on the third level where apartment units will be built out. The levels below will be for parking, and there’s plenty of wire mesh on the floors since last visit.
Building 5:
Building 5:
Building 5:
Building 5:
Floor Section Detail:
Building 6:
October 15, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
The construction fence outside Gates Hall has been taken down and now you can get a really good perspective of what this building looks like. The entryway has been ongoing since around July, and there was a contractor working on the ceiling panels of the cantilever when I stopped by; there will be a section of what looks like a steel-reinforced glass floor (see render below) for those that like to tempt feelings of vertigo. There’s a bunch of rebar and rebar sheets stacked on the site, so I think part of the fence being taken down is to make room for trucks to compact the soil and start hardscaping for the rest of the entry. There’s also new curbing all the way around the site edges, and new asphalt.
Got a chance to see the infamous Thomas Mayne/Morphosis Cooper Union 41 Cooper Square project this weekend in NY- it’s wild in person, especially at night, as I imagine Gates Hall will be (Morphosis designed Gates Hall, as well as an impressive slew of other high-profile insitutional/corporate projects- see the Giant Interactive Campus in Shanghai; they’re also designing Cornell’s NYC Tech Campus)
October 14, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
Accufab started off by securing the steel plate columns to each bay divider, then columns centered on each bay, which will form the new entry doors to each micro-retail unit space. The latest photo is from last week- more to come.
October 11, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
The Planned Parenthood site looks about the same as last week, with nearly all of the major structural work complete. The steel post columns on the exterior edges are all in place, so we should probably see a big delivery of metal studded wall panels to form the exterior walls, but the floor decks would be poured with concrete first (although it’s hard to get a good view of anything above the ground level).
October 10, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
No action here yet- the latest plans are for 45 units at seven stories high, which would conceal this side of the parking garage. The project ran into soil problems, so it became much more expensive to build and engineer, thus the need for additional units in order to make the building project financially feasible. They may use something like micropiles to secure the foundation. There’s probably more to this story, but I think it would be a great addition to the Six Mile Creek walk area.
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 9, 2013 // by Jason Henderson
Various shots from the Commons here over the past few days. Mostly more lateral water connection work as planned, and Bank Alley’s telecom lines were freed up from concrete to prepare for the water main and sanitary sewer work on this end. The work is starting on the south side where the metal shield is situated deep in the ground, and will progress along the trench that has been dug out. There’s already a new sanitary access manhole form in place, which was put in a few weeks ago.
