Some Ithaca news

[Ex-Ithacan]

Way to go Ithaca, let's see if we can stretch this process out a few more years and end up with a project that doesn't make economic sense for the city or the developer.




Common Council turns down Inlet Island plan
Southwest committee recommends developer
By Krisy Gashler
Journal Staff

ITHACA — The Southwest and Inlet Island development projects — and Ithacans’ strong feelings about them — dominated Wednesday night’s Common Council meeting.

Council voted to not to approve a preferred-developer agreement with Steve Flash of Ithaca, who has proposed a hotel and condominiums on the west side of Inlet Island between the Route 89 bridge and The Boatyard Grill. Flash was named as the preferred developer 10 months ago, but authorization of an agreement with him has been delayed by concerns about the size of the project, whether hotel workers will be paid a living wage, and the purchase price of the land, which is currently owned by the city.

Flash said this morning he was disappointed but intends to remain involved in revitalizing the waterfront and hopes to pursue a “plan B, but I don’t know what that plan B is.”

Flash said he was born and raised in Ithaca and involved in two businesses on Inlet Island – the Boatyard Grill restaurant and Ithaca Boating Center – and can’t believe the community wants the site “to remain a nonproductive eyesore.”

Half a dozen Ithacans spoke to ask the council Wednesday to vote against the agreement, citing concerns with the proposed size of the hotel — a 5-story, 100-room hotel and 15 condominiums — and concern that city land was being sold to a private entity and thus, public access would be reduced.

Ray Schlather, a member of the Board of Public Works, spoke as a private citizen to oppose approval of the agreement. Schlather said the city’s vision and design hopes for Inlet Island since the 1980s are significantly different from what Flash has proposed.

“It was an area that was ripe with promise,” Schlather said. “The stewardship of maintaining the public interest has not been maintained.”

Several developers also spoke in favor of agreement, including Flash himself.
“What this agreement does is give me the opportunity but also the challenge and the responsibility of trying to pull together decades of these idle plans that you’ve heard mention of tonight and years of meetings and input from you all to try to put it into some sort of project that will then work,” Flash said. “I need to be able to present a proposal for endorsement.”

Public comment also centered on whether Flash would pay employees at his proposed hotel a living wage.

Neisha Butler said she has worked in three hotels in Ithaca, and knows what it’s like to be “on your hands and knees wiping down floors for $5.75. I don’t think it’s a lot to ask for a living wage.”

Flash told the council he is committed to paying a living wage.

“There’s not gonna be a project unless there’s a livable wage,” Flash said.
Meanwhile, the Southwest Selection Committee, appointed by Mayor Carolyn Peterson last year, presented their recommendation to name McCormack Baron Salazar as the preferred master planner and developer for the Southwest Area Urban Neighborhood.

The proposed neighborhood would be a 600-unit residential area west of Lowe’s and Wal-Mart and south of Nate’s Floral Estates mobile home park.
“We’re unanimously excited about this group,” said Scott Whitham, chair of the committee.

The proposed neighborhood will be designed for a mix of income groups, with 30 percent of the housing permanently affordable. Financing from the project will come from a combination of private development investment, and public housing subsidies.

The developers themselves will speak to a combined meeting of Common Council and the Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency Aug. 9.

Whitham highlighted the developers’ socially conscientious credentials, including their commitment to environmental sustainability, walkability, and economic and social integration in housing.

Whitham also noted that the committee has a vision for the neighborhood and a preferred developer — not a development plan.

“The decision was made early on to let the community be involved,” Whitham said, acknowledging the fact that Ithacans regularly have strong opinions about developments and developers.

“Development in this community is thought of,” Whitham began, then hesitated, unsure how to complete the sentence.

Council member Gayraud Townsend, D-4th, jumped in, “Pick your words wisely.”
“People attend to development in this community,” Whitham concluded, to laughter from Council and the packed audience.

Proving Whitham correct, public comment after the committee’s recommendation lasted roughly two hours, as citizens weighed in on the other major development issue on the agenda: Inlet Island.
kgashler@ithacajournal.com

David Hill of the Journal staff contributed to this report.




Originally published August 2, 2007

[donybrx]

Originally Posted by Ex-Ithacan

Yikes. Acres 'o pavement in I-town.........

[Ex-Ithacan]

^That was the result of trying to lure big box retail into a commercial strip in the city and gain the tax dollars rather than have them move to the burbs. Believe me, the city does need the money since development is like a four letter word to many Ithacans.

[Ex-Ithacan]

Groton (a small town outside Ithaca) has never really recovered from the Smith-Corona closing. Hope this can help revitalize the place some.



Fire truck body company sends proposal to IDA
Saulsbury-run firm expects to bring 100 jobs to Groton
By Tim Ashmore and Timothy Cama
Journal Staff

ITHACA — The Board of Directors of the Tompkins County Industrial Development Agency was busy Friday, accepting two more project proposals and spending an hour discussing the city density policy.

The IDA also spent time discussing details of a $5 million tax-exempt bond for Cayuga Medical Center.

The agency heard a proposal from Plastisol, a company whose president says it could bring 100 full-time jobs to the Village of Groton once it gets off the ground.

Plastisol's plant will construct fire truck bodies out of a composite resin and fiberglass material, then sell the bodies to manufacturers who will construct the full trucks, according to company president Allen Saulsbury.
Saulsbury and his family ran a fire truck manufacturing company in Preble for generations before the company was sold to a conglomerate in the late 1990s, then closed shortly thereafter. Plastisol, however, will only assemble fire truck bodies, Saulsbury said, and it won't be nearly as large an operation as the original Saulsbury company was.

Plastisol is a Netherlands-based company, but Saulsbury's company will be a limited liability corporation, independent from Plastisol in the Netherlands. The Groton company will use material from the Netherlands until it can produce its own materials.

The 20,000-square-foot plant will have 35 employees at first, and Saulsbury agreed to commit to 100 percent living-wage jobs.

“This is the biggest thing in Groton since Smith-Corona moved out,” said Gary Watrous, chairman of the Groton IDA.

Smith-Corona closed its Groton facility in 1983, taking 1,500 jobs out of the village, and 5,000 jobs out of Tompkins County, and the village still hasn't recovered, Watrous said. Plastisol won't replace Smith-Corona, Watrous explained, but it will definitely help the village.

Plastisol will buy its land from the Groton IDA, and it will purchase enough land to expand to a 100,000-square-foot plant in the future.

There is a good chance that suppliers and other aligned companies will move to the Village of Groton once the Plastisol plant is built, explained Saulsbury, such as production or painting companies, an idea that has Groton officials and the county IDA alike excited.

If Plastisol receives IDA approval, the company will receive a property tax abatement along with sales tax breaks on timber and furniture and a partial mortgage recording tax break. The next step in their application is a public hearing, then the IDA will make a final decision on the tax abatement at its September meeting.

Tompkins County Area Development president Michael Stamm said there is a very good chance that Plastisol's application will be approved. TCAD coordinates the Tompkins County IDA.


Other proposals
In other action, Ithacare submitted its application for a 24,000-square-foot addition to Longview (see story, Page 1B). The application is for both an abatement and a tax-exempt bond for the expansion, said Macera. This means that not only will Ithacare need a public hearing, but the county Legislature must also approve their project, said Stamm.
Unlike the approval process for the Longview project, Plastisol will not need county approval before it can move forward, and the entire approval process could take as little as 30 days, Stamm said.

During the first hour of the meeting, the board examined their city density relationship with the City of Ithaca that was developed years ago.

The IDA has helped the city with commercial projects such as Seneca Place and Inlet Island Health, and will likely help with Cayuga Green II. But several months ago, the city and IDA made the decision to evaluate their policy to determine how and if it should change, Stamm said.

The city has worked with the IDA on developing a point system that would value certain aspects of housing such as low-income or “green” building. The goal is to make sure rehabilitation projects, housing and small projects, among other classes of development, are eligible for abatement under the density project. The former city density project made it hard for those developments to get abatements.

The IDA is also looking at changes that keep its goals for the county in mind.

“The IDA, because it is a county-wide organization, is considering including in project evaluations the impact a city project might have on a school district or another business in the county,” Stamm said.

The city and the IDA also discussed working in tandem when businesses begin their application process. Stamm said when businesses apply, they explain their plan to the city and are then forced to start over again with TCAD.


tashmore@ithacajournal.com

Originally published August 4, 2007

[Visiteur]

Speaking of which, let's look at that history:

SCM Will Close Plant in Groton
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Published: July 1, 1982
The SCM Corporation said it would close its Smith-Corona portable typewriter plant in Groton, N.Y., with a loss of about 400 jobs, and shift production to Singapore, where it already employs about 1,000 workers.

SCM said its typewriter and appliance group, which includes Procter-Silex brands, lost $8.8 million in the year ended June 30, 1981, even though the appliance line was profitable.

It estimated the combined loss for the group would increase to more than $25 million for the current fiscal year.

A significant reason for the loss has been the effect of ''a decade of dumping in the United States of portable electric typewriters from Japan,'' said Freeman Robison, general manager of Smith-Corona. He said the company intended to maintain its nearby Cortland plants, employing about 2,800, producing ''top-of-the-line'' electronic products and some electric typewriters.
***
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...54C0A964948260


Ah, but the devil's in the details. To try and cut costs, they moved almost everything to Mexico and Singapore in the 1980s. This included steadily shutting down the Cortland facilities and the Syracuse facilities, costing the area thousands of jobs. But with the oncoming computer age, who needs typewriters? The Singapore factory closed in 1994. The factory in Mexico was later shut down as well. Manufacturing operations worldwide were shut down in November 1997. By 2000, the company that once employed 10,000 had gone under such extreme restructuring that only 100 people remain at a Cortland office building, whose sole purpose was to work with other maufacturers to sell telephones and fax machines. As of today, I am not sure of Smith Corona's status. They could be gone completely, a casuality of our fast-growing technology. Or they could be tenaciously hanging on, a mere skeletal relic of the vast enterprise they once were.

As for the facilities themselves, I remember when the Syracuse factory was demo'd in 1998. The land there is being redeveloped, slowly but steadily at least, into the "Center of Excellence". The Groton facility has not been so lucky; as it turned out, the land was toxic, thanks to industrial dumping, and the only thing on the site today is a gas station.

[Ex-Ithacan]

No happy ending to that story, anywhere. btw Vis, been keeping some late hours lately, eh?

[Visiteur]

Actually, not as late as the post appears. I made that post about midnight last night, so I have no clue why is says 4 AM. Besides, Vis needs to get sleep so he can fight with customers all day

[Ex-Ithacan]

I'm just checking Vis. You know someone has to keep an eye on you young rascals every once in a while.

Here's some more development news.


Kohl’s store expects to bring around 130 jobs
From Journal Staff Reports

Kohl’s Department Stores said it will have approximately 130 full- and part-time jobs for its first Ithaca store, which it hopes to open in Ithaca on Elmira Road.

The new store, comprising about 75,000 square-feet, will hire for cash register operation, department service, customer service, early morning stocking, truck unloading, housekeeping and evening signage and pricing updates, according to an announcement from the company today.

City officials in April confirmed the construction project just north of the Home Depot on Elmira Road was to be a Kohl’s. The Wisconsin-based company with about 800 stores nationwide plans to open about 110 in 2007. Its nearest existing store is in Horseheads.

The company plans a job fair for interested applicants Aug. 11-15.

The Ithaca store will be among its recently introduced prototype stores with features including wider aisles, outdoor seating, updated fitting rooms with lounge areas and a redesigned Juniors’ department.

Kohl’s has a corporate employee-service matching program it calls its A-Team Program. In 2006, associates donated nearly 58,000 hours which resulted in more than $1.2 million for the organizations associates chose to support. Additionally, Kohl’s sells special Kohl’s Cares for Kids® merchandise year-round with 100 percent of the net profits benefiting children’s health and education.

[Ex-Ithacan]

Oped piece from the Ithaca Times newspaper. Not very flattering references to many upstate NY cities.


The Whispered Howl
By: M. Tye Wolfe
08/01/2007
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The oasis-like nature that Ithaca seems to possess (and is perfectly described by the bumper sticker "Ithaca, 12 square miles surrounded by reality") often is explained by the city's liberal politics, magnetic beauty, creative individuals and all-around quirkiness.
But it would behoove Ithacans to think what is around Ithaca. An oasis, after all, cannot exist among other oases. Usually they are found in a desert or wasteland.
Which brings me to the state of other upstate cities. When it comes to urban health, Ithaca truly is an oasis. To better understand, go to Syracuse, Rochester, Binghamton, Endicott, Johnson City, Poughkeepsie, Elmira or Schenectady. Actually, on second thought, don't. Large sections of these cities seem to have fallen victim to a mysterious plague, rendering them lifeless, dilapidated, and truly depressing. Even when, many years ago, The Commons had reached a nadir of roughly 70 percent building occupancy, its decline was nothing compared to the permanent state of depression that beleaguers the downtowns of say, Johnson City, with its boarded-up storefronts and cracked pavement.
What's staggering is the extent to which these cities were economic engines of upstate New York for so long. In 1892, Schenectady became the headquarters of the General Electric Company. Few traces are to be found of that immensely powerful corporation there today. IBM originated in 1911 in Endicott. Workers at the Endicott-Johnson shoe plant, now history, were so thrilled with the economic benefits of the company that they gratefully erected a now pitiful-looking arch on the border of Johnson City, welcoming people to the "home of the square deal." As a former resident of the city, I can say with some authority that one wouldn't want to spend much time in the vicinity of the arch, unless you wanted to, say, be stabbed by a crackhead for your shoes.
These were "one-company" towns; and, for a while, the companies were so beneficial no one bothered to think about what the cities would be like without them. In the 1950s, what was good for business was good for America, and the word "out-sourcing" had not been invented.
But out-sourcing happened. IBM laid off thousands to move workers to the sunbelt or overseas. Endicott Johnson no longer exists. It's been the same story for almost every upstate city. Now, the major employers are more likely to be prisons or shoddy malls that emerge unorganically from the cityscapes. And, the once-benevolent companies have left an ignominious legacy of water, soil and air pollution (you may remember, from several years ago, the images of a poor Endicott neighborhood forced to put up protective covers over its houses - making them look something out of E.T.).
Upstate is losing population, particularly young people, at a rate faster than almost any other area of the nation. Were the metropolis of New York City and its tony suburbs not such a large source of state tax revenue, the standard of living would be even worse.
Ithaca has had its share of polluting employers that later flew the coop (Ithaca Gun, to name just one). But the major reason Ithaca was largely immunized from the plague ravaging this area is because its "companies" are not conducive to outsourcing. Its biggest employer, Cornell, is not going to China any time soon (not that the surge of online courses might not one day prevent people from coming to a college town). Plus, Ithaca has the benefit of having another high-tier university, Ithaca College, on South Hill, and a damn good community college not too far away.
But this can't explain Ithaca's luck totally. Binghamton, Buffalo and Syracuse have great universities, too. I believe success stems from the degree to which Ithaca's colleges, and their students, have been integrated into the city itself. The vitality of the young people (and their pocketbooks) spills easily into the community, helping it to thrive. Binghamton University does not even have its campus in Binghamton - it is in Vestal. And, one hears more complaints in Binghamton about college kids than gratitude for their presence. Syracuse, meanwhile, has been banking on the pipedreams of Robert Congel (owner of the Pyramid Mall), who apparently believes a mega-mall, complete with indoor rivers and other Vegas-like accommodations, will help the snowbound city emerge from its doldrums. Good luck.
The lesson: love your young people, people. They will love you back, and stay here. Invest here. Grow here. And even become members of the Common Council. Or mayor. In Ithaca, it's been known to happen.

Advertisement


M. Tye Wolfe is the reporter for the Ithaca Times.

[Visiteur]

Sad, but I can identify. See how many posts I've had for the Syracuse thread lately?

Y'know, I don't think I understand the locals. The ydenounce the hotel project before the vote, and then it doesn't get passed, and they blame it on the developer, the city, an ex-mayor, Cornell...these people are ridiculous.

so, here's what I posted. Ex, if you read the comments, you'll now know my screenname in their forums.

I agree with __. Maybe if certain locals hadn't raised hell about how "it wasn't on a human scale" and "it takes away from public space", we'd actually be seeing the land being developed and our tax rolls seeing the resulting increase.

But no. People on this site have blamed the developer, the council, Cornell, and an ex-mayor for its defeat. But it's the people. The people that think Ithaca is, as _ aptly put it, "a museum piece". The people that are afraid of new stores and hotels and buildings because it takes away from whatever false utopia they envision. People that don't understand that Ithaca is a city, that is one of the very few in upstate to even be on its feet economically, and could use that to its advantage to develop beyond a simple college town, but no. The narrow-mindedness and lack of vision by vocal locals is to blame. You're right _, your reps don't know your opinions because some other local is shoving theirs into the spotlight.

Without new development feeding into a city, it dies. The decision whether Ithaca takes the right path is up to us to decide.

[Ex-Ithacan]

^ Damn Vis, I didn't know that was you. Good stuff.

Kind of frustrating being a cheerleader for a city where many of the citizens want to return to the 19th century isn't it?

[Ex-Ithacan]

Another take on the SW Ithaca new neighborhood project.

From the Ground Up
By: Bryan Chambala
08/08/2007
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Although the city's quest to create a mixed-income neighborhood from nothing in a former fill site behind Wal-Mart made a significant move forward last week, the aspirations for the so-called Southwest Development are so expansive that it remains, for the moment, purely a concept.
The Southwest Selection Committee, appointed by Mayor Carolyn Peterson little more than a year ago, chose for its partner the firm McCormack Baron Salazar, citing the developer's experience in similar projects, along with what committee chair Scott Whitman said is a commitment to building long-term community relationships and maintaining social responsibility. Four firms applied for the consideration.
The committee's selection opens the process to the public, with hearings likely to be scheduled in September and hopes of bringing the matter to a Common Council vote in early October. With Council's approval, the city would then begin the process of site review, to be followed by design and eventual construction. At this point, the project calls for a 600-unit neighborhood, with 30 percent of the housing deemed "permanently affordable [and subsidized]," as well as a host of properties covering the middle and higher ends of the market spectrum. But, the process at this point was described by Whitman and city Planning Director Thys Van Cort as relatively fluid - almost a "courtship," said Whitman.
Unlike other city developments, the recently stymied Inlet Island bid among them, the city approached the Southwest Development by seeking Request for Qualifications instead of the more common Request for Proposals. The RFQs solicit interested parties for a sort of profile explaining to the city why the firm's experience and expertise would make it a good partner, without laying out details of any possible work. While RFP responses require relatively detailed construction and business plans, the RFQ is designed to help the city find a partner before the detailed planning takes place. It makes sense, said mayor Peterson, that a project of this scope and magnitude would be approached from the RFQ angle, as it gives the city more flexibility and influence in what is likely to be an arduous and complex design process.
Assuming for the purpose of discussion that Council approves the recommendation, the project moves to the review phase. The neighborhood would be built on what is a former fill site behind Wal-Mart and Lowe's on Route 13. Van Cort explained that while some people believe the site is a former garbage dump, it only was used for fill, i.e. non-chemical waste from road work, dirt and other materials. The mention of dirt also elicited a few chuckles, as committee members [on a languid Friday morning] admitted to being a bit punchy after months of discussions [and a particularly busy week] centering on words such as alluvial fill. "There is some concern about the dirt at the site, and how it can be used for foundations," Van Cort said. "But we're dealing with a developer who has encountered these situations before. It's a major part of the reason they were chosen."
McCormack Baron Salazar, which works in close connection with Torti Gallas and Partners, has developed more than $1.7 billion in projects ["that's an incredible number," said Van Cort] across the country, including a handful of similar design and near-similar scale, Pittsburgh among the most accessible and likely similar. "They've done projects of about the same size," said Whitman. "But not in a city this size. That's one reason they told us they were so interested in working with Ithaca, because it would be one of the first cities our size to build something like this. ... We're creating a neighborhood."
According to the final report of the selection committee, "At an early point, however, it was clear from their record of successful projects, national reputations, and corporate missions, that the team headed by McCormack Baron Salazar possessed abundant qualifications and financial capacity to undertake this project and bring it to a successful outcome (these qualifications are enumerated in the attached company profiles). The interview process and subsequent communications between the Selection Committee, Planning Staff and MBS was therefore focused on the following specific issues relating to the development site and the potential functioning of a partnership between the City and the team."
The Pittsburg project, known as "Crawford Square," consists of 400 units, 50 percent market price, 50 percent subsidized affordable ["that's pretty amazing," said Van Cort, "that they could do 50 percent market rate ... we're looking at 30 percent affordable right now ... ."].
According to McCormack Baron Salazar promotional materials, "Today Crawford Square resembles the stability and energy of the old Hill District. Mixed-income renters, first time homeowners, young professionals, and elderly residents all call Crawford Square home. Expensive homes have been developed in adjacent blocks as a diverse group of young professionals and empty nesters move to this attractive and convenient neighborhood. Commercial development has sprung up as a result of the housing development. A shopping center, bank, pharmacy, office building, and day care center are all within walking distance."
Van Cort's reading of the market-rate component in Pittsburgh also points to the unique nature of the proposition in Ithaca. Real estate experts assisted the committee in determining the need for and viability of differing market levels of housing. "... We're responding to the market in some ways, and in some ways hoping to create a market," said City Planner Lisa Nicholas. The 2005 HUD housing survey of Tompkins County, which stated that the county needs 700 additional units of for-sale housing, and 450 units of rental housing by January 2008 to meet demand, also has been a component of the committee's planning to this point.
Representatives of McCormack Baron Salazar will be in Ithaca on August 9 for a special 7pm session with Common Council and the Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency in Council chambers. Following that meeting, the city will schedule two public hearings to be followed by a Council vote to approve the recommendation to accept MBS and go forward.
"It's a tremendous, major undertaking," said Whitman. "But we couldn't be more excited about this relationship that is just beginning."
- Bryan Chambala





©Ithaca Times 2007




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[Ex-Ithacan]

I get so fed up with the Ithaca NIMBYs sometimes. I'm surprised anything ever gets done.

Sinking Island
By:
08/08/2007

It is not going to get any easier to develop Inlet Island. We know parking is an issue; we know the property needs costly remediation; we know the character of the district is as sporadic as it is unique.
And, we know that a business undertaking on the Inlet is a risky enough venture that anything less than a near sure thing would be financial roulette.
Island Health works. It is out of scale with its surroundings, but it has mostly parking and a reputation for service that has helped it attract local customers and become rooted in Ithaca.
A 100-room hotel with 15 condominiums won't work. Thus, we were pleased to see Common Council vote down developer Steve Flash's proposal for the Inlet last week [he was named preferred developer some 10 months ago, but the size of the project and price tag - Flash would get a break on the price of the land in exchange for performing the remediation] created enough concern to lead to the "no" vote. It simply was too far out of scale, with little thought to congestion and making an already bad parking and traffic situation worse.
But whatever our satisfaction with the city keeping out another sandstone monolith, there is no good news in this for Ithacans hoping to see the area congeal, someday, into the kind of mixed-use waterfront hoped for so long ago. The Request for Proposals led to three returns [one incomplete], Flash's being the only remotely promising entry. And there's no reason to think another RFP process would somehow uncover a benefactor willing to sweep the area, flush the soil, and build a two-story brownstone, mixed-use waterborne utopia.
What's more likely if the process is opened again is another variation on the guaranteed "money from travelers and parents" theme. Without remediation, and without a funded, unified vision for the area, the city will not be able to attract anything but well-insured, corporate-backed projects. And, with the Southwest Development moving forward, it's hard to imagine the city will have the time, money or inclination to get any more involved in the Inlet than it has been to this point.
It would be wonderful to have a shining, lively waterfront district lit with solar lights on a boardwalk and the strains of music creeping into the summer night; but we're close to that now with Castaways and the goose-infested grounds of The Boatyard. There is little unity in the area, but there also is a nice restaurant or two, a good club, a safe park, the water itself, a nice walking bridge, and [some] parking. It ain't so bad, we've got to tell ourselves ... because that's how it is likely to be for some time.



©Ithaca Times 2007

[Ex-Ithacan]

At least this is a positive note for downtown development:



Lease signed for cinema in Cayuga Green project

The board of directors of 7th Art, the nonprofit organization that manages the alternative cinemas Cinemapolis and Fall Creek Pictures, has voted to sign the lease for the new five-screen cinema planned as an anchor tenant for the Cayuga Screen project in downtown Ithaca, the group announced today.

The lease with a major retail tenant firms up plans for the redevelopment project, which also consists of apartments and condominiums and a parking garage. A multi-screen multiplex had been considered by developers, but that was later dropped after the multiplex at Regal Cinemas at the former Pyramid Mall was announced, and 7th Art became involved.

For more than a year, the board of directors has been considering consolidating its five screens into a new, more visible and comfortable space in the Cayuga Green project. In an announcement, 7th Art said the decision was contingent upon raising funds for the move and working out an agreeable lease with Bloomfield and Schon, the Cincinnati firm that is developing Cayuga Green and building the new theater.

The minimum cost of moving and upgrading the viewing experience is $200,000, according to 7th Art. The board decided it would not pursue the move if it could not raise 50 percent of the estimated figure in nine months, but has already raised 75 percent of the needed funds. The board is confident that with expanded programming, an improved viewing experience, the visibility of the new theater, and ongoing community support, the new Cinemapolis and downtown Ithaca will be a popular entertainment destination for Central New Yorkers, the organization said.

7th Art plans to consolidate its screens from its two locations. It has three at Fall Creek Pictures in the residential neighborhood of the same name and two at Cinemapolis, which is in Center Ithaca. It leases space in both those buildings. The organization said the new space will allow the theater to enhance its community connections with special youth programming, regular family matinees and media literacy courses in a new “education room.”

Originally published August 9, 2007

[whit_x]

Originally Posted by Ex-Ithacan

^ Damn Vis, I didn't know that was you. Good stuff.

Kind of frustrating being a cheerleader for a city where many of the citizens want to return to the 19th century isn't it?

Nah, just the 60's and early 70's when their communes were still going.

[whit_x]

And I am looking forward to seeing movies here. The only question I have is what is going to be done with the current Fall Creek theater site?

Originally Posted by Ex-Ithacan

At least this is a positive note for downtown development:



Lease signed for cinema in Cayuga Green project

The board of directors of 7th Art, the nonprofit organization that manages the alternative cinemas Cinemapolis and Fall Creek Pictures, has voted to sign the lease for the new five-screen cinema planned as an anchor tenant for the Cayuga Screen project in downtown Ithaca, the group announced today.

The lease with a major retail tenant firms up plans for the redevelopment project, which also consists of apartments and condominiums and a parking garage. A multi-screen multiplex had been considered by developers, but that was later dropped after the multiplex at Regal Cinemas at the former Pyramid Mall was announced, and 7th Art became involved.

For more than a year, the board of directors has been considering consolidating its five screens into a new, more visible and comfortable space in the Cayuga Green project. In an announcement, 7th Art said the decision was contingent upon raising funds for the move and working out an agreeable lease with Bloomfield and Schon, the Cincinnati firm that is developing Cayuga Green and building the new theater.

The minimum cost of moving and upgrading the viewing experience is $200,000, according to 7th Art. The board decided it would not pursue the move if it could not raise 50 percent of the estimated figure in nine months, but has already raised 75 percent of the needed funds. The board is confident that with expanded programming, an improved viewing experience, the visibility of the new theater, and ongoing community support, the new Cinemapolis and downtown Ithaca will be a popular entertainment destination for Central New Yorkers, the organization said.

7th Art plans to consolidate its screens from its two locations. It has three at Fall Creek Pictures in the residential neighborhood of the same name and two at Cinemapolis, which is in Center Ithaca. It leases space in both those buildings. The organization said the new space will allow the theater to enhance its community connections with special youth programming, regular family matinees and media literacy courses in a new “education room.”

Originally published August 9, 2007

[Ex-Ithacan]

Good to see ya again whit. I think the owner of the building had considered suing the city for unfair competition, but haven't heard anything about it lately. He could always turn it over to another independant operator I guess.

Originally Posted by whit_x

Nah, just the 60's and early 70's when their communes were still going.

Tru dat whit

[whit_x]

You know, life getting in the way of coming to this site. By the way, I was in Ithaca a couple of weeks ago and took a bunch of pictures that when I get off my butt I might put up here (and add to the files at work). Unfortunately, none of them is the new theater at the mall (not a bad place to see a movie, by the way).

[Ex-Ithacan]

Glad you found some time to visit again, and I look forward to the pics (now git off yer butt and git ta postin' pics )

[Visiteur]

Looks like a short meting for the town of Ithaca on Tuesday...

Consideration of Preliminary Site Plan Approval and Special Permit for the proposed Cornell University Animal Health Diagnostic Center located off Caldwell Road in the northeast corner of the College of Veterinary Medicine Complex, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No.’s 67-1-10.2 and 67-1-10.4, Low Density Residential Zone. The proposal includes the demolition of several small cinder block buildings for the construction of a new +/- 126,000 square foot, +/- 70 foot tall, facility to include laboratories (rated with Biological Safety Levels of 2 and 3) and office space.

The primary use of the facility will be for veterinary disease diagnostic programs associated with necropsy and histopathology, and will also include teaching programs and other research and support activities. The building will be physically connected to the existing Schuman Hall, associated with the Veterinary College. The project will consolidate 70 existing parking spaces currently scattered throughout the site, and add approximately 8 new spaces (4 handicapped spaces and 4 short term drop off spaces). The project will also include development of new stormwater management facilities.

I hope the height pisses off some of the Ithaca NIMBYs.