Some info regarding the old Emerson factory building/site (see post #1576). From the IJ:
Emerson seeks to divide Ithaca South Hill site
Separation could be step toward redevelopment of shuttered factory, construction of trails
5:30 PM, Aug 16, 2013
Written by
David Hill
Emerson Power Transmission seeks to separate about one acre of its 96-acre site from the rest of it on Ithaca’s South Hill as plans move forward to redevelop the closed factory site.
The company has an application before the city to divide its parcel into two. The smaller would comprise about one acre and contain two underground storage tanks, two buildings totaling about 800 square feet, and portions of a parking lot and an access road for another building, according to a summary of its application before the city Planning and Economic Development Board. The lot would have has about 279 feet of frontage on Cayuga Street.
The remaining parcel would comprise about 95 acres with 1,000 feet of frontage on Aurora Street and frontage on Cayuga and Spencer Streets and Stone Quarry Road. The buildings on it comprise about 422,700 square feet.
The property is under contract, and the larger of the two parcels would go to a prospective buyer, and the smaller portion would be retained by Emerson, according to an email Friday from David Baldridge, a spokesman for the company.
Getting the site, which straddles the city-Town of Ithaca line, back in use has been a priority of the city, town and county government. Once one of Tompkins County’s major employers making industrial and automotive roller chain, orginally as Morse Chain, the plant was closed in 2010.
Complicating redevelopment is contamination on the site from chemical solvents and degreasers, primarily tricholoroethene and tetrachloroethylene, which have also seeped downhill in groundwater.
Officials hope to avoid a repeat of the situation with the former Ithaca Gun factory site uphill from the Fall Creek neighborhood, where industrial contamination, primarily lead, has slowed redevelopment and driven up costs.
Movement on the Emerson site may also help the Gateway Trail, a planned pedestrian-bicycle link between South Hill and Buttermilk Falls State Park and other planned trails on former railroad lines, including West Hill’s Black Diamond Trail. The proposed trail route crosses the Emerson property, plans for the trail have been slowed by uncertainty over the site’s future.
Lubin Enterprises LLC of the Elmira area received $344,000 in December from state development agency Empire State Development for assessing what’s needed to undo the contamination in order to redevelop the Emerson site. The money was among the state 2012 Southern Tier Regional Economic Development Council awards.
L Enterprises is majority-owned by brother and sister David Lubin, of Elmira, and Enid Littman, of Ithaca. Lubin said this week that the company has been in discussions about the site but has nothing to announce.
L Enterprises has another major project before the city, Harold’s Square, which would combine retail space, offices and apartments on a site between the Commons and Green Street in downtown Ithaca and feature an 11-story tower all linked by an atrium. It is up for preliminary and possibly final site plan review by the Planning and Development Board later this month.
At Harold’s Square, three storefronts between the former Benchwarmer’s tavern and the present Trader K’s would be torn down, with the Benchwarmer’s building remaining but incorporated into the project. The apartments would be in an 11-story tower set back on the site from the Commons side.
The project’s name comes from a store that once was on the site. Lubin and Littman’s father acquired the National Army-Navy Store on Cayuga Street, renamed it Harold’s and relocated it to State Street in 1969, and grew it into a chain of army-navy stores. Littman is on the Tompkins County Public Library Foundation board and involved with fundraising and finance activities of Cinemapolis cinema operator Seventh Art Corp. Lubin is a member of the Downtown Ithaca Alliance board and has been involved with its Commons rebuild planning.
Here's the link:
http://www.ithacajournal.com/article...nclick_check=1