ITHACA, N.Y. —The tour of local construction continues, with this second installment of what’s being built in Tompkins County outside Ithaca this spring focusing on the Lansing and Trumansburg areas. The update on Dryden and Freeville published last week can be found here.
Village Solars (Village Circle, Lansing)
The Village Solars is continuing its steady, multi-phased buildout off of Warren Road in the town of Lansing. The approach is unusually low-profile compared to most large developments in Tompkins County, since it has never made a request for a tax abatement.
The Lucente Family, doing business as Lifestyle Properties, and their mostly in-house construction team build two to three new buildings (18 to 24 units per building) each year. This helps fit their expense budget and the market absorbs the new units with little slack or extended vacancy.
A few years ago, these buildings used to cost $3 million to construct, but similar to so much else, inflation has pushed costs up. The latest loan, filed back in January, is for $13.3 million, from Nextier Bank of Western Pennsylvania. That will be enough to pay for four new buildings and 90 new units (and a gain of about 64 units net, given the removal of three existing buildings) in the last two phases of the project,
Work is finishing on the pair of 24-unit buildings south of Village Circle, with one having already welcomed residents, and the second largely complete from the outside, with just some trim boards and aesthetic finishes missing. Either the Lucentes opted for unstained wood veneer this time, or they’re waiting for warmer weather to apply it.
Framing is underway at the new 28 Village Place, where another 24-unit building, this one replacing a smaller apartment building from the 1960s, is being framed and sheathed in Huber ZIP System plywood panels.
Plausibly, the units for those two buildings will come online this summer and next spring respectively. After work finishes on Village Circle South, work will likely begin on the other three buildings funded by the Nextier construction loan. These will probably be completed in 2026.
Design-wise, these buildings are similar to the other recently built Village Solars buildings, originally drawn up by Process Studio PLLC and revised by local engineer Larry Fabbroni II. The apartments utilize higher R-value (more efficient) insulation, electric heat pumps and some include radiant floor heating.Rents range from $1,200 to $2,318 per month depending on the unit.
The new Dryden “Ezra Village” development by Rocco Lucenteis basically the same mode of development, and even the building designs are much the same. The plan is to build two or three apartment buildings, about 48-72 units total per year for the next 10-15 years, likely handled by the in-house construction team and without any pursuit of abatements. By the time that is complete, an additional 749 apartments will have entered the market; but because of the moderate, steady introduction, it won’t be quite as jarring as everything coming all at once.
When completed in a couple of years,the Lucentes will have 568 apartments on the Village Solar site, making it the largest non-institutional apartment complex in Tompkins County — at least, until its Dryden sibling comes online with enough phases.
Heights of Lansing (Nor Way, Lansing)
The Jonson-Bonniwell family, doing business as Forest City Realty, has continued the steady buildout of its Heights of Lansing for-sale townhouse project in the Village of Lansing. The approach has become fairly standardized at this point, delivering at least one new townhouse string each year.
Each newer string of homes ranges from four to six units, with three-bedroom, four-bath units of about 2,600 square feet in size, and featuring all the premium fits and finishes one expects of a higher-end townhouse unit.Prices forthe newest homes are in the upper $500,000s,and selling near asking price.
This year’s six-plex (84, 86, 88, 90, 92 and 94 Nor Way) are fully framed and sheathed, while the fourplex for delivery next year (98, 100, 102 and 104 Nor Way) has its concrete slab in place, with a new streetlight podium, water and sewer lines visible in the photo above. While the structural aspects are the same from string to string, Forest City changes the architectural and material finishes with each string, so no two townhouse strings are exactly alike.
Once these units are done, likely in 2024 for the six-plex and late 2024 or early 2025 for the four-plex, that will leave only one more section yet to be built on the south end of the development. Another 30 townhouse lots have been parceled out but not yet developed on the north side of the Heights of Lansing. That should keep the Jonson-Bonniwell family busy through the decade, especially if their leisure cottages plan off of Drake Road gets approval.
Westhaven Homes (Westhaven Road)
This project has flown under the radar since being introduced in the Voice back in 2022. The brainchild of Ecovillage residents Graham and Otto Ottoson, the development calls for eight single-family homes to be built on Westhaven Road on West Hill, on land previously owned by EcoVillage.
Now, what sets this project apart from most is that the homes are being built for the Karen (“Kah-REN”) refugee community, who have fled persecution in the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar (formerly Burma) and resettled in the Ithaca area in recent years. The loss of public housing at the Ithaca Housing Authority’s Northside complex has scattered the tight-knit community across Tompkins County. The homes are slated to be sold to the Karen families at a subsidized price.
The houses are fairly modest, traditionally styled homes, about 1,200 square feet apiece, with shared driveways. Five of the homes are completed or nearing completion, and the other three will be built as a “phase two” — the sewer line connections for those last three houses are visible poking out of the ground. None of the home sales have been finalized yet, but the county assessor’s office valued them at $300-$350k this past winter before they were finished, meaning the final value will be even higher.
Being able to sell these at a deep discount, and losing tens of thousands on each home, is why affordable housing developers must seek government grants. Very few lower-income for-sale homes are built out of altruism. The Ottosons and their extended family happen to be exceptions, to the good fortune of the Karen community of Tompkins County.
Village Grove (Crescent Way, Trumansburg)
Village Grove is a mixed-income, mixed-use project located on the south side of the village of Trumansburg. Originally proposed as Hamilton Square back in 2017, and the subject of much controversy during its review process, the development consists of nine market rate lots, ten affordable for-sale townhomes to be sold into the INHS Community Housing Trust, and forty-six rental units.
Forty apartments will be housed in a two-story elevator building focused on housing for seniors, and the other six will be located in two townhome buildings with three units in each string, geared more towards younger families. The project also includes a new facility for the Trumansburg Community Nursery School.
The apartment building will include a community lounge, laundry facilities for use by residents, and management and maintenance offices. The goal of Village Grove is to create an intergenerational, mixed-income community where seniors can age in place and young families can purchase homes in the competitive local housing market.
INHS has contracted with Purcell Construction to handle the buildout of the 46 lower-income rental units, as well as the new nursery school. Framing continues on all four structures, with a fairly standard concrete slab base with wood framing and ZIP panel plywood sheathing. The construction cost for this first phase clocks in at about $27 million, with completion of the first units anticipated by the end of this year.
According to an interview in Tompkins Weekly earlier this year, for income-qualified households, one-bedroom units will range from $775 to $1,250, two-bedrooms range will from $925 to $1,495; and three-bedrooms will range from $1,050 to $1,695. The application for a unit will be made available in July.
Funding for the lower-income for-sale units has been secured and work on those will begin this summer, per INHS Director of Real Estate Development Lynn Truame. The market-rate lots are available for acquisition from architect Claudia Brenner’s Sundial Development company, so those interested in acquiring a lot on which to build a market-rate home can direct inquiries here.
The for-sale homes will be built on lots that will host a range of housing options, from higher-priced single-family home lots to more affordable pairs of triplex townhouse strings with a shared courtyard.
Compass Manufactured Housing Community (West Seneca Road, Trumansburg)
Meanwhile, on the west side of the village, INHS is pursuing a different kind of development with the Compass Manufactured Housing Community (MHC). INHS bought the Aubles Mobile Home Park in 2021 and secured major grants to improve the property last year.
Future plans for the 138-house neighborhood, which is also located partially in the Seneca County town of Covert, include removing eight vacant, blighted structures and replacing them with energy-efficient manufactured homes. In addition, they aim to make repairs to existing park-owned homes to ensure all safety and code issues are addressed and install new roads, upgrade existing 100-amp electric hookups to 200-amp connections, sanitary lines, street lighting, landscaping and a playground, as well as improving existing water and drainage systems.
The money will also fund the construction of 13 new home pads on the western edge of the property, bringing the home capacity of the park to a total of 151 units.
The photos above show the utilities work underway for the new lots on Leisure Lane, as well as new lamp post podiums, electrical upgrades, and paving. New sewer mains could be seen at the new properties, as well as improved stormwater facilities on the south end of the MHC.
Manufactured/mobile homes aren’t glamorous, but in many of Tompkins County’s outlying towns, they’re one of the few owner-occupied housing options available, even if owner-occupied simply means leasing a lot for a movable property. They’re seen as key to the county’s affordable housing efforts, such that the Town of Dryden’s Affordable Housing Committee is exploring ways to encourage more and better-maintained mobile home communities within its borders.
Regardless, the 2021 purchase also included over 100 acres of additional land that could be redeveloped for future rental housing or other community needs, but for which there are no plans under active consideration at this time. Ithaca-based engineering firmT.G. Millerhas been providing their expertise with infrastructure improvements.
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