First county land bank house placed on foundation here

by Dan McClelland

Tupper Lake’s newest house was placed on its foundation yesterday. It’s a modular-built three bedroom, one and one half bath two-story structure, placed in four sections by a large crane yesterday.

It’s the first house to be situated under the direction of the Franklin County Land Bank, an agency created by the Franklin County Legislature about two years ago to start to address the housing shortage in this county.

It was manufactured by Dutchess Modular Homes, in association with Westchester Modular Home Erectors Inc.

The four large sections were transported to Tupper Lake yesterday and store overnight at the Moody state boat launch.

The land bank is directed by Harry Gordon, with a lot of help from one of his board members, Tupper Lake Town Councilman John Gillis.

Mr. Gordon is a retired architect, who owned and operated an architectural firm based in the Washington, D.C. area for many decades. He brings a wealth of building experience to the new not for profit agency.

The existing residence at 92 Wawbeek Ave., after building inspections, was deemed too deteriorated for rehabilitation so the land bank board engaged Robert Laubacker’s company to demolish it and have the debris trucked away in late September. The razing work took less than two hours.

Mr. Laubacker, whose company is based in Niagara, N.Y., is related to the Morrow family of Tupper Lake, and had been combining business with pleasure in recent days with his local family members.

The land bank hired a company with two semis, each pulling 100-yard trailers to truck the debris to the county landfill in Westville that day.

The Tupper Lake project was the first demolition tackled by the county land bank, and the first time Mr. Laubacker’s firm was hired.

As they were yesterday Sheila Connors, the new land bank’s executive secretary and Land Bank Board Member John Gillis were there that first day to observe the contractor and his work as they were yesterday. In fact, every time there’s a phase of construction underway there, outgoing Town Councilman John Gillis has been there.

The land bank also engaged Tupper Lake’s Cruz Carriere, a local videotographer, to employ his drone to video the work. His video is available for public viewing on the land bank’s web site. Cruz has been tracking the work there in its phases to date. His drone was airborne above the property yesterday.

Several weeks ago another contractor, Superior Walls, which specializes in pre-cast concrete foundation systems, set the new four-piece foundation system onto footers at the site.

The large concrete pieces are all reinforced with metal, as the photo above shows. The interior walls were fashioned with metal studs so a new owner could eventually finish the basement area without drilling into the pre-cast concrete basement walls. Pre-drilled through the metal studs were channels for wiring.

Mr. Gillis said his agency got the idea for the pre-cast basement walls from a large 26-unit project underway in Lake Placid. He said the developer figured they saved about $15,000 on each unit’s basement in labor costs.

To make use of the basement as legal living quarters a large door opening was built into the back panel.

Last Wednesday another company called Central Paving, which specializes in assorted concrete and paving products such as stamped concrete work, foundations, sidewalks, driveway, parking lots and excavation, was on site pouring the basement slab.

John has been working closely with the land bank’s director, Harry Gordon since it was created by the Franklin County Legislature about two years ago, said in recent weeks the new single-family residence at the site will be narrower and set back ten feet from where the current building is situated, in keeping with local zoning set back requirements.

The county’s new land bank program is one of the local agencies in the county trying to improve the housing stock here, in Saranac Lake and in Malone, as well as in surrounding areas.

A large crane owned by the Demag Riggers and Crane company of Williston, Vt. was on site yesterday, preparing to lift the first section into place shortly after 9a.m.

It was a perfect winter day for the work, with partial sunshine and the mercury hovering in the low 30s.