casey

That alley at the gateway has been a disaster since the beginning. They really need to land an anchor tenant that will draw from outside of the campus community in order to make it work, something like a Trader Joe's or Uniqlo. The way it is now most people arrive by foot, not car, and so the alley's role as a ped connection from the parking garage to High St sees very little traffic.

It's nice to see this part of downtown really starting to come together. Now if we could just get some plans off the ground for the empty lots at Main/High (county-owned grass field and Schiff's surface lot) ...

JMHO, but: - It's not dense enough and doesn't take advantage of the site's full potential - It's not real mixed-use development, (site is divided into several segregated, independent, single-use zones) - It's not real urban development (massive setbacks on all sides of each of the buildings, no connections between) - Leaves too much wasted space in general, and too much open green space on developable land - Doesn't restore the street grid - No commercial included (office or retail) - Developer is attempting to exploit political/personal connections to get the project outside of the established RFP process - Developer has no prior track record of dense, urban, mixed-use development - Developer seems to have no understanding of the site as a true urban neighborhood, only sees potential for a "college town"-style "Disneyland for adults"

Wow. What a seriously awful proposal. It (thankfully) sounds like Battelle has no interest in choosing this developer for the project.

And before Four Kegs, it was Flying Tomato!

^ This company's projects look seriously awful. No kidding, probably the worst I have ever seen. https://goo.gl/maps/Wb2nmEqkWQS2 https://goo.gl/maps/4PFmHFfKXwQ2

Yeah, it's kind of lackluster given what other developers are proposing and putting up in the SN these days. Wood/Schiff, Borror, Kaufman, Pizzuti, Crawford Hoying, etc are all doing larger/denser projects, and often on smaller lots than this UDF site. It seems like Elford is uncomfortable developing at a bigger scale than this, which is very similar to both their Donatos and Fireproof projects.

Are dinosaurs just the beginning? In an interview with Columbus Monthly late last year, the Wexners revealed that negotiations were underway to bring satellites of both the American Museum of Natural History (one of the largest museums in the world) and the Smithsonian (the world’s largest museum and research complex) to the Scioto Peninsula. Bureaucratic challenges have made the Smithsonian deal more challenging to nail down, but Les Wexner says it still remains a possibility. He also says city leaders have talked to the Ohio History Connection about establishing a presence on the peninsula and suggests other possible partners could include the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Royal Shakespeare Company in the U.K., which already has a strong relationship with Ohio State University. “We’re a compelling partner for any national or international organization,” he says. “We want this to be a true cultural destination, similar to what they have in Chicago with the Cultural Mile,” adds Worley. “This is our version of that, if you will.” http://www.columbusmonthly.com/content/blogs/the-latest/2016/09/cosi.html

If only there was some part of the city that was already very well served with access to highways and other necessary infrastructure where high-density HQ developments could be located... Then that $40M could instead be invested in things like improving mass transit, benefiting many more people and companies than just auto commuters to a single new office building. Oh well.

Hoof Hearted is nice but I really wish there was more of an emphasis on developing public facilities and retail spaces as part of Jeffrey Park's development rather than these private suburban-style "community" clubhouses.

Glad this is moving forward, and very pleased (for once) with the demands from the area commissions for reductions in height and scale. This final result is still dense and urban, but preserves the historic buildings on High St and won't dominate the neighborhood. That said, the original version of this project is still the absolute ugliest, godforsaken, ziggurat from hell that I have ever seen. And I still can't believe they were able to produce those renderings and present them to the public with a straight face as an actual proposal. Shameful.

Certainly a tragedy all around. From the Dispatch story, King and his friend, 19-year-old Demetrius Braxton, were part of the group and ran away together, Braxton said Thursday night after returning to the scene. King wanted to rob someone for money, said Braxton, who was with King when he was shot. He said King's BB gun looked real and had a laser sight under the gun barrel.

^ Wow. Potentially huge news indeed. Hoping something big comes out of the RFP and that the city moves forward with it. This could really take the NM and entire mini-district that surrounds it to the next level.

Not too bad at all. That will really be a nice infill building for the site. Hopefully, the small retail building across 7th in front of the Kroger parking lot will actually happen sometime soon as well.

I like the direction the new version is heading if the retail now actually is 2-stories (or 1 with an upper level mezzanine). That kind of space is still rare in the SN, but where it does exist I think it's incredibly successful (Wood Cos Winders building - Homage, Tigertree, Anthropologie, Samson/T. David).

Congrats to Cincinnati and all those who worked so hard to make this project a reality! I can't wait to try it out next time I visit. Also am really hoping that Columbus will look to your streetcar as a model to replicate up north ASAP.

Another updated design for the Pizzuti project at 1st and High, program remains the same: retail, parking garage, and offices. http://www.columbusunderground.com/new-design-to-be-presented-for-10-story-building-at-grandview-mercantile-site-bw1

Interesting. I've never heard of the Moxy Hotel brand before, ... but it seems like a decent fit for the SN (more so than Cambria Suites). I can't imagine that the IVC is going to care much for the proposal though at this height, especially with The Eagle (La Fogata) building next door being only one-story. But it is good to see Crawford Hoying getting into the SN and Downtown markets more, they are ambitious developers who also know how to follow through and get projects done quickly.

11-Story Building Proposed for Swan Cleaners Site Downtown The proposed building would have 120 apartment units, first-floor retail and a roof-top terrace. Significantly, a below-grade parking garage accessible from Wall Street is only slated to hold 22 cars. A specialized bike-storage area on the first floor is designed to hold 60 bikes. http://www.columbusunderground.com/11-story-building-proposed-for-swan-cleaners-site-downtown-bw1

This is great news. Glad we are finally seeing one of the smaller, urban format Targets open in Columbus. I'm sure Lennox will stay as-is, and if anything this will probably improve the shopping experience there for us non-students.

Found two new renderings of the currently under construction 6-story Brunner Building on Wood Cos website. Should be a really great addition to the streetscape,

A couple points, The larger overall map at the bottom of the article is not necessarily any concrete plan that will ever actually happen, but rather a rehash of existing "visions" developed by the city several years ago. To date, there has been zero movement on virtually any of those things, and there are no real proposals for any of it now. Not to mention, moving forward with any of those parts and pieces can happen while leaving these existing apartments alone, their remaining doesn't impede other new developments at all. There is no way any new build would be able to exist in the same price range as the current apartments. They are proposing demolishing 130 well-maintained affordable units and replacing them with ~100 total, 10 of which would be "workforce housing." Additionally, this would likely be taking advantage of city funds dedicated to the development of new affordable housing which would be much better put to use elsewhere. I'd say that is a bad deal. Period. The real motivation here seems to be firstly profit, and second improving access to their parking garage, which is really not difficult or "unsafe" at all as-is. CDDC being involved gives me no confidence in the quality of the new buildings proposed or any developer that will be attached to them. CDDC selected Carter and gave us HighPoint, which is probably the worst new-build in downtown Columbus in decades. Grant Hospital has been promising to build a medical office building on that lot since the late 1990s when existing housing which had been on the site was demolished. They have applied for several extensions to the supposed time limit which was put on their operating a surface parking lot there since, and all have been granted. One day they may build something, but I'm certainly not holding my breath. Further, their last new-build medical building at State and 6th, is a 6-story urban design disaster. It is totally dead at ground level and connects to the main hospital via skywalk, certainly better than something the Cleveland Clinic would dream up, but not at all an exciting, productive addition to the streetscape. TL;DR, there is no shortage of empty suface lots and underutilized land in this part of downtown. Demolishing the one fully built-out parcel that houses a large number of well-maintained, desperately-needed affordable units is totally counter productive and has no net gain for the area. CML should be taken to task for this proposal IMO.

Yuck. One step forward, two steps back.

COSI parking plan closer to reality Replacing the surface parking lots at COSI with a 600-space underground garage topped by a park will cost an estimated $37 million, according to Capitol South Community Redevelopment Corporation. The nonprofit development group, which has overseen a major Downtown redevelopment push for the city of Columbus, will go before the Columbus Downtown Commission on Tuesday to seek approval for the garage plan, which it hopes to launch in September and complete within 14 months. The land in front of COSI, which was built on the site of the long-closed Central High School, is owned by the city of Columbus, and Capitol South is working with the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department on the project, which would include themed gardens, a plaza with a cafe, a central fountain and a children's fountain. http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2016/08/20/1-cosi-parking-plan-closer-to-reality.html#

Char Bar moved south to downtown in 1990 and is still in business at that location, https://www.yelp.com/biz/char-bar-columbus The longest running old-time campus dives that are still on campus are now probably Bier Stube https://www.yelp.com/biz/bier-stube-columbus and The Library https://www.yelp.com/biz/library-bar-columbus