Yet another collegetown bar bites the dust

[Trotsky]

Lehigh Valley, Cortland branch:

[upprdeck]

BK coming back


First we got our KFC back, now BK.  Can pizza hut be far behind with Pizza pizza gone?

[jtwcornell91]

BK coming back


First we got our KFC back, now BK.  Can pizza hut be far behind with Pizza pizza gone?

But will it be a real Pizza Hut or just a takeout counter?

[upprdeck]

Cortland has been waiting for 2 yrs for the one they got approved.


Cheap pizza hut buffet was a great deal, and we went from 2 to none in Ithaca..

Everything has gone down hill

Lost our Pizza huts, Ponderosas, our Italian Buffets, our Chinese Buffets, Our Pizza buffets, and our Bowling Alleys.

What has Ithaca become.

[RichH]

Cortland has been waiting for 2 yrs for the one they got approved.


Cheap pizza hut buffet was a great deal, and we went from 2 to none in Ithaca..

Everything has gone down hill

Lost our Pizza huts, Ponderosas, our Italian Buffets, our Chinese Buffets, Our Pizza buffets, and our Bowling Alleys.

What has Ithaca become.

Well adjusted.

[David Harding]

one comes back

agave location

> a former railroad depot building

I had no idea!  Wonder which line.

On the linked map you can see the East Ithaca station.  
Until 1976 freight trains still came in from the northeast bringing coal to the Cornell heating plant.  The June flooding in 1972 washed out too many bridges to make it worth rebuilding and the line was formally abandoned four years later.  Much of that line in both directions is now the East Ithaca Recreation Way.  https://ithacatrails.org/map?trailList=East%20Ithaca%20Recreation%20Way

[upprdeck]

Another place closes Firehouse

[upprdeck]

another one closingApplebees closing

Again.  Raising rent and being empty makes more money?

Harder and harder to find quick easy sit down food.

Used to swing in after hockey games.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

another one closingApplebees closing

Again.  Raising rent and being empty makes more money?

Harder and harder to find quick easy sit down food.

Used to swing in after hockey games.

I did too.  Bummer.

[stereax]

another one closingApplebees closing

Again.  Raising rent and being empty makes more money?

Harder and harder to find quick easy sit down food.

Used to swing in after hockey games.

I guess, yeah. Feels like commerce is moving away from the Lansing region as a whole - I stopped by the Ithaca Mall a week or two ago and spent entirely too much time wandering around. Place is half-abandoned, more empty stores than full ones, flagships replaced by Cayuga Health services. Had a yap with an employee of the mall, and he shrugged his shoulders a little bit and said that everyone knows it's basically a ticking time bomb at this point.

For "quick easy sit-down food", CTB's now open til midnight in the Collegetown location. There are a few decent places around the Commons, a Chili's by the Wegmans...

[George64]

Although not always quick because it's so popular, I recommend the Ithaca Bakery for great sandwiches.  The Triphammer location is usually way less busy than the Meadow Street one.

[billhoward]

The first indoor mall was 1956 in Minnesota. Their peak years were 1980s, 1990s. Some indoor malls are reconverting to outdoor malls. Affluent malls are still doing okay. A mall is affluent if it has, sat, a Neiman-Marcus, Nordstrom, or a Tesla or Lucid showroom.

Malls were hurt because the anchors at many mid-price malls fell out of favor whether in a mall or freestanding: JC Penney, Montgomery Ward, Sears ("Where America Used to Shop").  

Mall movie theaters have come and some have gone. Pyramid-now-Ithaca Mall was on a glideslope to close its theaters circa 2023 with the bankruptcy of parent Regal but the closing was off and is now off indefinitely.

Some of the shopping focus has shifted to Route 13 / Elmira Road out toward Buttermilk Road.

There is a Costco just west of Syracuse. There has been talk of an Ikea in Buffalo maybe elsewhere along Route 90 but so far no action.

Upscale groceries are doing well: Wegman's (which began in Rochester), Whole Foods, Trader Joes.

[upprdeck]

Cost drives things

Shopping was so much easier at a mall and people went in droves

Rent went up, some stores struggled and Rent went up some more

Shopping down on 13 does not even come close to what the mall experience was.

You go to one like Destiny and you can go in and out of 20 stores and buy a few things.  You go to the strip malls and you go 1-2-3 stores and go home

It is interesting that stores like JCPenny/Sears which had pretty good runs and lots of variety are  mostly gone.  Target is packed and its like a dumbed down Pennys

When JCPenny left Ithaca they were the 2nd highest profit store in the state, once they left that mall has never been the same.

[Iceberg]

Collegetown is a shell of its former self. I've been in Ithaca on a few weekend nights so far this year and even most of the students are going out to bars downtown near the Commons. It's actually hard to find a bar that doesn't have undergrads.

[marty]

Although not always quick because it's so popular, I recommend the Ithaca Bakery for great sandwiches.  The Triphammer location is usually way less busy than the Meadow Street one.

It's a good choice but not after a hockey game as it is closed.