Cornell applies for technology park expansion

A plan for a two-story building of 92,000 square feet at 41 Thornwood Drive is before the Village of Lansing Planning Board. The board also will hear a separate request to modify an already-approved proposal for a 30,000-square-foot expansion by adding another 10,000 square feet.

Two weeks ago, Cornell University announced a plan to hire a developer to build a 130,000-square-foot office building in downtown Ithaca and move some university offices there from the Business and Technology Park.

"There's not a single vacant square foot" at the park, Cornell Real Estate Director John Majeroni said in a subsequent interview.

Majeroni declined to comment Thursday on plans for the new space.

The business park, a 22-building complex spread out in the vicinity of the Route 13-Warren Road intersection near the Tompkins County Airport, has 577,000 square feet of space. Though affiliated with Cornell, it is taxable, unlike much of the university's property, which gets an exemption as an educational institution. The park's Web site says 67 percent of its tax payments go to public schools. Most of the park is in the Lansing Central School District, and a small part is in the Ithaca City School District.

The park houses 88 tenant companies, the majority of them technology-based and many spin-offs from research conducted at the university.

The village Planning Board would have to issue a special permit for the construction. It reviews large-scale plans for issues such as parking, landscaping, drainage and lighting, said village Zoning Officer Ben Curtis. Cornell Real Estate has received such a permit for the 30,000-square-foot expansion and seeks to have it modified for another 10,000 square feet.

The new proposal consists of two stories of about 45,000 square feet each. That compares to about 51,000 for the new Tops supermarket under construction on Triphammer Road.