Tompkins County project team seeks SHPO signoff to deconstruct three downtown buildings, advance consolidated government campus

Holt Architects presented the design team’s schedule and preservation strategy for a proposed Tompkins County center of government in downtown Ithaca, saying the next formal milestone is submitting documentation to the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) and hosting a SHPO site visit in April.

Quay Thompson, principal architect at Holt Architects, told the committee the project team sees three primary goals: “to consolidate government services to a single campus,” to “improve the quality of work space for county government employees,” and to “reduce the long term cost of government services by getting out of existing leases and consolidating departments into a single flexible office building.”

The architectural team summarized the options analysis the submission will present to SHPO: (1) retain all three existing buildings on the site (deemed infeasible chiefly because of parking and cost), (2) retain some buildings while adapting others (more costly and still problematic), or (3) deconstruct the three buildings and build a new, salvaging and reusing materials where practical. Thompson said the submission will include background, due-diligence options, and a comparative summary of findings to explain why the team is requesting permission to remove the three buildings.

Why this matters: SHPO approval is a critical path item. Thompson said the team expects a draft SHPO submission around March 10, a final submission around March 20, and a SHPO on-site tour scheduled for April 10; the team intends to start schematic design May 12 if SHPO engagement does not…