ITHACA, N.Y. — The proposal for a hotel at 635 Elmira Road has been floating around for nearly eight years. Following Tuesday’s strenuously debated reapproval at the Town of Ithaca Planning Board, perhaps shovels will finally hit the dirt in the near future.
Led by local hotelier Pratik Ahir of Ramji Hospitality, the proposal has been in the works since 2016. Initial plans called for a Sleep Inn hotel, which would have been that brand’s first foray into the local market. But according to Ahir, Choice Hotels wanted a Comfort Inn in the Ithaca market since it is their “upper midscale” market brand and a step above Sleep Inn in price point and offerings, and so the switch was made to accommodate his franchiser’s wishes.
The project was approved by the Planning Board back in 2017 and by the Zoning Board in 2018. According to Ahir, financing was finally secured in early 2020, but that was right before the COVID-19 pandemic erupted and threw the hotel industry into turmoil.
While the hospitality market has yet to return to normal, with county hotel room tax revenue running 30% above what it was pre-COVID, the project team still sought approval.
However, moving forward so many years after the initial approval was granted is impossible. The Town of Ithaca’s votes on Site Plan Approval are only valid for three years, so re-approval is necessary. Typically, that isn’t much cause for concern if the project hasn’t changed. However, this is something of a unique situation: during the interim years, the town implemented a new Inlet Valley Overlay District over the neighborhood, including this property.
While town officials had expressed interest in the idea of revising zoning back when the hotel was reviewed and approved, the Inlet Valley neighborhood plan wasn’t fully articulated until 2018, and the new zoning overlay wasn’t enacted until early 2023.
With the new overlay regulations in place, the hotel would be prohibited. The regulations do not allow any lodging facility with 60 rooms or more, and the proposal is for a 67-room hotel, which is already on the smaller side of most chain hotels. The package of zoning variances required from the Zoning Board have also changed due to the new, more restrictive overlay.
The choice of 60 rooms might seem rather arbitrary, but there are a several reasons the town went with it. Part of that is a protective measure for sensitive environmental areas nearby, and part is to discourage chain hotels in favor of smaller, upscale boutique hotels more fitting with the “quaint little businesses” aesthetic the town has been pursuing with the zoning overlay. The previously-approved Comfort Inn didn’t comport with that approach, though Ahir has made efforts to slightly shrink the hotel proposal and update the design to fit with the desired aesthetics.
That effort noted, the discussion of re-approval has been a hot debate amid fairly quiet Planning Board agendas in recent years. While the Environmental Review was approved 4-2-1 last September, the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals had to approve the hotel before any final Site Plan reapproval could be granted.
Adam Fishel of Marathon Engineering represented the project before the board. Joe Turnowchyk of Hex.9 Architects explained that they had simplified materials and enclosed corner decks facing the east towards Treman Park. Additional outdoor seating and bike racks have also been added.
In response to a written public comment, Planning Board Chair Fred Wilcox noted that the state, which owns Route 13, is satisfied with the traffic analysis and mitigations.
“I stopped by the site again yesterday […] I came to the conclusion this is a difficult and challenging site,” Wilcox said. “But that doesn’t make it so that we can’t approve it or shouldn’t approve it.”
Wilcox acknowledged that building at the site would be difficult considering some of the terrain, but “that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”
“There no new information that’s come to us here in the (agenda) packet or tonight to indicate that they haven’t met the conditions imposed as part of the preliminary (Site Plan Approval),” he further noted. “We, as a Planning Board, don’t have much choice but to grant the Final.”
Board member Caitlin Cameron added that the material aesthetics did meet the guidelines as stated in prescriptive documents.
It was clear some board members were not enthusiastic about the proposal, given their reactions throughout the discussion. Wilcox opined for a moment, citing a fast food restaurant proposal in the early 2000s that he opposed in Preliminary Site Plan Approval, but approved for final approval, as it complied with the regulations.
“We may not like the rules of the Planning Board that we operate under, but those are the rules we operate under,” Wilcox added. “They met the conditions.”
With that, the site plan approval passed unanimously.
“Now build it this time so you won’t be back in a few years,” Wilcox shouted to the project team as the vote wrapped.