Upscale senior apartments proposed in DeWitt

DEWITT – Planners in the town of DeWitt are mulling a 150-unit senior apartment complex adjacent to the ShoppingTown Mall property.
The proposal, called Butternut Senior Living, was originally brought before the DeWitt Planning Board in December, and would feature four four-story apartment buildings on an L-shaped parcel that wraps around about a dozen single-family homes on Kinne Street. There would be entrances to the campus on Kinne Street and Butternut Drive. The property abuts the ShoppingTown Mall parking lot and the property where Excellus building is located.
Developer Tom Douglas said 80 to 90 percent of the units in the development would be two-bedroom apartments, which would fetch rents “somewhere north of $2,000.” There would be a few one-bedroom apartments as well as approximately 16 three-bedroom apartments with rooftop terraces.
“We’ve tried to design this so it’s compatible not only with the long-term use of ShoppingTown Mall but also with the residential component that borders on Kinne Street,” Douglas said in December.
The target market for the apartment complex is active, upscale seniors.
“It’s not assisted living, by any means,” Douglas said.
Holistically, the developers said they believe the redevelopment of ShoppingTown Mall will create a new center for the town of DeWitt, and the Butternut Senior Living community will complement that redevelopment.
There could be a small retail component to the complex as well, Douglas said, but it would be focused on services for residents and not be marketed to the general public.
Douglas said the owner of the property, Vaughn Lang, would be willing to donate about 21 acres of property on the opposite side of Butternut Drive to the town so it could be used as a walking trail connecting to the new footbridge that crosses Route 481 at Kinne Street.