cbussoccer

Wasn't this building supposed to be 13-stories? It looks like it's going to end up being ~15-stories...

Go all the way to the top floor and then walk to the back of the building. There are giant floor to ceiling windows looking out over the park. I'm sure there are other cool views of downtown if you explore the third floor as well. You could also go to the top of the floor of the Grant Hospital Orange Garage at 393 E Town. It would give you some pretty good views of a lot of different projects. You can just walk right into the main lobby of the garage and take the elevator to the top.

Everything. If you go to third floor of the main library, you can get a pretty cool view of Topiary Park and the surrounding projects.

I am once again asking that you spill the beans.

Spill the beans!

Can't wait! It's going to be awesome seeing the tower cranes for this and 100 N High in the skyline.

Yes, it is, but it's also shortsighted to oppose any demolition just because something is "old". The building below is "old", nearly 75 years old, but I think we would all be happy to see it demolished and replaced with something more useful and architecturally attractive. We lament the loss of quality architecture and the loss of livable, mixed-use areas of the city. But there are plenty of buildings that have been demolished over the years that actually led to positive additions to the city. Similarly, a building does not necessarily have much value to the city just because it's old. Nobody here is arguing in support of this. I think we all agree with this.

John Wayne to John Glenn. It was destined to be.

Flights to Chicago can be extremely cheap at times, cheap enough as a couple to essentially be a wash with driving and paying to park depending on how long you are going to be there. I've flown to Chicago for as little as $120 round trip, so $240 for my wife and I. Parking in Chicago for 3-4 days can easily get up to the ~$200+ range. Then you factor in the cost of gas and the toll roads and you might as well just fly and save yourself a few hours. But yea, once you get to 3+ people, driving makes more sense unless you have some SW points to get you a free flight, which isn't hard to do considering how short of a flight it is.

I meant low hanging fruit in terms of options that would bring passenger trains back to Columbus while also serving a large portion of the state’s population as a whole. It’s obviously not going to be a piece of cake, otherwise it would have been done by now, but given the size of Columbus and the rate at which it’s growing, it’s needed. There are plans for a downtown station, but it’s pretty difficult to build a station until you know you are getting a route. Approve the route, and the station will get built.

These are all very valid points and I don’t dispute any of them. The 3C+D option is certainly “low hanging fruit” given the population it will serve and the investment needed. My initial point was simply that a CHI-COL-PIT would likely be more useful for Columbus residents than the 3C+D. Long term, I do think Columbus officials need to do everything possible to make a CHI-COL-PIT happen.

Have you been to Southern Cali? Good luck walking from point A to point B, lol.

Yes, that's obviously true. It doesn't disprove my suggestion though. There are vast differences between Chicago and Cleveland/Cincinnati, such as drive time from Columbus, cost of parking, quality of public transportation, density of amenities, reason for people traveling to each city, etc. Furthermore, I'm also considering the usefulness of being connected to NYC by train. Currently, you either have to drive to NYC (painful and expensive) or fly to NYC (very expensive) from Columbus. Being able to take the train to NYC would provide a very nice alternative. With that said, I'll take whatever line I can get in Columbus, I just want Amtrak service back. Once we get it back, I think more lines will start to be added as our population continues to grow. I'm just saying that driving from Columbus to Cleveland or Cincinnati is so easy already that it will be extremely difficult to convert a lot of those travelers to the train, whereas people traveling to Chicago or NYC will be much easier converts.

You wouldn't be in your house much because you would spend four hours a day sitting in traffic.

While the 3C+D line would likely be better for the state as a whole, the Pitt-Cbus-Chi line would be a much better option for Columbus. This would allow you to much more easily travel to NYC by train, and far more people in Columbus would be likely to take a train to Chicago than they would to Cincinnati for Cleveland.

An aerial tour of Columbus, courtesy of various pictures found on Zillow:

I don’t disagree. I’m just saying you have to find the balance. If you go too far with your codes, you risk being stuck with empty lots or crumbling buildings for far too long. Again, I want to see the building saved just as I want to see taller and denser developments, I’m just trying to view these situations with a bit of reason. We don’t know much about the internal situation of this building so I’m not going to get my panties in a bunch just because someone has entered the preliminary stages of maybe possibly demolishing this building is way, shape, or form.

Im not telling you anything. None of us know anything about the structural integrity of the building and the potential cost to bring it up to code. That was my initial point.

I'm not saying we shouldn't question them. But we don't have any actual data about the structural integrity of the building, so making definitive statements such as "neither building should be torn down" is a bit pointless. This is a ridiculous premise though because it blatantly ignores the economic aspect. You could also argue that 99% of buildings could be built taller or have their design improved, but you simply can't ignore the economic aspect which is something many of us around here tend to do when talking about developments. With that said, I don't want to see this building demolished if it can be reasonably avoided, but I'm not going to ignore the financial realities either. We could tell developers "no more buildings under 20-stories can be built downtown", and completely shoot ourselves in the foot by being completely unrealistic just as we could shoot ourselves in the foot by telling developers that they have to spend outrageous sums of money to salvage crumbling buildings which are architecturally inconsequential.

How can any of us say anything like this without having any actual info from inspectors/architects/engineers regarding the integrity of the building? I'm not saying I want the buildings to be demolished, but it's a bit useless for us to make such affirmative statements without having any relevant info other than what we can see on Google Street View.

2023 Arnold Sports Festival saw return of pre-pandemic crowds, spending https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2023/03/22/arnold-sports-festival-returns-2023-pre-pandemic.html The sports festival's direct visitor spending and visitor count were spot on with the predicted $15.6 million and 100,000 unique attendees, according to Experience Columbus. The 60 sports and events and 12,000 athletes from more than 80 countries weren't the only Downtown attractions that weekend – the Blue Jackets, Columbus Crew and country music artists Carrie Underwood and Jimmie Allen all were in town.

Columbus sells the most tickets in the country for the first and second rounds of March Madness men's basketball tournament https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2023/03/21/march-madness-columbus-most-tickets-soid.html A weekend on the courts put Columbus on the map as the city that sold the most tickets in the country for the first and second rounds of the 2023 NCAA men's basketball tournament, according to ESPN.com. Nationwide Arena was sold out Friday and Sunday, with nearly 60,000 tickets sold — roughly 19,564 tickets per session. Columbus also hosted games this past weekend in the women's tournament, which makes this even more impressive. The other first and second round host cities were Birmingham, Orlando, Denver, Sacramento, Greensboro, Albany, and Des Moines. Dayton hosted the "First Four" games as well.

Wasn't there a redevelopment plan for this building a few years ago? It does look pretty rough on the outside. I can only imagine what kind of structural issues there are, but I would hate to see this building demolished.

Are you able to see the crane from 161?

The center of Groveport and the center of GV are both about the same distances from each respective location. Not to mention 270 runs between Groveport and the old Columbus Motor Speedway location.