ITHACA, N.Y. — The last installment of the spring roundup, will include what’s under construction downtown, along South Meadow Street, and the West End. Previous updates for Cornell can be read here, and neighborhoods adjacent to Cornell like Collegetown and Cornell Heights, were covered here.
Asteri Ithaca (118 East Green Street)
The 12-story Asteri Ithaca building, part of the Gren Street Garage redevelopment adjacent to the Ithaca Commons, is nearing completion. With the exception of minor trim work, signage and landscaping, the exterior is practically complete, and the interior build-out is entering the final stretch, with finish work ongoing on the new Conference Center and the lower apartment floors, and flooring and fixture installations underway on the upper-level units.
As designed, the $108 million Asteri project consists of a pair of components. The first was the renovation and expansion of the newer middle section of the Green Street Garage to host 350 parking spaces, which has been completed.
The second component is the highrise, which will host the 49,000 square-foot Downtown Ithaca Conference Center on its lower levels, and 181 low-to-moderate income apartments (30-80% area median income) on the upper floors. The unit mix is 78 studio, 87 one-bedroom, eight two-bedroom, and eight three-bedroom apartments, of which 40 of those studios are permanent supportive housing units dedicated to persons exiting homelessness. (Income eligibility guidelines and apartment applications can be found here.)
All residents will be provided free internet service, with each unit hard-wired for 5G access, including routers for WiFi. Amenities will include a 12th-floor sky terrace, a fourth-floor fitness center and a community room. Residents will also have access to a common laundry room on every other floor, and indoor bike storage on the ground floor.
Services for supportive housing residents will be included as part of overall property management, with offices and staff onsite. Unlike Arthaus, which ran into problems during its initial management and was folded back into Vecino’s control, Asteri will be under Vecino’s management from the start.
Meanwhile on the lower levels, the $34 million conference center will contain a 12,300 square-foot ballroom, a junior ballroom and breakout rooms, 6,300 square feet of pre-function and trade show space, and a full production kitchen with all-electric units. With the help of grants, the facility is going to be the first fossil fuel-free mid-size conference center in the country.
ASM Global will manage the conference center, and Suzanne Smith Jablonski, who has a history of managing local non-profits, was named the director of the Downtown Ithaca Local Development Corporation, which is the non-profit owner of the conference center on the city and county’s behalf. Current plans are for a mid-2024 opening, and the Conference Center is now taking bookings for business meetings and events such as weddings.
Gateway Center / “The Dean” (401 East State Street)
Not everything is new construction: The five-story, 47,285 square-foot Gateway Center was built as a warehouse in 1925. It was partially converted into meeting and office space by Don Dickinson in the 1990s, and then fully renovated into Gateway Center by developer Mack Travis in the early 2000s. Now, it’s becoming an apartment building, “The Dean.”
Both locally and across the nation, the market for office space has never quite recovered from COVID and the rapid rise of remote work. Given that Ithaca had a lukewarm market to start, the local office market is in rough shape. However, local housing demand remains quite strong. As a result, if the existing structure is physically suitable, then there’s an opportunity for a residential conversion by those with the money and know-how.
Case in point, Travis Hyde Properties has turned the former downtown office building into 46 market-rate apartment units. The original working name was the “Gateway Lofts,” but that has changed to “The Dean” for Harold W. Dean, the Ithaca businessman who built the warehouse a century ago.
The ground floor still offers commercial retail space for two commercial tenants as well as tenant amenities like the pet wash room, mail room and bike repair station. It also includes a 1,800 square-foot community room called “The Chapman” to be leased at below-market rates to Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity (the nation’s first Black fraternity, which will have its birthplace monument next door), and available to the general Ithaca community at standard room rental rates.
The upper floors are fairly routine as conversions go. The second-through-fifth floors host the apartments, with a top-floor community room called the “Solveig Room” decorated with murals by local artist Mary Beth Ihnken. The units are all-electric and comply with the Ithaca Green Building Policy. STREAM Collaborative is the architect and Taitem Engineering is providing the engineering work, while Purcell Construction would be the general contractor in charge of build-out. Tompkins Trust is providing a $15.8 million loan to cover construction costs.
Billed as “unique luxury loft apartments with an industrial pedigree,” one-bedroom units range from 662-772 square feet and $2,593-$3,281/month, and the two-bedrooms range from 1,082-1,140 square feet and $4,238-$4,803/month. Tenants get stainless steel appliances, in-unit washer/dryer, and extra large walk-in showers with Italian tile, as well a rooftop lounge, bike room, gym and keyless entry through a smartphone app.
615-617 Cascadilla Street
Local developer Stavros Stavropoulos is finishing up construction of his infill housing development in Ithaca’s West End. The $1.276 million project is replacing three dilapidated houses at 615 Cascadilla Street, 617 Cascadilla Street, and 513 North Meadow Street with four new two-family houses that include a total of eight market-rate rental units.
All units will be three-bedroom apartments with 2 or 2.5 bathrooms, ranging from about 1,000 square feet to a little over 1,400 square feet, with rents of $2,700/month ($900/bedroom). Residences will have open floor plans, granite countertops and eating bars/islands, built-in air conditioning and walk-in closets.
Construction is in the home stretch, with only some trim and non-structural finish work remaining on the outside, as well as landscaping and paving. The original plan for a pale green and tan color combo for the fiber cement lapboards has been replaced with a muted blue and grey pairing with white trim boards. Not attention-grabbing, but not obnoxious either. Target occupancy is Aug. 1.
On the outside, plans call for new sidewalks, bike storage, lighting, landscaping and an off-street parking lot for eight cars accessed from North Meadow Street. Curb cuts on Cascadilla Street are being removed, and the housing is grouped closer to the northeast corner and adjacent residences to maintain a quieter and more residential atmosphere. The rear yard at the south end of the property would be a shared outdoor space for the residents.
Local architect Daniel R. Hirtler of Flatfield Designs is the designer who penned the building designs. Seven Valley Siteworks of Groton and Hollow Creek Builders of Ovid handled the excavation and buildout respectively, with engineering expertise provided by Sciarabba Engineering and Design of Trumansburg. Andy Sciarabba of T.G. Miller retired from the firm and now runs his consulting firm full-time.
Northside Townhomes (Third Street)
The Northside Townhomes redevelopment plan involved the complete teardown and replacement of what was a 70-unit complex dating from the 1950s and 1960s. The new project underway now includes an additional 12 units (for a total of 82) with an anticipated townhouse-style unit mix of 20 one-bedroom units, 20 two-bedroom units, 20 three-bedroom units and 22 four-bedroom units.
Technically, this is a lower population density than what was here before (225 bedrooms now, 208 bedrooms proposed). The original townhouses had a number of three-bedroom, four-bedroom and five-bedroom units that are being replaced with smaller one-bedroom and two-bedroom units, which are in higher demand. A community building, as well as two playgrounds, will be provided for all residents to utilize. Other site improvements include landscaping, lighting, walkways, 82 parking spaces and more site amenities.
The project is being completed in phases, with the first townhouse strings already welcoming their first tenants. Other strings will continue to come online at a steady pace over the next several months, with completion of the entire site in 2025.
Townhouse strings run a pretty wide range of construction stages, from framing and sheathing (wood frame, Huber ZIP plywood panels), to roofing and the application of Atlas EnergyShield polyiso foam wall insulation, to window fittings and stone/vinyl siding façade materials. Exterior details like porch columns are completed closer to the end of construction, after trim pieces and siding are attached. Those utilitarian wood rails seen in some of the pics above will be encased by more attractive column trim as construction of the units concludes.
Celia Construction Inc. is the general contractor, and architectural plans are being drafted up by Zausmer-Frisch, Scruton and Aggrawal Designers/Builders of Syracuse.
REI Co-Op / Bath & Body Works (742 South Meadow Street)
Benderson Development’s South Meadow Square has had quite a makeover in the past few years. The new REI Co-Op is getting ready to open this summer, as is the new Bath and Body Works next door, relocating from the Ithaca Mall. In addition, fresh landscaping, paving and lighting graces the front entries of the retail plaza.
Both REI and Bath and Body Works occupy portions of the former Staples space. In the never-ending game of retail musical chairs, Staples moved southward along the plaza strip to the former Hobby Lobby space now shared with Ulta Beauty, which also moved into the city from the Shops at Ithaca Mall. Those moves opened the approximately 17,000 square-foot space that REI will now occupy.
The targeted opening date for the Ithaca REI is June 28th, and the store will employ about 50 people. Along with the usual REI inventory of running, camping, and hiking and fitness gear, the store will have a full-service bike sales and repair shop, and a ski and snowboard shop as part of its offerings to Ithaca’s outdoor-minded residents.
In other planned retail openings in Southwest Ithaca, rapidly expanding gym chain Crunch Fitness is taking the former Bed Bath & Beyond space in the Wal-Mart retail plaza off of Fairgrounds Memorial Parkway, and an O’Reilly Auto Parts is aiming to open in vacant space next to the new Dick’s Sporting Goods, though no on-site work was visible at last check.
“The Local” Beer Bar & Garden / Redbud Distilling (805-813 Taber Street)
Finally, a look at a smaller project that has recently gotten underway. Building owner Rich John is renovating a 3,645 square-foot building which was previously an auto repair shop into a micro-distillery for Redbud Distilling, a beer bar called “The Local,” and a beer garden as an outdoor complement to those establishments.
John happened to be working on the renovations during the photo gathering for this gallery, and invited The Ithaca Voice inside. Construction permits were issued in late March. Trade Design Build is occupying some of the building space for its storage needs, and John was at work insulating and painting the building’s interior. The renovation of the Taber Street property will be conducted in three phases, with the distillery and storage space first, followed by the bar’s debut, and then the beer garden.
Local architecture firm Barradas and Partners is overseeing the renovation plans, with T.G. Miller P.C. providing engineering work. According to the Site Plan submission, the project will be all-electric and rely on heat pumps for its energy needs.
What’s Coming Next
Many of the projects slated for construction across Ithaca and the nation are on hold as a result of the high interest rates, which have made construction loans prohibitively expensive. Among projects held up in Ithaca are The Stately at 510 West State Street, Cliff Street Retreat at 407 Cliff Street, the Citizen at 602 West Buffalo Street, and the Gateway Apartments at 403 East State Street. The plans for The Hive, approved for 132 Cherry Street, are for sale.
Closer to the waterfront, Cayuga Park is hoping to start construction on its market-rate apartments this summer, and City Harbor hopes to start construction on its apartments later this year. The same is true for the Ithaca Farmer’s Market on its renovations.
Other projects approved but yet to move forward include the later phases of the Aeroplane Factory on Taber and Brindley Streets, at least three retail additions to South Meadow Square, and the Argos Inn addition on the east end of downtown Ithaca. “The Meadow on Seneca” affordable housing hopes to start construction next year, if it can obtain state housing grants.
Proposed but not yet approved are 16 for-sale townhouses at 261 Lake Street in Fall Creek, eighteen apartments for vacated office space on the 100 Block of South Cayuga Street, and Water’s Edge, a large mixed-use project for the former NYS DOT site. In concept stages are a 19-unit apartment building for 224 Fair Street in the Southside Flats, and the new Tompkins County office building, which is planned for a 2028 opening.