cbussoccer

The project was originally proposed as a 7-story above-ground building. But it was later revised to move the structured parking from below-ground to above-ground. This added two above-ground levels and made the final approved design a 9-story above-ground building with 93 apartments. Some older articles probably refer to 330 E. Oak Street as having 7-stories and maybe the developer's website just hasn't been updated. Yes, I understand the timeline, but it doesn't all add up. It was reported, by multiple different sites, to have been approved at 7-stories. Then, CU came out with the article a couple posts back saying a proposal was being made for some changes to the project which involved raising it to 9-stories. What is odd to me is that the article on the developers website (posted on February 12, 2016) was posted after the CU article regarding the revised proposal (posted on September 19, 2015). If the revised proposal from the CU article was approved, why would the developer subsequently post outdated information about their own project? In addition, I have not been able to find any evidence that the subsequent proposal was actually approved as it does not confirm approval in the CU article. Here is the article from the developers website:http://stonehenge-company.com/2016/02/12/stonehenge-housing-okd-on-oak-street-downtown/

I'm a little bit confused about what the final height will be for this project. The latest CU article I've seen puts it at 9-stories tall but the developer's website and the latest BizFirst article I've seen put the building at 7-stories tall. Does anyone have any more info on this?

The CU article has actually been updated to include the parking information. From the article: "Parking is 100 percent valet with room for 144 vehicles to be parked within the building. A U-shaped valet drop off area is located in the rear of the building with access off of Pearl Alley. Vehicles will be stored on one underground level and portions of the second floor, and vehicle lifts will be utilized to maximize efficiency. This allows for a building design with parking that is largely hidden from pedestrian view. The new Short North Parking Ordinance requires 189 spaces for the building, leaving them 45 spaces short. Per the ordinance, they’ll pay a fee of $10,000 per space, or $450,000 total. That money will fund efforts to mitigate parking and transportation issues in the Short North."

They work great during the day to store the energy in order to charge the vehicles at night :-D

I wasn't able to snap a picture, but when I drove by tonight they were putting up a tower crane at The Wellington site. It also looks like a crane should be going up soon at the old Taco Bell site on Campus just a couple blocks south of The Wellington project. Once those two cranes are up, there will be 12 tower cranes up from downtown up to campus with more on the way. This will be a huge summer for development in Columbus.

I don't think anything will become of the lawn area next to the courthouse. It's county property and they are just land-banking the site. There's a patch of lawn on the north side of Mound between High and 3rd - the site of the former juvi. It's been undeveloped for 25 years or so. I think there is a pretty good chance something does come of it considering how valuable that land will be once the other projects finish up. When the whole River South District was just a bunch of parking lots and rundown buildings they had no incentive to do anything with the land, but now that it's so valuable they could potentially do something like what the city did with North Market parking lot, albeit not on nearly the same scale.

That's awesome! If you get bored tomorrow you should add Millennial Tower (I know I know, it probably won't happend) and the two proposed 30 story towers for the Franklinton development.

It's using equivalent square mileage. I believe it does work.

Very interesting. One thing to consider when talking about Columbus is where everyone lives within the MSA. Obviously the Columbus MSA has a much larger area, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is more sparsely populated. I would venture to say a large percentage of the entire Columbus MSA is located in Franklin County, the Southern half of Delaware County, and the Northeastern half of Fairfield County. If that is actually the case, the Columbus MSA just has a lot of dead space in the extra land area it has. Another interesting aspect to keep in mind is the "population from city center". Here is a breakdown comparing Columbus and Cleveland: 4 Miles/50 Square Miles Cleveland: 227,309 Columbus: 314,557 5 Miles/78.5 Square Miles- This is slightly smaller than Cleveland's current city limits. Cleveland: 361,475 Columbus: 404,642 8 Miles/201 Square Miles- This is a bit smaller than Columbus' current city limits. Cleveland: 719,218 Columbus: 795,666 9 Miles/254 Square Miles Cleveland: 820,848 Columbus: 887,928 People tend to assume Columbus is sprawled out and not very dense, but in reality the two cities are pretty close to each other. In fact, a couple of the census tracts around the campus area in Columbus are the most densely populated areas in the state at close to 30,000 people per square mile. I believe this is evident in your chart under the "Urbanized Area" section. Columbus has a lower urbanized population, but a larger the population density because the urbanized areas of Columbus are actually quite densely populated.

As of about 8:15 when I drove by tonight the Swan Cleaners building was being demolished. This area is going to be dramatically different in about a year and a half and I can't wait!

Does this article give any additional details to what is in the CU article?

Well, it looks like we will be adding yet another crane to the Short North/University District skyline in the near future.

Cranes are popping up all up and down High Street!

How exactly does increasing the area the MSA is pulling from help Cincy compete with somewhere like Charlotte? If Dayton and Cincy merge it doesn't automatically mean any more people live in any one place in the area. It doesn't change the demographics at all. The only thing happening is the area of the MSA is increasing as well as the population. Merging the two is nice in terms of moving the Cincy MSA up in the rankings, but it really doesn't change anything about the city or region in reality. It's not like it's a secret that Dayton and Cincy are in the same region of Ohio. Developers are well aware. I'm struggling to understand how this would really change anything other than impacting the rankings of largest MSAs.

I'm going to continue holding my breath until we hear otherwise although I understand why you wouldn't. The reason I'm still hopeful is because of all the projects you listed that are under way. The developers obviously see a lot of promise in this area and a tower like Millennial Tower, even if it gets scaled back a bit, will probably be a huge success.

I drove past the LC construction site last night. It looks like the north building is close to being topped out and there is a crane base in place for the south building so a crane will probably be going up there soon. Also, has anyone heard anything about Millennial Tower? I thought I read in the original reports that they wanted to hopefully get the green light in early 2017, but I haven't heard anything.

So it's now gone from 12 stories down to 6? That kind of sucks...

I was thinking the exact same; not what I was expecting or wanted. These proposals are ridiculous and will kill the character of the North Market. Did you actually look at these proposals? I know at least for The Wood Company's proposal they specifically stated that they are leaving the North Market exactly as is. If you want to argue that building something on a parking lot is going to kill the character of the North Market then be my guest. If anything, these proposals will add to the vibrancy of this area.

Here is the proposal from The Wood Company. This looks like an excellent proposal. https://media.bizj.us/view/img/10284225/north-market-woodschiff.pdf

I drove by yesterday and it looks like they are already putting up the crane for the new building.

1) Columbus: I've lived here my whole life. I love the city and it just keeps getting better. 2) Chicago: If had to live in a big city and I had the money, I would move to Chicago. The city is beautiful and has great character. 3) New York: So much history here and so much to do. I've only been to Manhattan but I would love to check out the other boroughs. 4) Cleveland: It kind of brings the East coast city vibe to the Midwest. I have a lot of family from the area so I feel a strong connection to the city and the sports. 5) Pittsburgh: For as much as I hate the sports the city is actually very cool.

I have a feeling that the Downtown Commission will have something to say about the fact that it's only going to have parking for 22 cars. Other than that I'm excited about this project. Hopefully they spruce the design a bit though, but 11 stories is a pretty good height.

I think overall this would be a great plan if they were to keep the new apartments in the same price range. There is a huge shortage of affordable apartments such as these in the downtown area. I do like the idea of increasing retail around the area and the prospect of a 5-10 story medical building (10 stories please!) is a bit exciting.

As of Friday it looked like quite a bit of work has begun on preparing the site for the South building. I wouldn't be surprised to see an additional crane going up for the South building before too long.

There should also be another crane coming the Short North within the next month as they begin construction on the White Castle development...