ITHACA — They weathered the wind and the rain, summer heat and the challenges of communicating over the din of downtown traffic.

And when the speeches were done, Ithaca's movers and shakers cheered Tuesday afternoon's curbside ribbon-cutting at Seneca Place on The Commons and sauntered into the air-conditioned halls of its Hilton Garden Inn hotel for drinks, hors d'oeuvres and tours.

“It's amazing,” investor Nick Lambrou, of Lambrou Real Estate, said of the $30 million project. “But it's the people that made it happen — and Cornell, of course.”

The 9-story mixed use building at the corner of Seneca and Tioga streets is made up of 100,000 square feet of office space and the 104-room hotel. Cornell University will occupy more than 70,000 square feet of office space, where more than 300 of its employees will work.

“They're going to contribute a great deal to the community, and to the downtown,” interim Cornell President Hunter Rawlings III said.

Rawlings, serving while Cornell seeks a successor in the wake of Jeffrey Lehman's recent resignation, occupied the president's office half a decade ago, when Cornell and the City of Ithaca began negotiations on the project. And he presided over groundbreaking ceremonies back in the summer of 2003.

City leadership has changed since then, too. Mayor Carolyn Peterson spoke Tuesday. Predecessor Alan Cohen, one of the project's earliest backers, also graced the occasion.

Peterson praised the project as the cornerstone of an increasingly vibrant downtown, and of fostering sustainable growth over added sprawl. “We look forward to showcasing all that the city has to offer,” she said.

Cohen said the presence of important Cornell decision-makers working in the building could provide them with a dramatically new perspective on the community — a boon, he said, for town-gown relations.

Tuesday's pomp and circumstance doesn't signal the end of prep work at Seneca Place. The hotel won't open until Aug. 1, noted Ciminelli Development Co. Vice President David Chiazza. Cornell has begun moving into its office space, a process that will take about two weeks to complete. Tenant Smith Barney is in place, though negotiations continue with prospective tenants for other spaces, including a retail area on the ground floor, Chiazza said.

Not all were celebrating. Representatives from the Empire State Regional Council of Carpenters Local 281, who have chided the use of nonunion and nonlocal workers on parts of the project, held up “Shame on Ciminelli” placards across the street.

Ciminelli officials have steadfastly defended their practices as incorporating substantial union labor on the project, in accordance with pledges they made at the outset.

Contact: rdupuis@ithacajournal.com

Originally published July 27, 2005