Gateway Center - A legacy of adaptive reuse

401 E State St, Ithaca, NY 14850

The Gateway Center is a former warehouse and industrial site at the eastern edge of the Central Downtown Ithaca Business District.

In 1925, Tompkins County native Harold W. Dean built a six-story warehouse on the site of his livery stables. This noteworthy building was one of Ithaca’s first cast concrete structures, and was home to Dean of Ithaca Moving and Storage warehouse and offices. It was partially converted into meeting and office space by Don Dickinson in the 1990s, and then fully renovated into Gateway Center by developer Mack Travis in the early 2000s. A six-story, approximately 760 square feet per floor addition houses a new stair/elevator tower, while a clock tower addition establishes a landmark visible from the downtown Ithaca mercantile area.

In 2023, the Gateway Center’s office floors were slated for renovation into 46 market-rate apartment units. The project is the adaptive reuse of an existing commercial office building into commercial tenants on the ground floor and residential apartment units on floors 1-5. The apartments were named “The Dean” in honor of Harold W. Dean, the businessman who built the warehouse a century ago. Hayes Strategy led the capital project alongside Stream Architects.

Read more about the recent renovations from the Ithaca Voice.