By Jason Emerson

editor

The Woodlands at Limestone Lakes, a major proposed residential development project in Manlius, has been canceled after developer COR Development Co. LLC walked away from the deal last month.

COR was working to purchase 129 acres of land on N. Burdick Street in the town of Manlius, across from the Towne Center shopping plaza, and planned to build 17 single-family homes and 10 apartment buildings with a total of 148 units on the site.

An official with property owner Fietta Realty Corp. did not dispute that COR Development Co. made known it is not moving forward with the project but would not comment. The official said the Fietta company reserved the right to comment at a later date.

Calls to the COR Development Co. LLC office in Fayetteville were not returned.

The COR Development website listings of the company’s projects completed or in development does not have The Woodlands at Limestone Lakes listed.

Manlius and Fayetteville municipal leaders said the project cancellation was recent news for them.

“I just recently heard that they were not pursuing this project, but I have not talked with any of the principals involved and am not privy to their reasons why at this time,” said Manlius Town Supervisor Ed Theobald.

Fayetteville Mayor Mark Olson said he found about the project’s demise last week. “We thought COR had just pulled out of placing a light at the intersection [of N. Burdick Street and a Towne Center plaza across from Carrabbas’ Italian Grill]; we didn’t know they pulled out of the whole project,” Olson said. “I have no real comment other than that the town has been doing a nice job keeping us in the loop. Everybody has been working together to make sure everybody’s concerns were addressed. We had concerns, but we knew they would be addressed with the process.”

Olson said that even though COR walked away from the deal, the development company is still obligated to build the new traffic light on N. Burdick Street by Carrabas’ for which they signed a contract with Onondaga County. “We know COR had an agreement with the DOT [state Department of Transportation], and the DOT expects COR to adhere to that agreement,” Olson said. “It has nothing to do with their housing project. COR is bound to put that light together per their agreement with the county.”

Olson said that if COR tries to back out of the intersection light contract the county should enforce that agreement. “The county can’t pay for it; the village certainly will not pay for it; the developer should pay for it — I’m being told COR is going to be held to that agreement.”

The COR Development project was near a proposed retail center being developed by Mark Shattuck on N. Burdick Street. That plan calls for a 6,000-square-foot one-story plaza. It is currently being reviewed by the village of Fayetteville.

Clarification

In our previous story, “‘We’re all going to be underwater’ — Burdick St. neighbors fear flooding concerns drowned out by nearby project proposals,” published in the May 23 issue, it was stated that N. Burdick Road landowner Fietta Realty Corp. offered to buy Brian McAllister’s property, that Fietta could not obtain a No-Rise Certificate for a proposed development project and that Fietta clear-cut the property only to leave it “abandoned” after they withdrew a development application in 2010. According to landowner Christine Fietta, those statements are incorrect. She said she never offered to buy McAllister’s property, that she never sought a No-Rise Certificate for their planned development on their N. Burdick Street property as it was never indicated to them that they needed it, and the reason she clear-cut the trees on her property was that she was encouraged to do so by the village of Fayetteville.