ITHACA, N.Y. — Robert Lewis has joined the SouthWorks team in Ithaca as a development project manager for SHIFT Capital. The SouthWorks site is a 95-acre property at 620 South Aurora St./810 Danby Road, that formerly housed Emerson Power Transmission. The site is in both the city and town of Ithaca and has been vacant […]
ITHACA, N.Y. — Robert Lewis has joined the SouthWorks team in Ithaca as a development project manager for SHIFT Capital.
The SouthWorks site is a 95-acre property at 620 South Aurora St./810 Danby Road, that formerly housed Emerson Power Transmission. The site is in both the city and town of Ithaca and has been vacant since 2012. SouthWorks will be developed over the next seven to 10 years as a new mixed-use neighborhood to include the adaptive reuse of more than 800,000 square feet of former industrial buildings, as well as about 1 million square feet of new construction, according to a news release from SHIFT Capital.
Lewis, who lives in Ithaca, most recently served as finance director for GreenStar Cooperative and has been chair and member of the City of Ithaca Planning and Development Board for more than eight years. Before that, he worked for a variety of startup companies and in multi-family real estate, the release stated. Lewis studied urban and regional economics at Cornell University and completed his undergraduate work at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in economics and real estate. Lewis joins Vicki Taylor Brous, SouthWorks’ project coordinator for the development. She is also an Ithaca resident.
SHIFT Capital says it is a Philadelphia–based, neighborhood investment group that executes real-estate projects and financing strategies to “create equitable communities for the long-term.” SHIFT is partnering with L Enterprises, US Ceiling Corp, and Xylem Projects on the development after purchasing the Ithaca site in December 2022. The SouthWorks ownership group brings together extensive experience in development, construction, and placemaking, along with proven track records in delivering equitable community-serving projects.
“I’ve been excited about this project since it came to the planning board years ago. It’s rare to see this scale of opportunity for real mixed-use development so close to a working downtown,” Lewis said in the release. “SouthWorks has the opportunity to meet some of Ithaca’s most important needs: for housing, for affordability, for innovation space, for industrial space, and more.”
“For neighborhood investments like SouthWorks, we believe in building a team who brings both a diverse set of experience and local intimate knowledge of the community and neighborhoods we are serving,” Brian Murray, partner and CEO of SHIFT Capital, added. “Rob brings extensive experience with local municipalities, finance, and a dedication to seeing this project meet and exceed the community’s expectations.”
The new SouthWorks mixed-use neighborhood is undergoing a design and development phase in 2023, with an anticipated groundbreaking in 2024, according to SHIFT Capital. The site has a completed generic environmental impact statement, a planned unit development (PUD – City of Ithaca) and a planned development zone (PDZ – Town of Ithaca). The site also has an approved site-management plan issued by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, after undergoing environmental remediation. Several buildings on the site have site plan approval from the City of Ithaca. The project has received grant funding from the Appalachian Regional Commission for infrastructure planning, Restore NY funds for abatement and demolition, and NYSERDA funding for energy upgrades to the site. More information on the development is available at southworksithaca.com.