ITHACA, N.Y. — A prominent Collegetown developer and landlord is expanding his portfolio with the multi-million purchase of a pair of apartment houses in the neighborhood’s inner core.
“Urbano Holdings LLC” paid $4.5 million for 113 Oak Avenue and 117 Oak Avenue, according to a July 23 deed filing with the Tompkins County Clerk. The seller was Haag Properties, a family company that has owned the pair of apartment homes since the early 1970s.
Meanwhile, the address listed for Urbano Holdings traces back to the same one used by Urban Ithaca, which owns its properties under a plethora of LLCs unique to each asset. Urban Ithaca is the real estate management side of the business operation of the Lower family, who are longtime active developers and landlords in the Ithaca area.
The Lowers own over 120 units with 300 beds in the Collegetown neighborhood. Many of their properties are older apartment homes, but occasionally they undertake new construction. The most notable recent addition to their portfolio was the construction of Collegetown Crossing at 307 College Avenue.
According to the Tompkins County Department of Assessment, 113 Oak Avenue is a 3,736 square-foot, 12-bedroom house assessed at $810,000, and 117 Oak Avenue is a 6-unit, 5,756 square-foot apartment building assessed at $1,060,000.
The lofty sales price — about 250 percent of the assessed value of the properties — can be attributed to a couple of factors. For one, 113 and 117 Oak Avenue are quite close to the College Avenue entrance to Cornell University. Such close proximity to the Big Red, means a captive rental market, with plenty of students willing to pay a high price for such easy access to campus.
Perhaps more salient is that Josh Lower, who currently leads the family business, previously proposed a 35-unit apartment building on the vacant lot at 121 Oak Avenue, just east of the property at 117 Oak Avenue. While the plan was approved in 2021, Lower did not move forward with construction of the project.
An earlier proposal in the late 2000s for the same site was dropped due to construction costs. The acquisition of 113 and 117 Oak Avenue opens up the possibility of a larger apartment building through lot consolidation, provided a proposal can make the financial aspects work.
A request for comment inquiring about future plans for the property was not returned.
For the record, while old, 113 and 117 Oak Avenue are not landmarked historic properties. The properties are zoned CR-4, which allows for a four-story building with up to 50% lot coverage; more importantly, parking is not a requirement in the CR-4 zone, which is the transition zone between the innermost urban core of the neighborhood and the smaller residential properties leading into East Hill and Belle Sherman.
Should any projects be proposed, it will have to go through the City of Ithaca Planning Board for Site Plan Review, as any major project would.
In the meanwhile, though, the purchase is yet another marker in a trend towards consolidation of Collegetown real estate into the hands of about 10 large, mostly Ithaca-based landlords, a stark contrast to the multitude of smaller “mom-and-pop” operations that owned property in Collegetown in earlier decades.