Another hudle for the developer of a downtown hotel to overcome:
Hotel plan in need of city approval for air space
By Krisy Gashler •
kgashler@gannett.com • February 20, 2009
The Commons hotel project may require another Common Council vote allowing the developers to use a piece of public property - but this time it's a strip of air.
Last April, Council voted to sell a 2,140-square-foot piece of land along the edge of the sidewalk on Aurora Street to Long Island developer Jeffrey Rimland to facilitate his development of a new luxury hotel.
His current design would require a piece of the hotel to hang nine feet over the top of the Green Street Garage, developer Steve Flash told Council's planning committee Wednesday night. Flash, who said he is not in the development group proposing the Commons hotel, spoke on behalf of Rimland, who was unable to attend.
Ownership of that particular piece of air is especially complicated because it's above the portion of the garage that is above a portion of the Rothschild's building. And the land under the Rothschild's building is already owned by Rimland, City Attorney Dan Hoffman said.
"The question is who owns the air rights above there," Hoffman said.
Hoffman told the committee his office could pursue a variety of strategies, based on their guidance, including simply negotiating an ownership boundary line or carefully determining exactly how ownership should be established and where.
Alderman Joel Zumoff, D-3rd, said he didn't want to "waste time on bickering over airspace no one else would use."
"My suggestion would be to make this process as rapid as we can and as simple as we can," Zumoff said.
Alderman Dan Cogan, D-5th, said he also preferred expediting the process to facilitate the new hotel.
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Rimland has offered to give the city all the air rights outside of their proposed nine-foot overhang. Cogan said that arrangement would be "better than what I thought we (the city) had."
Alderpersons Jennifer Dotson, I-1st, and Eric Rosario, I-2nd, said they wanted more information before deciding how they would feel about allowing the overhang and potentially giving up or selling public airspace.
Flash asked the Council to provide Rimland guidance on whether they would allow the design, so the developer doesn't spend time and money on designs that won't be approved.
Cogan said he understands why a developer "especially this developer" would want some explicit indication about the Council's views.
Flash is the developer who proposed the Inlet Island hotel that was unexpectedly voted down by Common Council in August 2007.
Rimland spent roughly two years before a variety of city boards in order to buy the 2,140-square-foot patch of property.
The hotel project, named "Hotel Ithaca," would reach 10 stories and 100 feet, the maximum allowed by zoning, Hoffman said. Initial sketch plans of the project are scheduled to come before the Ithaca planning board next Tuesday. The hotel would sit at the eastern end of The Commons in the triangular spot of land surrounded by the Rothschild's building, Aurora Street and Green Street. The land is currently a surface parking lot.
Common Council plans to discuss the issue at their March meeting.