CMH_Downtown

I agree with seanguy, it's great to see this project come one step closer to become a reality, especially in an area that could use it. Building the new hall of justice on Dorrian Commons really would have been a travesty, especially with all the surface space right across the street. I'm glad one more surface lot will vanish from downtown Columbus, especially the one to be built on, since it faces the Westin. although its sad columbus needsyet more courthouse space I don't follow. The current Hall of Justice was completed in 1973, and is far inadequate to handle the needs of a city of over 700,000. The building is the short white and black structure in this photo, located in the Franklin County Government Complex....

Third photo from the bottom is my favorite. Such a great array of architecture along the street; very cool. Great selection of photos!

With the new video board on top of the renovated Woolworth's building, plus the news ticker planned for the Key Building, the graphics display at Broad and High should fit well on Capitol Square.

Sounds like a good option to me. It doesn't make sense for segments of the Ohio population to vote on placing casinos where it wouldn't even affect them. Let's see what becomes of this. 2 mayors want their residents to have final say on casinos By Joe Milicia ASSOCIATED PRESS CLEVELAND — Casino gambling has failed twice at the polls in Ohio since 1990, but at least two big-city mayors are betting that the next time will be different. Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell and Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken want voters to amend the Ohio Constitution to allow the residents of each city — instead of all Ohioans — to decide whether to have casinos. Luken acknowledges that the odds of getting "home rule’’ on gambling are long. "I just want the opportunity to allow people in southwestern Ohio to be able to decide for themselves if they want to do this,’’ he said. It’s a new spin on the casino issue in Ohio. Campbell and other proponents haven’t written Ohio’s proposal yet, but the plan is to allow cities to vote on casinos if it passes. The option could be limited to big cities. More at http://www.dispatch.com

^ Agreed. I still say they need to greatly decrease the amount of storefronts in the mall, as it is way too big for the area it now serves. I think the best way of doing that would be to go ahead and raze the section of the mall where Front St. once went through. The mall needs to be opened up to the streetscape, which would also be accomplished by doing that. To connect the two sections, something like Circle Center's arts garden should be built atop Front St. They should renovate the connector between City Center and the old Lazarus building by adding windows to look down on High St. Having the connector still in place would grant City Center a vital link to the new research incubator being built in the old department store by OSU and Battelle, increasing the amount of patronage in the mall. Also, a grocery store, either Kroger or Giant Eagle, should be built on the open parcel of land on the southwest corner of the mall. A section of the mall's parking garage, which is right across the street from the parcel, can be reserved for gorcery store patrons, and would be a huge hit with downtown residents as well as workers in neighboring office buildings, especially the Lazarus building. A large bookseller, like Barnes&Noble's or Borders, would also fit well in the mall. But those are just my ideas.

Nope. The guy that owns Circle Center Mall owns all the other major malls in Indianapolis, and is building a new headquarters downtown. I don't think he'd let his own investment go to waste.

The information in this article makes me sick, not neccesarily the loss of retailers, but what they're being replaced with. The place is a mall, not an elementary school! I was hoping that with a company of such stature like the Mills Corp. running the mall, that they would come up with a new and dynamic use for the mall, not making it into a community outreach center! I still say they need raze the entire middle section of the mall and put Town St. back running through it. Open that area for restuarants and local establishments. This would open up the mall to a MUCH greater amount of foot traffic, as the current mall is completely walled in from the urban fabric that is downtown, and would also lessen the amount of retail space in the building. Oh well, if they're happy with schools and training centers... :roll: More merchants leave City Center By Mike Pramik THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Retail tenants continue to check out of Columbus City Center at a steady clip as Mills Corp. ponders the fate of the struggling mall it invested in last year. Limited Too closed its City Center store on Saturday, and two other mall tenants are on their way out. The Sharper Image, which helped christen City Center in the summer of 1989, is closing at the end of business today. Franklin Covey will shut its doors Jan. 29. Several others have left the mall recently, including Cinnabon, Haagen-Dazs and Wentworth Gallery. Nearly five dozen retail spaces are empty, representing about half the mall’s space. Read more at http://dispatch.com/business-story.php?story=dispatch/2005/01/25/20050125-G1-00.html

I've been waiting for years for something like this to happen. If you look at most major cities (and some smaller ones as well), there is at least one television station with their studios prominently situated downtown. It's about time something like this happened here in Columbus, I can't wait for it to be completed! Also, WBNS 10TV will NOT stand idlely by and watch Channel 4 do this. Channel 10 and Channel 4 are vicious in their competition to be Columbus' #1 station. Currently, it's Channel 10 that has the highest ratings, but they're constantly swaping places with 4. Channel 6/28 is so poorly run that it'll never be able to compete and will always remain #3. I can't wait to see what Channel 10 does in response to this.

The jury is still out as far as I'm concerned in regards to whether Campus Partner's South Campus Gateway will be/is a good thing. As I mentioned in a previous post that while it would have been nice to convert and build on what was already at the intersections of 11th, Chittenden, and High St., this could serve as a huge catalyst for the entire area, finally creating an entertainment district stretching all the way from Clintonville to German Village. I will take the opportunity to address some of the comments posted in this thread though. The neighborhoods that need the most help are south of Chittenden and east of High, for the most part out of Campus Partner's domain. The area where the gateway is going up was going no where fast and without some kind of intervention, most likely would have gotten much worse, taking some of the better areas of the neighborhood along with it. I think it is. The city is working vigorously in revitalizing much of the Weinland Park neighborhood, which most certainly needs the attention. There are signs of local investment in buildings along High St. now too, such as a gorgeous set of rowhouses off High that are finally being renovated as well as the completely renovated High Five bar and club at the intersections of High and 5th. Something tells me these projects would not have happened without the investment currently going on at the South Campus Gateway. Hopefully as more interest is gained in the area, futher investment will occur along the corridor and in surrouding neighborhoods. The project may be controversial, however Campus Partner's most recent plans are definitely positive. What is especially interesting is their recent purchase of the former Columbus Coated Porducts plant, located in a seedy area off 5th. The whole area is in need of attention, and I'm glad that they are pulling their resources together to come up with a new use for it. While I'm not too familiar with Weinland Park, Campus Partner's plans for neighborhood revitalization there do sound promising. Well that one came way out of left field. This thread has taken a bit of a detour and is now focusing on COTA's problems, but that's alright. Just for everyone's information, the South Campus Gateway was designed to allow space for light rail if/when it ever comes to High St. From the sounds of it, most people that have replied are former OSU students. As a current student that began classes in 2001, South Campus was of little interest. Most students in the dorm went to Lennox or Alcatraz on north campus for fun close by. Many heard stories of South Campus' former glory as a great place to get shitfaced for a great price, but it wasn't a source of resentment. I still don't think the South Campus Gateway is going to be a carbon-copy of Easton just because it's going to have a Barnes & Nobles (B&N already owns the official campus bookstore and Long's). I won't quote the comments concerning COTA since there are quite a few of them. COTA definitely has its problems, especially with an inept management team the gave themselves pay raises while focusing only on getting light rail established instead of working on improving current bus service. Things are changing though, with Mr. Lhota now in change, who has done wonders at the Columbus Regional Airport Authority and has made putting COTA back in black ink his main priority. Light rail is still on the drawing board, but it's on the back burner now. Also, it seems as though most people on here have used the system for little other than transportation along High St. It's no question that the #2 is COTA's busiest route, with buses running along High almost every minute during peak times. However, living off way off campus along Henderson Rd., I decided to take the Kenny Rd. Local route #18 to school once. I was definitely surprised to have the bus completely full for just about all my ride from Bethel, to Kenny, to Olentangy and into Campus. I also took the East Broad St. route several times in high school and the busses were also full. Now I also used to take the #84 from Campus to Upper Arlington and the #19 from downtown to Upper Arlington all the time, and those routes were always empty. So it definitely depends on the route and your willingness to take public transportation, much like many other cities in the region.

I've driven by it a few times but haven't had the chance to get that great of a look at the progress. Most if not all of the brick is up on the facades and it looks like they're doing a lot of interior work now. The South Campus Gateway will contain retail and restaurants on the ground level, everything else will be offices and housing. I haven't heard of any more new tenants going into the buildings being constructed other than the planned Barnes & Noble's, Drexel Theatre, and Barrister Club.

You LIKE the Columbus Convention Center??? :-o Everyone I talk to seems to either love it or hate it, though the majority seem to be on the "hate" side of the spectrum, lol. I guess the same goes for the Vontz Center in Cincy, which I think is awesome. My candidates for best 12 stories or under building in Columbus would have to be either the Wyandotte Building or the Columbus Public Library.

I personally have no qualms with casino gambling coming to Ohio, however I do not want to see it in Columbus. Columbus just isn't a city where casino resorts would fit in the urban landscape. The ONLY place I might want to see slot machines are in the horse racing tracks on the outskirts of the city like at Scioto Downs and Beulah Park. Casinos in Columbus would probably only do as much as casinos have done in Detroit. They do pump additional funds to the city, however the casinos in downtown Detroit just seem extremely out of place and really haven't added much to the downtown area, except for maybe the Greektown strip. Casinos in CityCenter, as this article suggests, would be an attrocity, as far as I'm concerned. Casino gambling would fit much better on riverboats in Cincinnati or along the lakefront in Cleveland. Columbus leaders snubbing overtures for local casinos By Lee Leonard and Jon Craig THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Lazarus has left Downtown, Columbus City Center is on the ropes, and the Blue Jackets are on a forced vacation. But several ideas for closing the Downtown entertainment gap are floating about — casino gambling, for instance. As close as Cleveland, the notion has significant support. Mayor Jane L. Campbell recently came out in favor of casinos as a possible way of rescuing her city from financial ruin. And with legalized gambling in Canada and states surrounding Ohio, casino proponents have set their sights on at least five locations in the Buckeye State, including slot machines at horse tracks and American Indian-run resorts. Terry L. Casey, a Columbus consultant who represents an Eastern Shawnee tribe from Oklahoma, said Campbell’s overture plus Pennsylvania’s approval last year of slot machines at racetracks, resorts and urban centers give impetus to Ohio casinos. "They’re saying to us, ‘You’re surrounded, and we’re going to suck the money right out of you,’ ’’ he said. "From our standpoint, something in this region is possible. There’s a lot of Shawnee history along the Scioto River. "We looked at City Center even before Lazarus went out of business,’’ he said. "We’ve looked at other options in and around Downtown.’’ But don’t hold your breath. The reception among Columbus leaders has been as cool as most Januaries. More at http://www.dispatch.com

Good call on WCBE also. I like how the play NPR and BBC as well as a mix of local programming. Plus their intro page has a pretty cool view of downtown.

These new stations ("JACK" "TED" "BOB" etc.) are somewhat of a new trend sweeping mainstream radio. I don't think there are any Clear Channel stations that have adopted a "no-format" format, as most of these stations are either local or are owned by radio companies MUCH smaller than CC. On TED FM, it's not uncommon to hear Quiet Riot followed by Michelle Branch and on to Sheryl Crow. It's definitely interesting to listen to.

Man, I like pretty-much all of them. My absolute favorites, however, would be: WWCD (101.1FM) "CD101" alternative rock (similar to WOXY, but on the radio dial), locally owned WBZX (99.7FM) "The Blitz" hard/current rock, locally owned WLVQ (96.3FM) "QFM 96" mostly classic rock plus some current WAZU (107.1FM) "The Big Wazoo" hard/current rock Honorable mentions to: WTDA (103.9FM) "TED FM" no format; plays everything WXOL (1550AM) "Radio Sol" spanish language programming (Just as an aside, Columbus' FM spanish language station, "La Equis 103.1" is terrible. All they play is Tex-Mex music. I can stand that for all of .03 seconds. Also, none of the above mentioned stations have anything to do with Clear Channel! Though TED FM does like to poke fun at them in their station promos... :-D)

My screen name combines my love of all things urban with my passion for aviation. "CMH" is the three-letter IATA airport code for Columbus, so my nick is essentially "Columbus_Downtown." Columbus is my hometown and downtowns have always been of interest to me, so all three aspects fit well together to form my screen name.

Gay St. is doing a complete 180. There are so many projects going on in this one little block that it's pretty amazing, and if this project goes through, it'll definitely add even more to the street. It'll also be nice to have more mid-priced condos downtown, as many of the new ones going up are luxury condominiums. There's a small rendering of the project on the front page of the Business First newspaper:

I think Magyar summed things up pretty well. The most COTA can do along this corridor is continue to run its regular scheduled bus service. Light rail or bus rapid transit along Broad St. is really unnecessary and would be a poor use of COTA's capital funds, unlike light rail along High St. and I-71, where ridership and congestion would warrant the improved service. Keep in mind also, the area where the median is going is very walkable, and the Discovery District runs more north-to-south with Broad St. running perpendicular right through it. As for the median itself, I'm extremely happy to see this might actually come to fruition now. Downtown Columbus needs something like this, and I truly cannot wait for it to be built. It looks like the plans also call for improved streetscrapes further in the Discovery District (where the so-to-be-renovated Seneca is), which are desparately needed. Overall, this sounds like a wonderful plan.

The Broad St. corridor isn't a large COTA focal point at all and for good reason. Ridership along Broad pails in comparison to that on High, where the first light rail line is proposed to go. Broad St. doesn't hit as many places as High St., and is mostly just residential outside of downtown. COTA's priority at the moment is to improve its finances, get busses running more reliably, and get the north corridor light rail project rolling. Improved transit on Broad St. can wait.

Ehhh, as much as I'd like to see King-Lincoln restored to its former livelyhood, I don't know how well this building will serve as a catylist for the area. I'm with the one guy that was interviewed, renovation projects should be spearheaded by those active in the community. The police presence might provide a sense of safety, which will hopefully encourage more locals to invest and move back into the area, but hopefully that project will be the most we see out of large real estate corporations.

Liberty Place gets going with 132-unit initial phase Brian R. Ball, Business First The developer of the Liberty Place apartment project in Columbus' Brewery District has started construction on 132 units while it awaits final plans for the reconfiguration of Interstates 70 and 71 through downtown. The future of another 178 apartments will become clearer when the Ohio Department of Transportation unveils its configuration of the I-70/71 corridor, likely in late 2005. The $600 million-plus highway project has a 2008 target date for construction. Read more at http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2004/12/03/story2.html

ROAD EXTENSION TO INCREASE COST OF PARK Hanover Street will reach south to park by its opening in May Published: Saturday, December 11, 2004 By Mark Ferenchik, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH The cost of the city's new North Bank Park will jump by $849,291, the cost to extend a road near the Downtown park. Columbus City Council is expected on Monday to approve paying Complete General Construction more money to extend Hanover Street south across Spring Street to Long Street, which runs along the 12-acre park under construction on the bank of the Scioto River south of the Arena District. The change would bring the cost of the park to $14.6 million -- a 6 percent increase. The city plans to install traffic lights at the intersection, so the job includes underground work to get ready for that, McKnight said. McKnight said the money was included in next year's transportation capital budget, but officials decided to move before the end of this year so the work could be completed as crews finish the park rather than digging again after completion. Read more at http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2004/12/11/riverfront.ART_ART_12-11-04_B1_M1IDUA.html?type=rss&cat=&sid=101

CITY TO CALL FOR RIVERSOUTH PLANS Developers sought for site near City Center Published: Saturday, December 11, 2004 By Debbie Gebolys, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH One of the largest residential redevelopments Downtown is at the starting gate. Columbus Downtown Development Corp. on Monday will ask local and national developers to audition to build at least 200 condominiums and apartments on former Lazarus parking lots and garages along Front Street, between Town and Rich streets. The development corporation, the city's nonprofit development and finance arm, paid $5.7 million for the five Downtown blocks this past summer, shortly before Lazarus-Macy's closed its flagship Downtown store. Now, the development corporation is seeking a partner to come up with ideas to build an urban neighborhood larger than anything since the Arena District. "It's a significant landmass and it's a significant number of Downtown residential units,'' corporation spokeswoman Kathleen Murphy said. "This is a major step in the revitalization of Downtown Columbus.'' Developers will compete to create plans for 4.3 acres directly west of the former Lazarus store, roughly on both sides of Front Street. The development corporation envisions four- to five-story buildings that would be a mix of condos and apartments. The new buildings would replace aging parking decks and lots. The project site is in RiverSouth, a 31-block area that's now largely warehouses and parking lots punctuated by Columbus City Center and the Franklin County Justice Center. Read more at http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2004/12/11/20041211-G1-00.html

Ahh, I was unaware of that. Considering I was still in pre-school in 1987, I guess I have good reason not to remember that... :wink:

When it comes to MLB, Columbus definitely leans towards the Indians. The amount of Indians fans locally is so great that all the local cable television companies carry the WUAB (Cleveland's UPN affiliate) for their broadcast of Indians home games. Indians baseball is also generally more publicized in the local media. Major league football is really more of an afterthought in this city, but if when it comes to the NFL, I would say it's a three-way tie among the Browns, Bengals, and the Steelers. Surprisingly enough, there are a LOT of Steelers fans in Columbus, and they like to make themselves known. As for the original topic, I think most people have covered the situation pretty well in previous posts. The lockout is undeniably having a negative affect on the Arena District, but its proximity to surrounding attractions (the convention center, North Market, Nationwide HQ, etc) as well as other events at Nationwide Arena and the new housing going up in the area is definitely keeping that area of downtown from truly suffering.