^You know what's a good candidate for redevelopment under these guidelines? The old Kraftees Building. With the proposed changes in height, I think it would be worthwhile to tear the shop/house down and redevelop the plot with a fair-sized apartment building (7 or 8 floors)...
And the Cornell construction parade continues...
http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps.../-1/NEWSFRONT2
CU breaks ground on new animal health center
By Megan Saucke • Special to The Journal • May 23, 2008
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ITHACA — The sun came out Thursday afternoon as ground was broken for the new Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell University.
University leaders and state officials spoke about the importance of the center, which will be built in the northeast corner of Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine complex.
The new center will benefit everybody, said Director Bruce Akey.
“The testing that we do doesn't protect just dairy cows in Wyoming County,” he said. “It protects the dog and the cat in the Ithaca Commons, it protects the people that buy the milk that's produced on these dairy farms, so it has really tangible benefits for everybody that lives in Ithaca as well as all over the state.”
The new center, expected to be completed in 2010, will have three floors and 126,000 gross square feet. It will cost $80 million, $50 million of which is covered by a grant from New York state. The center is a partnership between the veterinary school and the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets.
The center is the only full-service multidisciplinary animal disease diagnostic facility in New York state, according to a press release.
The current center, dedicated in 1976, performs around a million tests on 150,000 samples each year, said David Skorton, president of Cornell University.
Akey said the new building is essential because the current center is overcrowded.
“It does give us some room to do some things we haven't done enough of in the past,” he said. “Things like new method development, doing research to develop those new tests and the new reagents that are needed out there.”
Former diagnostic lab director Donald Lein said the new building will help the school keep up with ever-advancing technology, and pointed out that it will house several disciplines, including microbiologists, chemists, toxicologists and pathologists.
“We deal in all sorts of recreational situations,” he said. “Especially with pets and with wildlife, and with food problems and health diseases.”
Lein said the diagnostic lab also benefits students because dozens are employed by the lab.
“They do get a very practical education through that sort of thing,” he said.
Michael Kotlikoff, dean of veterinary medicine, said the center is instrumental in promoting the health of animals and humans. The center tests milk from every dairy farm in the state and regularly visits the farms, he said.
The new building will have labs with biosafety level three. The biosafety levels are designations that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention set in terms of precautions taken to keep diseases contained within laboratories. Level three deals with “nastier bugs,” Akey said, like the West Nile Virus.
Security includes showering before entering and exiting, and putting air through specialized filters, he said.
Biosafety level four labs deal with deadly diseases and viruses, and are usually only at places like the CDC, he added. Cornell has no plans to construct labs at biosafety level four.
Concept Systems celebrates downtown relocation
By Krisy Gashler • Journal Staff • May 23, 2008
ITHACA — Planners and politicians in City Hall spend a great deal of time talking about how important it is to bring and keep businesses downtown, to strengthen the urban core and prevent sprawl.
Mary Kane is doing it.
Kane, the president and CEO of Concept Systems Inc., held an open house and ribbon cutting Thursday evening in her new location on the second and third floors of 136 The Commons.
When asked why she decided to keep her business downtown, Kane responded, “The question really is why Ithaca? And if I'm going to be in Ithaca I'm going to be down here.”
Concept Systems is celebrating its 15th year in business, all of them downtown. The business began in the former Babcock Hall on Aurora Street and was previously in Gateway Commons.
Gateway and its landlord, Mack Travis, were wonderful, Kane said, her company just outgrew the space.
Kane and her husband, Cornell professor Bill Trochim, decided to invest their own money to purchase the 100-year-old building on The Commons and invest more than $330,000 to renovate the second and third floors of the building.
“What we believe in is neighborhood and community and building things from the ground up,” Kane said. “Almost literally.”
The mixed-use building — another city hall catchphrase — contains retail on the ground floor, office space on floors two and three, and rental apartments on the fourth floor.
Commons neighbor and Autumn Leaves bookstore owner Joe Wetmore said the building looks “amazing.”
“I think they did an absolutely wonderful job with this building, taking older elements and mixing them in with new and creating a beautiful space,” he said. “This is the very kind of thing that downtowns all over are looking for: someone to take those walk-up second floors and turn them into something vibrant, useful, and exciting to be in.”
Gary Ferguson, executive director of the Downtown Ithaca Alliance, said Kane and Concept Systems should serve as an example to businesses in Ithaca and throughout Upstate New York that re-investing downtowns is good for cities and good for businesses.
“Concept Systems' willingness to take on this location, Mary's willingness to ante up and buy the building and do all the renovations, it's a really great example and case study for anybody else in this community or really in Upstate New York,” he said. “There aren't many places that have actually accomplished this.”
Concept Systems is a 15-employee software development and consulting firm. They consult with state and federal governments, not-for-profit organizations and some businesses, Kane said. Clients have included the National Institutes for Health and the Centers for Disease Control.
A music historian and librarian by education, Kane said her company helps large organizations determine goals and values and make better organizational decisions.