jonoh81

Nevermind, found an article about it: https://www.techspot.com/news/90709-intel-us-mega-fab-120-billion-little-city.html

What's that from?

Seems all but confirmed that New Albany will get one of the world's very, very few semiconductor fabs. This is enormous news for the Columbus area, and has the potential to really propel the area forward. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/01/intell-planning-to-build-massive-new-semiconductor-factory-in-ohio.html

I think people generally vastly underestimate the impact of personal biases. You don't have to take studies seriously, but I think it would be foolish to ignore what they keep concluding. And again, I am not saying things like racial and other social biases are exclusively the basis of the opposition, but they likely do play some kind of role in the resistence to neighborhood changes in general. The ridiculousness and sheer anger of many of the arguments made against projects like the Whittier "Whale" or the the Livingston hotel suggest that irrational and emotional bias is based more on fear than objective facts. People don't get afraid of a 5-story height. They get afraid of people and the perception of who they are and what they might bring- such as crime. It's not like the Short North, which was filled with new apartment projects, caused nearby neighborhoods to drop in value. No, they skyrocketed, so the argument that this is all about potential falling property values is nonsense. It's not supportable. And NIMBYs would know and understand that their property values aren't being threatened if this opposition was coming from a place of objectivity. You basically admit as much when you said they wouldn't be opposed to minorities moving in so long as they were in the same economic class, as if anyone poorer than that would trash the neighborhood. Racial bias isn't the only irrational bias at play and German Village isn't a gated community only open to rich people, nor should it be.

They really should just put a taller building in a smaller site and renovate the historic stuff. Win-win.

Imagine raising $25,000 just to put up another sign to remind people where they are, just in case they'd forgotten.

It's not without evidence, though. Such issues have been extensively studied and the reasons for such opposition, despite claims about sunlight and height, are pretty well understood at this point. It was the same motivation that kept suburban areas largely white and rich for decades. Now, you could argue that it's not universal and that some people do object simply to protect an imagined view of their neighborhood, particularly the historical aspect, but there's a healthy "us vs them" element to a lot of it.

It's because they're worried the "wrong" people will live, work or stay nearby. Meaning poorer or less white than they are. Those assumptions are rampant with apartments/hotels/abnbs when it comes to more affluent neighborhoods like GV and SP.

Compared to anywhere else in the world, Democrats are super conservative. AOC and Bernie would moderates in many countries. It's an illustration of just how far to the right the US really is. It never really left its Puritans behind, unfortunately.

Considering that rural areas all over the country are dying out and depopulating- and those places are the heart of their base- it's always made sense for them to attack urban areas. Furthermore, people who live in a city gain more exposure to different kinds of people, which means they're not as scary and it's harder to hate them. That's another problem for the Right, which builds its support on driving that kind of division. Suburbs are turning more blue as they diversify/densify.

Probably not accurate whatsoever. They are heavily biased towards old trends (or assumed trends), particularly when it comes to Northern vs Southern state growth rates. Most of the Sun Belt grew more slowly than predicted the last decade, and most of the Midwest/North grew faster than predicted. The new estimates simply revert back into the old assumption of the opposite. Estimates and projections from the Census have been trying to shrink Ohio's population for decades. Maybe it'll eventually happen, but there's no reason to expect it in any given year, especially based on numbers that continuously get it wrong. Another thing to consider is that they show literally the slowest national growth rate since... well, 1776. Covid is surely playing a role in things, so even if there was very slow to even negative growth the past year, as things improve, so will migration trends. It basically can't get much worse than that.

True, but the Westland site- once the mall is gone- is basically a huge blank slate, making it theoretically a lot easier to redevelop in a more urban fashion. The rest of the area would still be a problem because of the existing development, but that could change over time if new zoning was instituted that wouldn't allow typical low-density sprawl to replace anything. I also think that if Westland was redeveloped into a true mixed-use neighborhood, it would put pressure on the surrounding area to also get more urban.

Columbus crime rates are still nowhere near what they were in the 1980s and 1990s and even most of the 2000s. People assume that a few bad murder years makes the city more dangerous overall, but it's not. It's still far safer than in previous decades. That includes things like theft, which is roughly 50% lower than it was in the 1990s, even with a recent uptick. And I'm not just talking rates, but totals. And when you consider that most murders are not random and happen between people that directly know each other, it means the risk to the average citizen is not substantially higher than it is when murders are low. As far as murder situation itself, the 2021 rate is still slightly below that of 1991 despite a higher total. Due to population growth, Columbus would need to hit at least 200 or more to truly be the worst year. December has seen 10 murders in 20 days. It would need at least 9 more in the final 11 to beat 1991. Certainly possible, but time is running out. Some other good news is that a 3rd record year is probably unlikely. These things tend to escalate very quickly, but then collapse again after reaching peaks. 1990 was a record at the time, but then 1991 was next level worse. 1992, however, fell significantly and led to a multi-year decline. Assuming Covid dies down some next year, among other issues, I doubt Columbus sees another year like this and crime overall may resume the overall 30+ year trend.

I've given up hope that we'll see much beyond typical suburban development for the Westland site and the surrounding area. That probably has to do with it not being seen as a very desirable area to begin with, but also the development standards for this area continue to encourage low-density stuff with a car-dominated focus. A lot of potential, but I'd be shocked if the mall is replaced with a mixed-use development that didn't heavily focus on a strip center and fast-food outlots. Really hope I'm wrong because a true, urban-style development would have the ability to completely change the trajectory and feel of this neighborhood.

You joke, but every new development story on social media is filled with people longing for an imaginary "better" version of those neighborhoods.

Columbus remains one of the nation's most affordable cities. Yes, prices have gone up, but it's all relative because just about everywhere else is even more expensive.

Hmm, that would make a great slogan on a license plate or something.

I don't really get the obsession with a Trader Joe's for every neighborhood. They're not affordable for lower to mixed-income people as a regular grocery store. That's why their income requirements are so high- they know the poor can't shop there.

Not any recent development news unfortunately, but an interesting historical fact about 10 W. Broad, the current One Columbus Center. Apparently, back in 1968-1969, the original plan was for a 50-story, 603-ft tower that would've had a hotel, offices and first-floor commercial space. The current tower is only 26 stories at 366 feet. Additionally, a 2,000-car garage was planned to be built immediately west of the former Veteran's Memorial. Connecting them both was a planned monorail system (or something similar), that would've eventually been expanded around the entirety of the Downtown area. Apparently, this was why the Deshler Hotel was originally demolished. However, the project ended up falling through and it wasn't until the mid-1980s the One Columbus began construction. Had the building been built, it would've been the 2nd tallest in the city after Rhodes and only the 2nd taller than 600 feet. The only rendering I could find was this one.

I don't think it's ever really about whether a building can be saved, but just how much someone is willing to spend fixing it. Almost anything can be rebuilt/fixed given enough motivation. Most of the fixes are just going to cost more than the owners want to pay. Demolition is cheap. In that regard, I would much rather tax credits go into preserving historic structures than in simply subsidizing new construction, but as it stands now, developers have to fight over limited funds even if they want to bother with it.

I would think this part of Franklinton wouldn't make a great historic district. Many older structures not destroyed by repeated floods have ended up meeting the wrecking ball, and it's still happening. "East" Franklinton is mostly empty lots now, not much left to create a cohesive historic district. It's good they are saving *some* of what they can, though.

I've seen this done places and experienced the results. A lot of the concerns prior to the change was from businesses worried about potential loss of traffic. In the end, though, the opposite happened because pedestrian traffic increased substantially and businesses did even better than they had previously. Of course, what I experienced was not in the US and didn't quite have the same auto-centric obsession.

Is this the Homeport project demolishing the historic church?

Yeah, everyone probably thinks I hate everything, but I really just don't like bad development. I like Kaufman more often than not. Even when the projects aren't all that dense, they tend to at least put up a good product.

Back in either '98 or '99, I was at Cedar Point and a pretty large spout developed right off the peninsula and moved right up to shore. People were running and in general panic for a short time trying to find shelter. Pretty memorable event.