Some Ithaca news

[Visiteur]

I JUST saw that...and it makes me want to CRY.

Why does Cornell waste its money on ugly crap?!

[whit_x]

Because they needed this thing to match the avant-garde piece of "modern architecture" that is the Johnson Museum. Although having a window on the side of the gorge might have made me want to visit the place at least one more time.

[Ex-Ithacan]

Darn Nimbys, that would be a good area for hi-rise development(including Cutting motors site).



INHS mistake raises concerns about use of building
By Jennie Daley
Journal Staff

ITHACA — Neighborhood concerns over commercial development have led to intense conversations about the basement of a former school building.

After a building inspector noted for-profit offices, like a chiropractor, on the bottom floor of the Henry St. John building, zoning questions arose that have neighbors worried about a permanent commercial presence in a building that is on the edge of zoned residential land.


The issue was scheduled to be discussed at Tuesday's meeting of the City of Ithaca's Board of Zoning Appeals but was pulled from the agenda so that a better consensus could be reached between the property owner and neighbors.

The issue dates back to Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services' purchase of the former elementary school at the corner of Geneva and Clinton streets in 1983.
Bought in part with funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, INHS intended to incorporate the building into its mission of providing low-cost housing in the City of Ithaca and enhancing neighborhoods.

Since the building used to be an elementary school, it is zoned Public and Institutional and is the only property in the area with the designation.

The zoning status required a use variance when INHS took over the property because the nonprofit is not a public entity. The variance allowed apartments on the first and second floors, which are rented to tenants who meet income qualifications, and nonprofit community services offices in the basement.

Paul Mazzarella, executive director of INHS, said the confusion started when INHS was trying to mitigate vacancy rates as high as 52 percent on the office level in the late 1990s. Having commercial rentals also helps INHS offset costs like utilities, which often increase faster than the fixed rents tenants pay.

“There were for-profit businesses that would've liked to rent to us,” Mazzarella said. “At the time we believed the restriction between for profit and not-for-profits was the issue of our funder, HUD.”

With that idea in mind, Mazzarella said INHS contacted HUD and asked the organization to approve renting half the basement to for-profit operations, which HUD approved.

“We made a mistake,” Mazzarella said, referring to them neglecting to pursue a use variance at that time.

The mistake brought in for-profit businesses, of which there are now four — a publishing company, an architect, a marketing company and a chiropractor.

To continue allowing these businesses, INHS must seek another use variance to remove the distinction between nonprofit and for-profit rentals.

George Ferrari and his partner, Daniel Hirtler, worry that allowing for-profits to rent there would pose a significant threat to their neighborhood.

“This begins to move the central business district this way,” Ferrari said. “Because we're a neighborhood on the fringes, when we get infringed upon, it's a bad, bad thing.”

Of particular concern to Ferrari is the lack of height restrictions on the P-I zone. Coupled with the allowance for commercial businesses that INHS is seeking, Ferrari sees a recipe for high-rise offices.

In response, Mazzarella contends that INHS only wants to allow for-profits on the basement level, which they see as unsuitable for apartments. He added that INHS is willing to discuss a stipulation that would have the variance terminate when INHS ownership ended.

Mazzarella said he hopes to schedule a meeting with interested community members before bringing the issue back before the Board of Zoning Appeals.


jdaley@ithacajournal.com




Originally published May 2, 2007

[Visiteur]

http://www.ithacajournal.com/apps/pb...705050334/1002

Cornell's gas power plant gets early approval

[Visiteur]

http://www.cityofithaca.org/vertical/Sites/{5DCEB23D-5BF8-4AFF-806D-68E7C14DEB0D}/uploads/{7D676123-5B32-4A23-A01D-6A0D1488690B}.PDF

To quote the pdf: "20 stories is too big...buildings should be 5-6 stories, early 1900s style horizontal densification, espec. along State Street." Agree or disagree?

[Ex-Ithacan]

^ Hey Vis, where exactly is that quote from? I'd like to see it in its full context.



From The Cornell Sun newspaper

Home
Housing Costs Outpace Incomes
Number of Tompkins County residents needing free lodging doubles between 2000 and 2006
By Felicia Daniels
Sun Staff Writer
May 6 2007
Deckhead:
Number of Tompkins County residents needing free lodging doubles between 2000 and 2006
Raymond McKane was found dead inside a tent behind Wal-Mart in Downtown Ithaca last March after his employer reported him missing. Police were uncertain of what caused 49-year-old McKane’s death when they found him, but, after ruling out foul play, it quickly became apparent that McKane was a victim of a social epidemic that kills hundreds of people across the country every year. The tent in which he was found, near abandoned railroad tracks and not far from a former city dump, served as McKane’s makeshift housing. He died homeless.

Tompkins County Legislator Martha Robertson (D-13th District) says McKane’s extreme poverty despite his job is rare in Ithaca and the surrounding Tompkins County area. In her time serving as chair for the Planning, Development and Environmental Quality Committee, she has noticed that incomes cannot keep pace with rapidly rising housing costs.

“We see the living wage for one person is more than $20,000. If you make minimum wage full time like a lot of people do, you earn something like 12,000 per year. So we have a lot of people not making a living wage, and yet they’re trying to buy housing in a market that’s the most expensive this side of the Hudson River,” Robertson said.

In effect, the number of homeless bed nights has increased dramatically since 1997. According to a comparative yearly analysis of shelter and motel usage created by the Homeless and Housing Task Force, the Red Cross, The Department of Social Services and the Advocacy Center provided over 11,000 nights of lodging for residents in 2001 up from 8,000 the year before. By 2006, that number had risen to over 16,000 nights of Tompkins County residents needing free lodging.

Christine Sanchirico, executive director of Catholic Charities of Tompkins-Tioga Counties, said the number of families they have needed to provide for “is always climbing higher.” Catholic Charities runs a security deposit support program in addition to helping residents finance utility bills.

“We now serve between 650 and 700 families throughout Tompkins County each year,” Sanchirico said. “85 percent are classified as very low income, meaning earning one-third of the median income and below. These people are really living on the edge, and most are working poor who have jobs but are not being paid enough to get by.”

The result of the disproportionate income and housing rates creates “a tremendous housing pressure and a lot of cost burdened people” according to Robertson. She added that a family should only be spending 30 percent of their resources on housing.

Spending that little is difficult for residents who sometimes move outside of Ithaca and commute to work every day. A report from the 2006 Affordable Housing Needs Assessment (AHNA) stated that a recent survey of Cornell employees indicated that more than half of respondents “are living outside the county because housing prices are less expensive.”

“This issue surrounding affordability has been around for a while,” said Tompkins County Legislator Nathan Shinagawa ’05 (D-4th District), chair of the Health and Human Services Committee. “We wonder if we can retain young professionals and have enough housing so graduate students who want to take a job in Ithaca can afford to live here. If we don’t have housing available we won’t attract businesses we need.”

The solving of Ithaca’s housing capacity problem may not be as simple as building more housing. The presence of Ithaca College and Cornell University in the same city interferes with progress, according to the AHNA.

“High levels of competition for renter units, at least in part due to the county’s university and college, have resulted in low vacancy rates and rising rents,” the AHNA stated.

Students seem attractive to owners of rental property since “multiple student payments toward rent exceeds the fair market rent a family or most working individuals can pay.”

Sanchirico admits that the housing issue is a big problem partly because the student population drives rental costs to the point of being unreasonable.

“We need affordable housing, but if it is built and students end up moving into it we’re not making any headway,” she said.

Making housing more affordable on campuses can help push costs back down and alleviate some of the competition. Shinagawa said when colleges do not provide enough affordable housing for their students they take housing away from the community.

“It’s ridiculous that a graduate student at Cornell would rather live 10 or 15 miles away than live on campus because of the price,” he said.

Robertson recognizes the University’s efforts to move toward more housing on West Campus for both students and staff.

“I have been trying to advocate for Cornell to take responsibility to house more people on campus, and the supply they’re going to add to the existing housing is really necessary,” she said.

Robertson also added that campus housing would also help Cornell’s new sustainable environment efforts and make a lasting “imprint” on the community by reducing green house emissions with fewer University employees having to commute.

Despite pending monetary challenges that county legislators and the University administration are facing, some students on the Hill remain oblivious to the extent of the surrounding financial struggles of permanent residents. Jeffrey Kahn ’10 is part of the campus organization that tutors children who live in trailer parks. Despite encountering his share of poorer areas, Kahn “just assumed most people have places to live.”

Sanchirico believes students attending I.C. and Cornell have that misconception.

“People need to know there is poverty in Tompkins County, in many places dire poverty,” she said. “It might be hard to see when you’re going to class and on campus, but it’s here and we need help.”



By Felicia Daniels at May 6 2007 - 3:09pm | Top Story | News Story
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A big issue isn't the lack
A big issue isn't the lack of housing on campus or off campus, but the high price you have to pay for a room on-campus. You can easily find much cheaper housing prices off campus and this is what is causing many students to flood the off campus housing market and thus causing high vacancy rates for on-campus dormitories such as ujaama and JAM, and causing landlords to increase rent in off-campus apartments because of the shortage due to high demand. Cornell should find ways to provide cheaper housing on-campus



By Justin (not verified) at May 6, 2007 - 10:02pm | reply

[Visiteur]

Sorry, the early 1900s comment must be from one of the other PDFs on the city's website.

From the PDF link I attached.
Public conversations concerning downtown development:

Facilitator John Forester began by asking participants to address the statement, “I’m here to make sure that we
achieve these benefits from economic development.” He received the following responses:

- Here to learn
- Development that is beneficial to downtown, that brings in people and that has worked in other
cities
- New buildings compatible with the historic fabric of downtown
- Contribute to a welcoming and vibrant community
- No public benefit. Does not want any increase in density. Do not build these horrible buildings
Then please do not live here. It's that simple.
- Important to have community involvement and visioning beyond planning director and staff
- Like existing residential quality and the mix of commercial and residential in Fall Creek.
Concern that this may be affected by development in the core
- Realize aesthetic and economic goals of Ithaca Downtown Partnership strategic plan
- Keep city competitive with housing and business demands
- More affordable housing
- Strengthen the city to retain contrast with the country
- Return to the earlier, more sustainable density of the city’s core
- Encourage a mix of business and residential uses
- Development should be in accordance with comprehensive plan
- Encourage growth in city to counterbalance suburban trends
- Provide feasible alternative to low-density development, i.e. mixed use multi-story
- Enhance walkability – more goods and services in core within walking distance
- Downtown is for the entire community

1 of 2
Q:\PLANNING\GROUPS\Planning, Economic Development and Env Qual Committee
2006\Agenda\DensityPublicConversation 2.doc
The discussion turned to matters of height and density, with the following points being made:
- City should not subsidize development downtown
- This is a small town-20 stories are too many. Should be no building higher than 5 stories.
- City was more dense before urban renewal
- Important to consider scale vs. density
- Need to clarify meaning of density, whether it refers to population or to building height and size
- Density measured by use
- City should help local development of upper stories of existing buildings, not huge new projects
- Investigation of Commons upper-story housing project is under way. Probably maximum of 50-
75 units possible in vacant buildings on Commons
- How high does a project need to go to work financially?
- Need to make it economically feasible for property owners to renovate
- Elevators are expensive. In one example, an elevator would cost $100,000; cannot realize return to pay for such an improvement with small number of stories
- Subsidy needed to make all deals work
- Discussion of second-story development has been ongoing for a couple of decades
- Increase density (5-6 stories) along State Street corridor
- Spread density horizontally, not vertically (general agreement)
Issues of process and communication were raised with regard to projects for which abatements are sought.
- Projects are developed “under wraps,” coming out of planning department office; need to open
process
- Requests for Proposals (RFPs) have been reviewed and voted on by Common Council; Ithaca
Urban Renewal Agency (IURA) projects have also been discussed in public meetings
- Cayuga Green project began with public processes but is now proceeding “on the QT;” public
meetings are insufficient
- City working constantly on improving public information
- Dozens of negotiations take place that are not appropriate for public discussion; final deals are
made known to public
- Without incentives, the city gets no project, no returns
- How much have city taxpayers already paid for Cayuga Green, including hidden costs such as
modifying intersections, etc.
- Citizens should be part of the conversation; everything should be public
- In putting together projects, discussions are held in private, then developers go to the bank.
Abatements are now going outside the city and encouraging sprawl

[donybrx]

Originally Posted by Ex-Ithacan

Hey guys, sorry for the MIA stuff. I needed a break.

]

Hey! It's good to see your name back up in lights, y'old bandicoot.....

Please forewarn us, your loyal, motley but earnest fans, before you vaporize like that...... we get anxieties, ya know........bad things....heh.....

[Ex-Ithacan]

Thanks for the sentiments dony. Nice to know I'm thought about in a semi-positive way every once in a while.


Here's an article about a group that kind of reminds me of Ithaca in many ways.


Home
Mayor Declares May 8 ‘Dead Day’
Peterson’s proclamation honors Grateful Dead’s ’77 C.U. concert
By Jennifer Kahn
May 4 2007
Deckhead:
Peterson’s proclamation honors Grateful Dead’s ’77 C.U. concert
To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s May 8, 1977 performance at Barton Hall, Mayor Carolyn K. Peterson has declared next Tuesday, May 8, to be ‘Grateful Dead Day’ in the City of Ithaca.

According to Peterson’s official proclamation, “The Grateful Dead have been recognized by many highly credible organizations, individuals and entities including the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as significantly important and integral to the musical and social fabric of our contemporary culture ... It has been said many times by many people that, ‘There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert.’”

In celebration of the event, Dark Star Orchestra has been scheduled to appear at The State Theatre. The band will recreate the original set list as played by the Grateful Dead 30 years ago.

“The city has long ties, especially financial ties, to the State Theatre; we want to see the theatre succeed,” Peterson said. “The Dark Star reenactment of the 1977 Barton Hall concert of the Grateful Dead 30-year anniversary just seemed like a celebration opportunity, and so I was perfectly happy to participate.”

The Dead’s 1977 concert at Barton Hall is regarded by many as one of the best performances of their career. Recordings of the event have been widely circulated.

“There are many people who believe that the concert 30 years ago was one of the most influential concerts that the Grateful Dead did, and it was here in Ithaca,” Peterson said.

Members of the Ithaca community today remember being at the Barton Hall show in 1977.

“Last night [at city council], I asked the audience and my council members if anyone was at that concert 30 years ago, and lo and behold, my city attorney, sitting right next to me, raised his hand. So we all had a great laugh,” Peterson said.

Grateful Dead Day serves as an opportunity for celebration not only for Deadheads and attendees of their 1977 Barton Hall performance, but for anyone with an appreciation of American popular culture and music.

“I don’t wear Jerry Garcia ties, but I certainly remember Jerry Garcia for his impact on American music and American culture,” said Prof. Glenn Altschuler, American studies. “So I’m glad that The Dead lived. Grateful Dead Day in Ithaca reminds us once again that The Dead shall rise.”

Another connection between Cornell and the Grateful Dead is through Mickey Hart, one of The Dead’s drummers; his wife is a Cornell alumnus. In 2002, Hart visited Cornell to discuss his efforts in the preservation of rare and endangered recordings from the Library of Congress.

“The talk was called ‘Music at the Edge of Magic’, and he talked about the relationship of world music, traditional cultures and the West,” said Prof. Steven Pond, music. “[Hart] has a profile as an ethnomusicologist as well as a rock musician. The Grateful Dead are an icon of counterculturalism on one hand, as well as one of the great musical icons, but it also has an activist side that I think goes a bit underreported.”

“I think it’s great,” said Brad Bershad ’06, creator of the Cornell Deadhead Society, regarding the 30th anniversary celebration of the show. “Central New York has a great musical tradition, and the Grateful Dead are an important part of that. So it’s nice to see them getting recognized.” Bershad was also host of the Grateful Dead Hour on WVBR, and served as program director.

The community has also given back to the mayor for her declaration. After delivering her proclamation of Grateful Dead Day last night at city council, Mayor Peterson received a very special gift.

“Both the new director and the director who will be leaving [The State Theatre] came up to accept the proclamation and to give me a new green shirt that says ‘Ithaca is Grateful.’ So I’ll be wearing that tomorrow. It’s modeled after the ‘Ithaca is Gorges’ shirt,” Peterson said.

Grateful Dead Day in the City of Ithaca has garnered nationwide attention from the media and Grateful Dead fans.

“I have received letters and emails from all over the country,” Peterson said. “My favorite email that I’ve gotten so far came from L.A., and they were asking if I could move there and be their mayor.”



By Jennifer Kahn at May 4 2007 - 3:21am | Top Story | News Story
Comment viewing options

[whit_x]

Originally Posted by Visiteur

http://www.cityofithaca.org/vertical/Sites/{5DCEB23D-5BF8-4AFF-806D-68E7C14DEB0D}/uploads/{7D676123-5B32-4A23-A01D-6A0D1488690B}.PDF

To quote the pdf: "20 stories is too big...buildings should be 5-6 stories, early 1900s style horizontal densification, espec. along State Street." Agree or disagree?

Agree, since Ithaca is not NYC,and this still allows the density that a planner like myself wants to see without completely being out of scale with what is around it.

[whit_x]

Originally Posted by Ex-Ithacan

^ Hey Vis, where exactly is that quote from? I'd like to see it in its full context.



From The Cornell Sun newspaper

Home
Housing Costs Outpace Incomes
Number of Tompkins County residents needing free lodging doubles between 2000 and 2006
By Felicia Daniels
Sun Staff Writer
May 6 2007
Deckhead:
Number of Tompkins County residents needing free lodging doubles between 2000 and 2006
Raymond McKane was found dead inside a tent behind Wal-Mart in Downtown Ithaca last March after his employer reported him missing. Police were uncertain of what caused 49-year-old McKane’s death when they found him, but, after ruling out foul play, it quickly became apparent that McKane was a victim of a social epidemic that kills hundreds of people across the country every year. The tent in which he was found, near abandoned railroad tracks and not far from a former city dump, served as McKane’s makeshift housing. He died homeless.

Tompkins County Legislator Martha Robertson (D-13th District) says McKane’s extreme poverty despite his job is rare in Ithaca and the surrounding Tompkins County area. In her time serving as chair for the Planning, Development and Environmental Quality Committee, she has noticed that incomes cannot keep pace with rapidly rising housing costs.

“We see the living wage for one person is more than $20,000. If you make minimum wage full time like a lot of people do, you earn something like 12,000 per year. So we have a lot of people not making a living wage, and yet they’re trying to buy housing in a market that’s the most expensive this side of the Hudson River,” Robertson said.

In effect, the number of homeless bed nights has increased dramatically since 1997. According to a comparative yearly analysis of shelter and motel usage created by the Homeless and Housing Task Force, the Red Cross, The Department of Social Services and the Advocacy Center provided over 11,000 nights of lodging for residents in 2001 up from 8,000 the year before. By 2006, that number had risen to over 16,000 nights of Tompkins County residents needing free lodging.

Christine Sanchirico, executive director of Catholic Charities of Tompkins-Tioga Counties, said the number of families they have needed to provide for “is always climbing higher.” Catholic Charities runs a security deposit support program in addition to helping residents finance utility bills.

“We now serve between 650 and 700 families throughout Tompkins County each year,” Sanchirico said. “85 percent are classified as very low income, meaning earning one-third of the median income and below. These people are really living on the edge, and most are working poor who have jobs but are not being paid enough to get by.”

The result of the disproportionate income and housing rates creates “a tremendous housing pressure and a lot of cost burdened people” according to Robertson. She added that a family should only be spending 30 percent of their resources on housing.

Spending that little is difficult for residents who sometimes move outside of Ithaca and commute to work every day. A report from the 2006 Affordable Housing Needs Assessment (AHNA) stated that a recent survey of Cornell employees indicated that more than half of respondents “are living outside the county because housing prices are less expensive.”

“This issue surrounding affordability has been around for a while,” said Tompkins County Legislator Nathan Shinagawa ’05 (D-4th District), chair of the Health and Human Services Committee. “We wonder if we can retain young professionals and have enough housing so graduate students who want to take a job in Ithaca can afford to live here. If we don’t have housing available we won’t attract businesses we need.”

The solving of Ithaca’s housing capacity problem may not be as simple as building more housing. The presence of Ithaca College and Cornell University in the same city interferes with progress, according to the AHNA.

“High levels of competition for renter units, at least in part due to the county’s university and college, have resulted in low vacancy rates and rising rents,” the AHNA stated.

Students seem attractive to owners of rental property since “multiple student payments toward rent exceeds the fair market rent a family or most working individuals can pay.”

Sanchirico admits that the housing issue is a big problem partly because the student population drives rental costs to the point of being unreasonable.

“We need affordable housing, but if it is built and students end up moving into it we’re not making any headway,” she said.

Making housing more affordable on campuses can help push costs back down and alleviate some of the competition. Shinagawa said when colleges do not provide enough affordable housing for their students they take housing away from the community.

“It’s ridiculous that a graduate student at Cornell would rather live 10 or 15 miles away than live on campus because of the price,” he said.

Robertson recognizes the University’s efforts to move toward more housing on West Campus for both students and staff.

“I have been trying to advocate for Cornell to take responsibility to house more people on campus, and the supply they’re going to add to the existing housing is really necessary,” she said.

Robertson also added that campus housing would also help Cornell’s new sustainable environment efforts and make a lasting “imprint” on the community by reducing green house emissions with fewer University employees having to commute.

Despite pending monetary challenges that county legislators and the University administration are facing, some students on the Hill remain oblivious to the extent of the surrounding financial struggles of permanent residents. Jeffrey Kahn ’10 is part of the campus organization that tutors children who live in trailer parks. Despite encountering his share of poorer areas, Kahn “just assumed most people have places to live.”

Sanchirico believes students attending I.C. and Cornell have that misconception.

“People need to know there is poverty in Tompkins County, in many places dire poverty,” she said. “It might be hard to see when you’re going to class and on campus, but it’s here and we need help.”



By Felicia Daniels at May 6 2007 - 3:09pm | Top Story | News Story
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A big issue isn't the lack
A big issue isn't the lack of housing on campus or off campus, but the high price you have to pay for a room on-campus. You can easily find much cheaper housing prices off campus and this is what is causing many students to flood the off campus housing market and thus causing high vacancy rates for on-campus dormitories such as ujaama and JAM, and causing landlords to increase rent in off-campus apartments because of the shortage due to high demand. Cornell should find ways to provide cheaper housing on-campus



By Justin (not verified) at May 6, 2007 - 10:02pm | reply

The biggest issue is the limited amount of jobs that are not service or Cornell/IC oriented in town. Because there are few jobs that pay well in town, or at least well enough to afford the bloated costs of the local housing market due to Cornell students seeing Ithaca as a bargain compared to NYC or Boston, too many people that are serving the food, mowing the lawns, and mopping the floors are commuting from Lansing, Dryden, and Newark Valley, if not further. With $3 plus a gallon gas, it's only a matter of time before too many of these people won't see the feasibility of spending $50 a week for gas for a $300 a week paycheck after taxes, yet not being able to afford to live closer. Unfortunately, Ithaca mirrors the rest of the country in that affordable housing is an afterthought. Sooner or later this mindset needs to change.

[Ex-Ithacan]

The city could certainly use a nice mixed income apt/condo hi-rise downtown (maybe at Cutting Motors current location). I know it won't solve the severe shortage, but it would be a step in the right direction, and mixed income would make any building over 5 floors an easier sell in the city (maybe 12 stories would do it). I have hopes for the new town behind the SW shopping centers fullfilling some of the affordable housing issues. But that project will probably be years down the road (it is Ithaca after all).

[Visiteur]

Originally Posted by Ex-Ithacan

The city could certainly use a nice mixed income apt/condo hi-rise downtown (maybe at Cutting Motors current location). I know it won't solve the severe shortage, but it would be a step in the right direction, and mixed income would make any building over 5 floors an easier sell in the city (maybe 12 stories would do it). I have hopes for the new town behind the SW shopping centers fullfilling some of the affordable housing issues. But that project will probably be years down the road (it is Ithaca after all).

Yeah, when was Gateway Commons planned? Original completion in fall 2004? We waited over two more years for that one to come to full fruition.

Y'know, Evergrey just posted pics of some planned some upscale dorms from down in PA...I would LOVE to see some of those near one of the campuses here in Ithaca.

[Ex-Ithacan]

^ they do look pretty good Vis. Kind of look like many of the near downtown new housing developments from many cities around the country.

btw, here's a video ref: the street I grew up on. Use to walk it a lot. I lived above Stewart Ave near the top of the hill. Must have been in shape back in those days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NKjZ_ij470


Didn't really take quite that long

[Ex-Ithacan]

Finally......


Firm rents space in Cayuga Green garage
From Journal Staff Reports

ITHACA — The commercial space in the two-year-old Cayuga Green parking garage built across Cayuga Street from the Holiday Inn is getting its first tenant, the Ithaca Downtown Partnership announced Thursday.

The tenant is the financial firm Merrill Lynch, which will consolidate its two current downtown offices into its new location, which will comprise about 5,600 square feet.

The garage opened in June 2005, but Merrill Lynch will be the first tenant in the rentable commercial space of slightly more than 20,000 square feet. The lack of tenants had been a source of frustration for city officials.

The new, larger facility will feature state-of-the-art technology and a classroom for workshops, educational programs and meeting rooms. Merrill Lynch in Ithaca employs 19 people and expects continued growth. In 2006, it acquired Advest/J.S. Barr and had maintained that firm's former location along with its own East State Street offices.
Merrill Lynch chose the downtown location over other options in part because it offered two-way street access and ample parking for clients on-site, said Senior Resident Director and Wealth Management Advisor Richard Prybyl

“We are growing and like what is shaping up in downtown Ithaca. We are delighted to be part of new growth and vitality of downtown,” Prybyl said. Merrill Lynch has had an Ithaca presence since 1991.

Gary Ferguson, executive director of the Ithaca Downtown Partnership, hailed the announcement.

“We are pleased that Merrill Lynch has chosen downtown as their preferred location to grow in the years ahead. We are likewise excited that leasing on the Cayuga Green and Cayuga Garage projects has now officially begun and are optimistic about the future of these key projects,” he said.

Construction on the space will begin immediately and will be completed by Labor Day.


Originally published May 11, 2007

[Visiteur]

http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps...WS01/705150313

A few more jobs moving into the region, via a biofuels processing plant.

[Ex-Ithacan]

This may be in Cortland, but the same metro as Ithaca, and every little bit helps.

[whit_x]

Originally Posted by Ex-Ithacan

This may be in Cortland, but the same metro as Ithaca, and every little bit helps.

It's not the same Metro, but the same CSA (Gotta be specific.) I saw the proposal in the Journal this morning for a small subdivision over on Snyder Hill. My question is exactly where would this go, and how much grading would have to be done to get enough space on these lots to put the houses on?

[Ex-Ithacan]

Don't know the location of the subdivision, but it seems there must be a more appropriate location for housing. Unless they build townhouses or rows which would require a smaller number of footprints and thereby less land movement.

Anyway, you are right about the CSA thing. Ithaca a metro, Cortland a micro, together a CSA. I would have never thunk it.

[Ex-Ithacan]

Looks like another part of the city is losing some of its ability to get taller. (see Paragraph 4, zoning change )




Common Council addresses zoning of mobile home park, Collegetown vision
By Jennie Daley
jdaley@ithacajournal.com
Journal Staff

ITHACA — Common Council’s Planning Economic Development Committee unanimously approved a resolution that would revert zoning at Nate’s Floral Estates back to its previous status that allowed mobile homes.

In the rezoning of that area a few years ago, in conjunction with the Southwest Area Urban Neighborhood, Nate’s got included in the project and lost its zoning status as a mobile home park. To rectify this, the committee is recommending that the full council approve the move. A public hearing on the issue is planned for Common Council’s June 6 meeting.

Also passed on to the full council was a recommendation for approval of the Collegetown Vision Statement. While several area residents were on hand to question the boundaries of Collegetown drawn in the document, task force members stressed that there were no actions attached to the borders they’ve drawn. If approved by Council, the vision statement will be handed over to an implementation group that would then have the task of firming up boundaries and determining associated actions.

Another zoning issue that was addressed was reducing height limits in the B-2a zoning district. A relatively small zoning district primarily in pockets southeast of Route 13, the B-2a zone would go from height limits of 70 to 40 feet and from a maximum of six stories to four. A public hearing on this change also is planned for June 6.

The committee also received updates on various planning projects in the city. According to Planning Director Thys Van Cort, after an appraisal, an agreement should be finalized with the developers of Inlet Island.

As for the Southwest Area Urban Neighborhood, the selection committee is reviewing four Request for Qualifications and hopes to have a recommendation for a developer by July or August.

“We’re looking for a developer that best fits with the city then the design will be done, at least in part, as a community design process,” said Lisa Nicholas, a city planner.

Van Cort noted that selecting a developer would still mean “we’re a long way from having a shovel in the ground.”