Progression continues on the Southworks redevelopment project

What was once known as Morse Chain, Emerson Power Transmission Plant and, most recently, the Chain Works District, is being reimagined as “Southworks.” While many are aware of the proposal of the new project, recent developments have set the plan in motion.

In Dec. 2022, partners involved with the project officially closed on the property at 620 S. Aurora St. Southworks is described as “a new mixed-use neighborhood, including housing, technology, commercial, retail and industrial/manufacturing to serve as a catalyst for Ithaca’s local economy.” The project will also develop the Gateway Trail, which will run at the base of the property and connect the South Hill Recreation Trail to Buttermilk Falls and the Kirby Edmunds Bridge.

The $300+ million endeavor is led by Philadelphia-based SHIFT Capital in addition to the property’s previous developer, David Lubin, of Ithaca-based L Enterprises. SHIFT is also working with two woman-owned firms on the project: Rochester-based US Ceiling Corp., led by Melissa James-Geska, and New York City-based Xylem, led by Nnenna Lynch. Vicki Taylor Brous, an Ithaca local and project coordinator for the site, is also working with SHIFT.

“We’re a mission-driven, B-Certified real estate group focused on building equitable neighborhoods. That is what we do. And through that, we do a lot of adaptive reuse, and I think one of the important things for us was our team,” said Brian Murray, SHIFT Capital partner and CEO. “We’re using some of the existing team and bringing in some new members to the team. We just wanted to make sure that we were looking at it with a fresh set of eyes and evaluating all the opportunities within the site.”

Heather McDaniel, of Ithaca Area Economic Development, said now that SHIFT Capital has purchased the site and has a full team, they are updating a number of the studies on the site and conducting new studies.

“They’re updating some of the traffic and transportation infrastructure studies and have put together sort of a vision of different uses for all of the building and looking into electrification studies, not just for Southworks, but for the surrounding housing area,” McDaniel said. “Now they’re looking at sort of financial feasibility for different parts of the project. This is probably the largest development Ithaca will ever see, so it’s going to take some time.”

Vicki Taylor Brous, an Ithaca local and SHIFT Capital employee, has been working on the project since its conception in 2013. She has been a consultant in construction for 10 years and has worked on the environmental impact statement and grants.

Brous added that SHIFT has a focus on uplifting communities, which is perfect for this Ithaca project because they are taking a holistic approach to the site’s development.

“We are looking at what are the biggest issues in Ithaca that really need to be tackled. And also looking at this development and saying, ‘What can I offer to the community?’ So, we worked with many local construction and landscaping companies to address these questions,” Brous said. “We decided to go into this planning process at the end of last year to revisit that, and what came out of that is that there are some needs in the community.”

Housing is one of the biggest issues that will be addressed in the redevelopment of the site, with plans for mixed-use housing and mixed-income housing available at various locations throughout the 95 acres. There will be market-rate housing, as well as middle- and lower-income housing. 

“We had the main entrance area, which we’re calling The Gateway, and took a look at this really dense group of apartment buildings in our original master plan. We kind of scaled that back a little bit and have put multiple apartment buildings and commercial buildings, and we’re looking at an innovation center that could potentially be used for business retention purposes,” Brous said. “We’re currently studying the reasons why businesses leave Ithaca and Tompkins County and go to other markets. We want to keep them here, obviously, and we want to provide space for them to incubate and stay here, so that will be another part of the development.” 

Workforce development is also part of the redevelopment and important to the county as a whole. Businesses have been struggling to attract and retain employees, and an estimated 3,000 or more employees in the construction and green trades are needed to make this project happen. 

“We’re looking at putting in one of our buildings a Workforce Development Center that would focus on these types of industries. With efficiency, Green New Deal and the New Energy Code, we know that electrification and green jobs are going to be needed in this community in order to achieve the ambitious goals of the project, but also the goals of the city and county,” Brous said.

In addition to mixed-income housing and business incubators, the project team has space set aside for manufacturing and industrial business use, restaurants or food courts and small business spaces. All of this will create a varied and fully usable space that will complement the downtown business district. 

“One big thing that we’re excited about, that is a change from prior iterations, is creating a very public-facing trailhead and access point for the trails throughout the community that we hope is a way to really make sure that this site is porous in a way that contributes to the community as opposed to some sort of wall around it. That will be a focus over the next 12 months as well,” Murray added.

“We expect this to be something to strengthen downtown, and the way we hope to do that is through our commercial programming and how we think about that commercial programming and really providing the community something that is complementary,” Murray said. “I think the third piece of it is … this kind of idea of a public amenity, so this is not meant to be a gated community. The goal is to invite everyone, even if you don’t live there. We want the public to come into the space, whether that’s the public spaces that we plan, whether that’s the trailhead and access, businesses, college visitors – everyone is welcome here.” 

Plans and research for the site continue to move forward, and SHIFT and its partners said there may be more updates for the community in the next year.