Miracles Do NOT Happen…

http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20090211/NEWS01/902110328/1002#pluckcomments

So, let’s start with the article:

http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20090211/NEWS01/902110328/1002#pluckcomments

“A group of Cornell professors is urging the university to hold off on construction of Milstein Hall, citing concern about the economic recession and the building’s environmental footprint.

In response, a group of Cornell architecture faculty is urging the university to move forward, saying the new building is needed to keep its top-ranked department accredited.

The ultimate decision on whether to go forward with Milstein Hall lies with University President David Skorton, and he has not yet made that decision, Cornell spokesman Simeon Moss said Tuesday.

Skorton announced a university-wide construction “pause” in October. The pause extends through the end of the fiscal year in June.

“Basically all projects that don’t have a shovel in the ground are subject to the pause, and the president and the executive vice president are reviewing those projects,” Moss said. On whether Cornell will move forward with Milstein Hall, Moss said, “That decision by the president hasn’t been made yet.”

Throughout its city approval process, Cornell officials repeatedly said that Milstein Hall is not subject to the construction pause.

On Monday Mark Cruvellier, chair of the Department of Architecture, sent The Journal a joint statement in favor of Milstein.

“This is a building that is urgently needed by the Department in order to maintain our accreditations as a professional school of architecture,” reads the statement signed by 13 architecture professors. “The building permit is in hand, bids have been reconciled, and it is, in today’s parlance, shovel-ready. Given the current low cost of materials and competitive bidding situation, to delay construction of Milstein Hall yet again will only add to its cost.”

Cruvellier could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Milstein Hall has spent 10 years in the design and approval process, including two years gaining approvals from a variety of city boards. The city’s planning board and landmarks preservation commission have both signed off on the project.

Milstein Hall is proposed as a modern, glass structure that will physically connect with Rand and Sibley halls and stretch across University Avenue toward the Foundry. Another cantilevered extension would extend out into the arts quad.

A group of at least 25 Cornell faculty and alumni have petitioned the university to halt construction of Milstein, using The Cornell Daily Sun, other media and, today, the university’s faculty senate, government professor Elizabeth Sanders said.

Those opposed include an architecture professor, Jonathan Ochshorn, and music professor Martin Hatch, who has spoken against Milstein before a variety of city boards over the last two years.

Sanders contrasted the process and design for Milstein with Ithaca College’s new Park Center.

The Park Center received the highest rating possible from the U.S. Green Building Council, a LEED Platinum, and cost $19 million, according to the Ithaca College Web site.

“And we’re going to spend $60 (million) and get less space and much lower sustainability and a lot of offensive aspects?” Sanders said. “If Ithaca College can do this, why can’t Cornell do this?”

Andrew Magre, project manager for Milstein Hall and the Central Avenue Parking Garage, said last month the total project cost would be approximately $54 million.

Milstein Hall would be roughly 50,000 square feet, according to information presented to Ithaca’s planning board, and will include studio, gallery, meeting and exhibition space, and a 275-seat auditorium. The parking garage will include two underground levels and one surface level for a total of 199 parking spaces.”

***

Let’s consider the Park Center for a moment.

Photo by Granger Macy

The Park Center was a $19 million dollar project to build a 38,800 sq ft building [1] on the Ithaca College campus that was completed in early 2008 (it’s also the building that caught fire during the fourth of July celebrations).

So, let’s consider some key differences between the Park Center and Milstein Hall.

-Milstein is cantilvered and is connected to two structures that are a century old (Rand Hall) and ~110 years old (East Sibley). Park Center isn’t. The area was home to a green space that bordered a parking lot (and oddly enough, was not a suggested building site on the Ithaca College master plan [2], and to the contrary seems to throw off the master plan by cutting off the proposed green avenue through the main campus).

-Milstein had to go through red tape hell after Paul Milstein’s original $10 million donation in 2000. Park Center was launched with a major donation from Dorothy Park in 2002 [1]. The cost has gone from somewhere in the 20 million dollar range when first proposed to $40 million from a couple of years ago to about $54 million today. I wonder if that total includes the $2 million Cornell paid for University Avenue so they could actually build the damn building.

-Milstein incorporates a parking garage, auditorium, and bus stop. Park Center has a large atrium, but otherwise it’s mostly offices and smaller lacture spaces [1]. Park Center is LEED platinum (highest ranking), and Milstein is gold (second highest ranking).

My issue is that the comparison does an unfair presentation of facts. If we were to plop Milstein out on the alumni fields or near the vet school, I bet it would be a lot of cheaper too. Park Center didn’t have the red tape issues or ambient environment issues that Milstein Hall has to deal with.

My other issue is that some people are finding fault with the modern design. Let’s not start that crap again. In my own opinion. this is probably the least offensive design of the three that have been planned, if but just because it spares Rand from the wrecking ball. I’ll admit I’m no fan of it, but it’s less jarring than the previous two proposals. For one thing, architecture schools have a habit of wanting to be on the cutting edge of design (makes sense, considering building design is much of their field). Plus, the design is going to be different, because if people want to preserve Rand and Sibley the building has to build up or out. Being on the Arts Quad, I’m willing to wager some passionate people would rather burn the construction site down than let it build up.

As much as this site is a Cornell construction monitor, and as I much as I actually like seeing new projects go forward, I’m really torn opinion-wise. Yes, I’d like to see the the architecture build-out so it can have more (badly-needed) space. However, with operations cuts across the board, I don’t see a good reason this should be spared. My concern, however, is that prices will continue to skyrocket, costs will be prohibitive and the project will have to go back to the drawing board again, and AAP will have a crisis due to its trip through red tape hell.

[1] http://www.ithaca.edu/news/release.php?id=2501

[2]http://www.ithaca.edu/masterplan/reports/sept_2002_content_pages.pdf

The Ithaca College Greek System

So, I’ve always found it vaguely amusing that although officially Ithaca College doesn’t recognize Greek fraternities and sororities, their letters still manage to appear at events like Relay for Life over at Barton Hall.

Officially, IC recognizes three professional music fraternities and a performing arts professional fraternity (which has since closed). In terms of the student population, these are a drop in the bucket when it comes to size and importance/recognition. [1, 2]

Not that it was always this way. Ithaca College once had a thriving if smallish Greek system. Thing is, Delta Kappa fraternity (which had only a few chapters anyway) brought the system down in 1980 with the death of a pledge. According to the book Wrongs of Passage:

“A long-standing tradition of forcing pledges to perform calisthenics in a steamroom with the heat turned up high finally claimed a victim, Joseph Parella, 18.”

Which just goes to show you what can happen when people in charge of safety and planning exercise incredibly poor judgement.

Still, the system does exist in some weird underground sort of way. I don’t think they even had houses back when they were recognized, since Ithaca College is an all-residential college (meaning most students live on campus, with the exception of seniors in an apartment perhaps), and they certainly wouldn’t have them. A relatively thorough google search brings up some of the underground fraternities and sororities of IC:

Delta Kappa- Apparently it still exists, though merely as a shadow of its former self. [3]

Pi Lambda Chi

Phi Kappa Sigma

Alpha Epsilon Pi

Phi Iota Alpha (Latino interest fraternity)

Phi Mu Zeta (sorority)

Gamma Delta Pi (sorority) [7]

In conclusion, they’re underground; most of the IC students think they’re stupid or haven’t heard of them; and they barely manage to exist. If anything, this should be a lesson on what can go horribly wrong if due safety and precaution aren’t exercised.

[1]http://collegeprowler.com/colleges/ithaca-college/greek-life/

[2]http://fuse.ithaca.edu/1455/

[3]http://members.tripod.com/deltakappa/

[4]http://www.ithaca.edu/ithacan/articles/0412/02/opinion/3greek_l.htm

[5]http://www.ithaca.edu/ithacan/articles/0009/28/news/fraternities.htm

[6]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca_College

[7]http://www.freewebs.com/gammadeltapisisters/currentsisters.htm

Ithaca College Master Plan

So, I know recently I devoted five entries and several hours of my life to coverage of the Cornell Master Plan. But, while I back the Big Red in the spotlight, it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t give a little attention to the neighbors on South Hill.

Ithaca College has also completed a master plan, created by Sasaki Associates and finalized in September 2002 [1]. The plan is available for perusing online, but it comes in a rather crappy resolution pdf that makes it almost impossible to pick out some of the finer features. But, let’s give it a try anyway.

Note one thing as we glance through this: The Park Business School (architect Rober A.M. Stern) , the Gateway Center (HOLT architects), and the new Athletic Center have been recently built or are currently underway in some stage of approval or construction.

Park Business School (L) Gateway Center (R)

So, a brief history on the physical plant of Ithaca College; the first five dorms and the student union were built in 1961 (previously, the college occupied rented spaces in downtown Ithaca; classes were taught in the dorms and union from 1961-63). The first academic building, Friends Hall (it was paid for by the organization Friends of Ithaca College), was built in 1963. Five more residence halls and a health center were completed by the end of the year.

A little side note; for those unaware of the living arrangements of Ithaca College, it is an all-residential college, meaning that with the exception of seniors who choose to do so, all housing is on-campus. So they have more dorms than we at Cornell would be likely to suspect.

The campus expanded rapidly in the late 1960s, but saw very little construction in the 1970s, with the exception of a few smaller projects at the beginning of the decade and the end of the decade. The next wave of construction began with Smiddy Hall, which was completed in 1981. Ithaca College tends to play favorites with architects; Tallman & Tallman designed their first twenty or so buildings up to 1971, and then with a few exceptions, HOLT architects has designed most of the rest since the mid-1980s.

Go on and tell me the sixties weren’t a bad decade for architectural design. I’m all ears for any justification.

The master plan identifies the need for about 170,000 sq. ft of office space immediately, and another 200 parking spaces. It also says that despite the stunning local topography, that the campus’s open spaces fail to utilize the area properly and are unmemorable as a result.

In the Ithaca College master plan, new development is identified in a darker shade of orange, as compared to the lighter shade used to denote existing buildings in 2002.

One of the goals of the plan is to have everything on central campus within a 10-minte walk from any given location. As a result of this pursued ideal, the central campus is much denser.

The total academic/office space to be built is around 500,000 square feet, with an additional 380,000 sqaure feet of additional dorm space.

The central campus also features a “main street” connecting many of the important area of the campus.

In case anyone’s wondering, here’s a massing of the new athletic center in its location next to the rest of the campus:

So, it’s towards the Cornell-far-side, but I still think that due to its massive size, Collegetown residents will still be able to pick it out on the southern skyline.

So while we have our plans going to work, IC’s already implemented theirs and has been trying to meet their goals for a little while now. Here’s hoping that the plan is as successful as they hope it will be.

P.S. I wanted to write about the IJ article extending the Collegetown moratorium and limiting building heights even further in Collegetown (on the five or six parcels that would’ve actually been raised), but I’ve just decided that councilwoman Mary Tomlan isn’t worth the time and effort of deriding her as a backwards-thinking malcontent.

 

 

 

 

[1]http://www.ithaca.edu/masterplan/reports/sept_2002_content_pages.pdf