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Lansing Town Supervisor Ed LaVigne says the first lottery to fill subsidized apartments in the Milton Meadows project was held Wednesday, but it's not too late to apply.  That is just one of the projects that, after years of discussion, is now starting to fill out the  Town Center area in South Lansing.  In addition to the 72 unit Milton Meadows project, Salt Point Brewery is poised to close on 3 1/2 acres closer to State Route 34B, and the old Egan's Market building behind the Rogues Harbor Inn may be turned into a sort of health and fitness mall.

The road from 34B to Milton Meadows has had its first coat of pavement applied, and a sidewalk leads to the new development.  LaVigne says the final paving will be completed after the buildings are complete.

"They won't put the top coat on until the buildings in the back are done," he says. "That way they don't beat up the road with heavy machines."

Cornerstone Group of Rochester representatives said last year that they plan to have all the units completed and rented this summer.  LaVigne says people interested in renting there may call him for a copy of the application or contact numbers for the developer.

Once the road has been completed and certified by Highway Superintendent Charlie Purcell as meeting town standards for road construction Cornerstone will convey ownership of the road to the Town.  In February the Town Board voted to name the new road 'Louise Bement Lane' in honor of Lansing Town Historian Louise Bement.

The final piece of road work will be moving the outlet of Woodsedge Drive to line up with Louise Bement Lane.  That will mean moving the end of the road a few yards to the west to form a four-way intersection with 34B.  New York State Senator Pam Helming secured a State and Municipalities (SAM) Facilities grant in March of 2018 that would pay up to $75,000 for materials needed to move the road.

With the new road mostly installed other properties on the 153 acre town property can begin to fill in.  Since opening in May of 2018 Salt Point Brewery has outgrown the little building next to Rogue's harbor Inn, and in April the Town Board voted to sell 3 1/2 acres to the owners.  Two of those acres are wetlands, and the remaining land will house a new brewery building that will include a restaurant and brewery, plus a large parking lot.

"We hope to close with Salt Point brewery this week or next week," LaVigne said Wednesday. "The owner is presenting a preliminary site plan at the June 22nd Planning Board meeting to start the process."


"We're essentially in step one of site plan review.  It's simply an informal way for an applicant to have a conversation with the Panning Board about their vision," says Lansing's Director of Planning C.J. Randall.  "It is to show some preliminary renderings, an elevation, a sketch on an underlying map.  One question is how the Town Center Trail will continue through the property.  Will it continue as more of a paved surface?  How wide will it be?  There are a lot of questions to be teased out.  This is a great chance for the applicants to start the conversation and help refine their vision into reality."

LaVigne says that the natural gas moratorium has presented challenges for the Town and Village of Lansing in terms of development and local job development.

"The natural gas moratorium really hurt us," he said. "With Macom leaving we now have to make up the loss with small businesses.  If Macom had stayed it would have been 220 jobs.  That's huge.  Because of the ripple effect that one job generates three others."

Some of those businesses may be part of a kind of health and fitness mall planned for the old Egan's Foodliner building.  Since the grocery store closed in 1994.  Since then it has either stood empty or housed a handful of uses, the most recent of which is a practice space for the Ithaca League of Women Rollers roller derby teams.

"They want to put shops in the old Egan's Market building," LaVigne says. "They want to but a beauty salon there, and maybe a tanning salon, maybe an exercise business, maybe a laundromat."

The Tiny Timber, LLC project that was brought to town officials in 2017 is on hold, but LaVigne says it may still come to fruition.  The original proposal was to build 10 homes in the first phase. Assuming the market is receptive they would build 20 more in phase two, and 30 more in a third phase. They estimated the homes, which would be for sale, would be in the range of 1,000 to 1200 square feet.  The developer's option to purchase the property has not expired at this point.

"That has been revisited.  I think their team has reorganized, but they're still interested," he says.

LaVigne stressed that the Request For Proposals (RFP) that was sent to potential developers in 2017 is still open, and the Town is very interested in selling more of its land to potential businesses and developers.

"We're still aggressively trying to be open for business," LaVigne says. "The RFP is still open for people who want to submit proposals for the town land. We're still trying to bring businesses in here."

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