Baker students had the pleasure of hearing from Ithaca-based developer John Novarr on Thursday, September 18th, and learned from his experiences in planning, assembling, and executing one of the largest student housing projects in the country in recent years: Collegetown Terrace, at the base of lower Collegetown in Ithaca, NY. Novarr heads-up a development partnership with Phil Proujansky, and also runs an in-house management company Novarr-Mackesey, which owns and manages a dozen other apartment properties in the Ithaca area.
The Collegetown Terrace project team is currently preparing its third and final phase of construction, which will see the largest of 16 buildings included in the project. When completed, the development provides 1,226 bedrooms in about a million square feet of space. The iconic glass entry structure contains a full gym, and each building is outfitted with modern security systems, wireless Internet, and all are fully furnished with beds, desks, tables, chairs, and sofas. A common area with glass-walled conference rooms is provided for residents to utilize for group work, meetings, and events. “It’s a great project. The first year students took a tour during orientation and we were all quite impressed with the quality,” remarked John Strosser (Baker ’16). The project represents a highly amenitized product that did not previously exist in great quantity in the Ithaca area.
Novarr shared his unique insights on developing such a large scale project in the Ithaca market, and the challenges his team faced in acquiring the land necessary, the planning approvals through a series of meetings with the public and City of Ithaca officials, and the strategic decisions made in order to produce a housing product that met the market that they successfully captured. “They [the City] commented ‘this is big, really big,’” recalled Novarr, upon submitting the initial plans; “it’s the largest housing project ever done in Ithaca.” Novarr and his team worked with residents and officials to reach compromises in order to get the project approved, but in the end, demolition of existing buildings began in the Fall of 2011, with construction by winter of that same year.
Ikon.5 architects out of Princeton, New Jersey, completed the design, and Hayner Hoyt Construction provided general contracting services for the first phase, and Welliver for the second and what will be the third phase of construction. “I’m more focused on the design and construction end of the projects we do,” said Novarr, whom has ample experience in both fields. Novarr studied architecture at Cornell University, and ran his own construction company for many years. Along with the third phase of construction for Collegetown Terrace, Novarr is working on a project in Collegetown, which has seen a recent spurt of project proposals due to a re-zoning passage that lessened the requirements of minimum parking per each new housing unit.
