ITHACA, N.Y. — It’s a brisk day outside, so make yourself a cup of coffee or tea and have a look at some of the projects underway in Downtown Ithaca.
Hilton Canopy Hotel (310 East State Street)
It appears that the Hilton Canopy hotel developers put an in-house restaurant back into the mix late in the development process. The new eatery will be called “Ezra” in what’s ostensibly a nod to Ezra Cornell. It’s not clear how large the new restaurant will be, but the early designs called for about 2,000 SF of space. In keeping with the Canopy theme, the restaurant logo incorporates Pantone PMS165 orange, with aluminum letters, faced in matte black base vinyl print, and on a wood laminate background intended to mimic Brazilian Walnut. The address for the new 131-room hotel will be 310 East State / Martin Luther King Jr. Street. The signage will be built and installed by Lauretano Sign Group of Connecticut. Outdoor dining spaces will have chic industrial aesthetic tables and chairs and contemporary, durable outdoor furniture.
For those interested, some job openings have been posted. The General Manager has the co-title of “Chief Enthusiast”. Management can expect to make up to $80k/year, but most staff will fall in the $11-$15/hour range, with a bit more for some titles and a bit less ($7.50/hour + tips) for those who will be working in the restaurant. They might be a little higher given those were 2014 figures, but it’s too early tell, since it looks likes only management jobs are being filled at the moment.
As for the construction itself, work on the fiber cement panel and brick veneer installation continues. It looks like a waterproof materials might be going on over the gypsum sheathing, laid over with metal rails and then faced with the exterior material of choice. The rails would allow for any outside moisture absorbed to drain down and off the building. Some of the industrial-style windows are in,with flashing tape surrounding the window to prevent water and air penetration. We also now know what “sauteed mushroom” looks like as an exterior siding color. The hotel is expected to open in “Mid 2019”, probably too late for the May graduations but Q3 2019 looks plausible.
City Centre (301 East State Street)
As for City Centre, we now know who its trio of tenants: the Ale House, Collegetown Bagels and Chase Bank. Although two of three are cannibalizing other Downtown locations, the move comes with some benefits – it’s an expansion for CTB and the Ale House, and the Ale House is expecting to add 20 jobs. Chase is brand new, and if the average bank branch is 2,000 SF and 6.5 staff, it seems safe to assume that a 5,357 SF branch/regional office is probably 12-15 staff. Ithaca’s own HOLT Architects is engaged in some minor building design work and Whitham Planning and Design is doing the landscaping (including the heat lamps, string lighting and fire pits), Saxton Sign Corporation of Auburn will make the signage, Trade Design Build of Ithaca and TPG Architecture of New York will flesh out the interiors, and East Hill’s Sedgwick Business Interiors will provide furnishings. Clicking here will allow you to scroll through the interior layouts for the retail spaces.
A glance at their Instagram suggests that as of a week ago, about 100 of the 192 apartment units have been reserved. There don’t appear to be any particular trends in the unit selection, an off-the-cuff suggests a similar occupancy rate for studios, one-bedroom and two-bedrooms, and there’s no strong preference in floors, though perhaps there’s a slight preference towards interior-facing units (I wouldn’t call it statistically significant). It appears they’re filling at a good clip now that graduate and professional students are making their commitments to Cornell (professional students, for example business/MBA and law/JD students, tend to be older and wealthier, and are one of the target markets for the project). If trends continue, the project will be in good shape for its June opening, with full retail occupancy and high residential occupancy, even at City Centre’s decidedly upmarket prices.
On the exterior, some of the Overly and Larson ACM metal panels have yet to be installed (mostly on the back./interior side), trim and exterior details are partially in place, and the ground level is still being built out with commercial doors and utility fixtures (garage doors for commercial deliveries, for example). The roof membrane doesn’t appear to be in place yet either. Overall, though, the exterior is substantially complete, and it looks like the will finish out over the next several weeks on schedule, which is a pretty big deal for a 218,000 SF $53 million project.
Masonic Temple Renovation (115-117 North Cayuga Street)
This project continues to crawl along at its slow if steady pace. The deteriorated front steps are being rebuilt, new historically-appropriate windows have been installed, and the railings have been installed for the new cellar stairs and the wheelchair ramp to the auditorium space. The graffiti has been there. It’s not clear if the roof membrane has been replaced yet, and the exterior will be cleaned at a later date. The outside is fairly far along, but from the windows there appear to be few if any signs of significant interior work underway.
As before, there has not been any news regarding commercial tenants signed up to fill the renovated space once it’s complete – a January posting on Loopnet listed a 4,000 SF space on the first floor, a 6,668 SF space on the first floor, and 6,666 SF space split between the second and third floors. A retail renter of the whole building gets a discounted price of $8 per square foot for a five-year lease, while renting just one of the spaces will cost $10-$14 per square foot for a five-year lease. The Fane Organization tends to be very tight-lipped about their business deals, so no word on any potential tenants. The $1.5 million renovation is being designed by architectural preservation specialists Johnson-Schmidt & Associates of Corning, and renovated by McPherson Builders of Ithaca.
Bank Tower Renovation (202 The Commons)
It looks like interior cabinetry, fixtures and trim are being installed in the renovated Bank Tower’s first floor. As readers may recall, the first and second floors of the building will serve as the new headquarters for CFCU credit union. According to the Fane Organization’s Bank Tower website, renovated office space on the upper levels became available for occupancy in December. It doesn’t look like the website was recently updated, but the Loopnet listing was, and the put they offices on Craigslist as well.
The attachments on Loopnet page show that all five of the upper levels are available, with spaces ranging from 225 SF to 20,000 SF. Internal doorways between office suites give some flexibility on the lower floors for an almost-modular office space approach to expand and contract as needed, while floors six and seven go with the more fashionable open office floorplan. The ads suggest that, if 20,000 SF is the max available, and there’s 37,151 SF of leasable space, then CFCU is taking 17,151 SF. No price per SF is listed, but phone inquiries can be made with Fane’s management firm, Ithaca Renting.
The project website itself, which is a bit hard to find (www.banktoweroffices.us), shows updated renderings for break rooms, bathrooms and state-of-the-art conference space on the third floor. Renders for the new first floor interior and exterior signage/decor are included in this post. The 1970s addition on the north side appears to get a hanging living wall treatment. Doing a cross-comparison, the new windows and cleaned exterior do a nice job sprucing up the nearly 100 year-old building.
Harold’s Square (133-139 The Commons)
It seems we can move this one back into the under construction column? It’s been a weird few months.
The developers, L Enterprises (David Lubin) and Mcguire Development of Buffalo, parted way with Taylor the Builders, the construction manager, back in January. They were able to line up another construction manager in LeChase Construction of Rochester, which has done its fair share of work around Ithaca and Tompkins County. Issues with transferring control and insurance paperwork of the 300-ton crane, however, delayed the project’s construction by several weeks, but the project did finally resume in early March.
It was also very problematic for neighboring business owners. The project has already created some frustration with its blockading of the Commons playground out of safety concerns. The construction, and lack thereof, created an unattractive nuisance, with people steering away from neighboring businesses and taking their money elsewhere. The abatement was shifted forward a year, but not without significant blowback from members of the general public who had taken the opportunity to air their grievances with the development team. The current plan is to have the office and retail space available for occupancy by the end of the year, with housing occupancy by spring 2020 and 100% completion by May 2020.
At the crux of the construction issue are claims by Taylor that the project had undergone significant changes and wanted to be compensated for the late changes. Although downplayed at the time, it became clear in the months since that there were major programmatic and minor aesthetic changes. The programmatic change was the reduction of 30 micro units (for a new total of 78 apartments, mostly one-bedroom and two-bedrooms with a few studios) to make way for an additional 10,000 SF of office space for an unspecified tech tenant, as mentioned in the revised IDA application. Most of its commercial spaces appear to still be on the market.
Anyway, work has recommenced on the steel structure, as the eighth floor is built out. Since the upper floors have small floorplates, the building’s steel structure will likely top out before the start of summer. From there, it’s fireproofing, sprinkler systems, exterior and interior wall framing, rough-ins, sheathing, and all the fun stuff that makes a building begin to look like its final product.
Tompkins Center for History and Culture (110 North Tioga Street/Bank Alley)
The Tompkins Center for History and Culture is on track to open in a few weeks. Haven’t not seen a specific date posted just yet, but it will be sometime in April. The gentlemen at the front door there is The History Center’s Executive Director (and candidate for town of Ithaca supervisor) Rod Howe. After renovations are complete, The History Center, Community Arts Partnership, and the Ithaca/Tompkins Convention and Visitors Bureau will all have public exhibit and retail space on the ground floor of the Center. A mix of community partners, including the Wharton Studio Museum, the Dorothy Cotton Institute, the Discovery Trail, will have office space on the building’s upper floors.
For those who want a better look at what’s going on inside, a sneak peak of the interior can be found on the TCHC’s Facebook page.