Ithaca Commons - History

History

The Commons was created in 1974, in part to counteract a proposed mall to have been located where the Wegmans and Wal-Mart plazas are located approximately 2 miles southwest of the Commons.The name The Commons was the winning entry in a community-wide “name the mall” contest, and a prize of $1,000 in cash and gift certificates went to Ithaca High School senior Bill Ryan who had entered the name after a visit to the Boston Common. This was a time that many small towns in the United States were experimenting with creating pedestrian malls. The Ithaca Commons is one of the few such experiments that remains. It faced immediate competition, with the Ithaca area's first mall opening the same decade in the neighboring village of Lansing.

Together with the rest of Upstate New York, the Commons suffered in the late 1990s with many empty storefronts, and former Ithaca Mayor Alan Cohen (owner of a restaurant located on the Commons) proposed removing the Commons and opening up the two-block portion of State Street to automobile traffic once more.

In recent years, however, the Commons has been relatively prosperous, perhaps due to the growing county economy, one of the few growing economies in Upstate New York. Thanks in part to a controversial density incentive program, much of the new development in Ithaca has centered on a small radius around the Commons. One of the most recent projects completed was Seneca Place, a multistory mixed use building, incorporating retail, office space, and a Hilton Garden Inn hotel. The Cayuga Green project has brought the Commons area a new multi-level parking garage, and phase two of the project will bring a luxury apartment complex and a multiplex movie theater. Another luxury apartment building, Gateway Apartments, was recently completed.

The Commons has managed to survive despite the lack of a traditional retail anchor. After Rothschilds (a local department store) closed in the early 1980s, the closing of the McCurdy's store in the same location in the mid 1990s, the closing of a Woolworths store one block away in the late 1990s, and again after a CVS store closed a decade later, the Commons' demise was predicted. While the demise has not happened, it remains an eclectic mix of small businesses, mostly specialty stores, bars, used book stores and restaurants, while everyday retail stores have located to a commercial strip on the southwest edge of the city. The Commons and the immediate area once hosted department stores, but all closed by the late 1990s. While the Commons has, off and on, been the location for chain stores, it remains mostly independent. The former McDonalds in the center of the Commons closed in the early 1990s and remained vacant for almost a decade (it now hosts a sports bar). However, in 2006, the Ithaca area's first Starbucks opened adjacent to the Commons, and a Subway opened as well. The Commons also hosts a Ten Thousand Villages, a smaller chain store selling only fair-trade gifts. In early 2009, A Gimme! coffee opened up opposing Starbucks for a fierce competition of the business coffee market.