ITHACA, N.Y. — It’s been a little while since there was last news of local developer Ed Cope’s plan to renovate and expand the Ithaca Glass and Wyllie Dry Cleaners sites. Time for an update. The projects are still planning to move forward, but for Ithaca Glass, it will be in a much different form.
The Ithaca Glass plan, which is one of the intended recipients of a yet-to-be-disbursed $500,000 RESTORE NY funding grant from Spring 2017, will be reviewed by the Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency this week to seek approval for project changes. Instead of a renovation and vertical expansion of the Ithaca Glass building for apartments, the new plan calls for a completely new structure on the property at 413-415 West Seneca Street.
According to a letter provided to the city, soil tests performed after the grant was announced found that the ground was much softer than previously thought, and that the building has no concrete foundation footer under half of its structure. This meant a deep, expensive pile foundation, and for the missing section, a near-complete rebuild. As a result, the renovation became financially infeasible.
The new three-story building, whose price tag is estimated at about $4 million, would create 10 market-rate apartment units (six two-bedroom, four one-bedroom). The first-floor units would be live/work spaces – the front wings would host the work space (853 square feet and 700 square feet), and a door leads to a one-bedroom unit in the back. Local firm STREAM Collaborative is the architect, which went with a traditional design for the new build.
The RESTORE NY grant would only cover the Ithaca Glass redevelopment. According to Cope, he and his firm, PPM Homes, still intend to move forward with the proposed renovation into a restaurant space at the vacant property at 109 North Corn Street.
“(O)ur current plan for (Wyllie’s) is a restaurant-bar or some other business, with a community space upstairs (this would be an large open space for classes, rehearsals , workshops, meeting space or whatever the community needs). We are still considering the use of the parking lot, at some point a food truck might appear there,” said Cope. At a recent city Planning Committee meeting, planning department staff noted there were interested tenants for the Wyllie’s space.
A time-frame hasn’t been given for the project, but it seems likely that, pending city approval, the new building would start construction later this year. South of downtown at 215 West Spencer Street, Cope is finishing up his 12-unit Ithaka Terraces condominium project, which will be hosting open houses for the new condos during the first two weekends in May.