cityscapes

234 units even if it's all studios is going to be a tight fit unless the project is going to be out of scale tall for the area. I'm interested to see what this will look like. I agree on the Kroger parking lot facing N High being wasted space but they share blame with the City of Columbus for permitting that development as designed on the premier street of the city.

There's construction equipment on site I wonder if this will be starting soon.

With Pizzuti and the Columbus Art Museum merging it would be cool to have a starchitect designed modern art museum using the Pizzuti collection which tends to be more contemporary, with the more classic works remaining in the current art museum Downtown.

The colored parts are probably the most successful part of this building but even then they used the most drab shades of the blue, green, red, orange color families. The interior of the units are significantly less nice than all the other new buildings in Columbus, despite the cost being the same. Now that this is wrapping up I wonder if they will develop something on the other CMHA owned land to the west of this.

That building has some of the highest quality glass and brick in the short north built with long lasting steel reinforced concrete construction. This will stand the test of time and does a good job reinforcing the brick street wall while adding a glass element that makes the building current. It's one of the best buildings going up in Columbus right now. It's definitely not ugly Vancouver soullessness. In Vancouver it would have been 30 floors taller.

This should restart shortly there are new permits under review to complete the project.

Telsa is moving into the HH Gregg space. It's to be a vehicle delivery and maintenance space and is much bigger than the current location.

I don't get why they want to go through all that effort to move the building all for a drive through. First of all, the city should be making zoning code changes to prevent auto oriented uses going in on inner city urban streets like this. The demolition of a historic structure is a separate issue. This type of use would be fine on a street like Bethel Road but not in the Brewery District. Is it that hard to build a non-drive through restaurant with a 0 setback building and parking in the rear?

It’s the new Aloft Hotel but it’s in the City of Columbus not Grandview Heights. There are renderings of the project in the Olentangy River Road thread.

I drove past this the other day and got curious and now these comments made me go investigate. They do not have permits to built the tower and their site plan hasn’t been approved yet. They got permits to do interior demolition and stabilize the walls that will be saved.

Actually, if you're referring to the projects mentioned in the above article, they're in Franklinton. To be exact, they're in the East Franklinton District, which isn't a part of the Downtown District. The map above shows the extent of the East Franklinton District. The Scioto Peninsula to the east is part of the Downtown District. All the projects in the above article are within this area. If the article referred to redevelopment of the area around COSI as Franklinton then they'd be wrong.

I'm looking for a new place and called Gravity because I thought it would be cool to live there and be close to work Downtown. Despite it looking very finished on the exterior it is going to be ready for occupancy in March so they directed me to 80 on the Commons which has had people living in it for months. I didn't think it was occupied yet because I eat at the food trucks in Columbus Commons every so often and it looks like there's still a lot of work left to do on the building. Apparently not. I went over to look at the units and took some pictures. They're very expensive, $1,200 for 490 SQ FT studios, $1,450+ for the smaller 1 bedrooms. I don't want to know what they're charging for 2 bedrooms. I don't think I'll end up moving because it's a hassle, however if I was I'd pick this building. Out of all the new buildings I've seen in Columbus after looking at places before moving here and during the Urban Living tour, this is far and beyond the most well built and solid feeling new building in the city. The units feel sound proof and air tight when you close the door and there weren't any visible signs of short cuts and sloppiness in the finishes. That bus terminal needs to go. Some views from 250 S High:

Drove by on my way home from work and the site is fenced off with no cars in the parking lot.

The Pizzuti office building at 1st & High went up quickly... More glass on the Moxy Hotel.

They're starting the cladding soon you can see the panels they're going to attach it to being installed between two windows. Can't wait to see how red this is.

They applied for their building permit two days ago so they’ll probably break ground in the spring unless it gets approved unusually quickly.

North of Nordstrom will be another parking garage. The grey to the east of that garage will not necessarily be a garage. I think the aqua colored developments are mixed use. Red is offices. The purple shows the Aloft hotel and a building that should be apartments to the south. I'm guessing this color indicates residential and hotel uses. Everything shown in yellow will be retail / restaurant spaces. All of this is currently working through the approval process with the city, and the site work is already well underway.

Does anyone know what is being built directly to the north of where all the single family and town homes have been built so far in Grandview Yard? I was there the other day and there's a bunch of utility work and streets and alleys laid out. I'm guessing it's probably more of the same but it would be nice to know exactly what is going on.

Ugly and generic.

There are so many creative solutions they could be using to gain more light or align the floor plates. In Amsterdam there was an existing historic structure that was too short to be used for this Chanel boutique. They took apart the old structure and rebuilt it taller to fit todays needs. The diagram below better explains what they did than I can. This building in Toronto uses a perforated metal screen to replicate the old facade of the building that was here and burnt down. Everything behind the screen is glass so the new building gained a lot of natural light. The two above examples show two creative options that could solve their problem at this site, but they're not willing to think outside the box. They could even take the elevator and stairs out of the Madison building and put them where the smaller building is now to gain more floor space. They could keep the facade and install a light well or multiple skylights or frosted glass floor plates. There are literally so many things they could do. Tearing the smaller building down is the laziest and least creative option. What's worse is the Commissioners are willing to entertain it if the alley is good enough. No alley is going to be good enough on a block that already has way too much undeveloped land. If the hotel was going to be developed with something nice I'd maybe be willing to let this slide but there's no momentum on that project as far as I know. They've had control of the land for so many years it seems suspicious that after all this time, and even showing this building in the rendering in last months Downtown Commission hearing that they all of a sudden need to tear it down to make the project work. They're only tearing it down because it's quick and easy. If that tenant falls through or moves out tearing out the structure will be all for nothing and that parcel is too small for something to pencil out there in the future with today's development costs.

I like the look of the retail portion of the garage, but the entire Long Street frontage of it should be retail, not just the corner.

I'm really concerned about the revised proposal involving the demolition of the four story building. Downtown Columbus has too many surface lots and gaps in the street wall not to mention how much historic fabric has been lost to lose another old building. They should look into a creative solution to get more light without tearing that one down. There's already a surface lot next to this project, we don't need another within it.

No, I'm not. The Business First rendering is very old. I've seen the most recent plans for this project as of this week. There is surface parking along 5th between the hotel and the structured parking abuts 5th at the sidewalk.

I can't see the full article, but it looks like the hotel (westernmost building, I thought) has no setback with surface parking in back now based on the new rendering. Or is that an old rendering? I've lived within a quarter mile of this site for 5 years now, and I walk/bike past it almost every day on my commute. I agree with everything you're saying about wanting all the cars in a more well-hidden structure, but this is such a huge leap from what we have there now and it is going to permanently preserve a lot of that privately owned green space. Would I be happier with even more green space, all single-family home infill to keep traffic low, and keeping the grocery store? Yeah, sure, but I am willing to trade a lot to keep that park on third. The fact is, the parking structure is going to be contiguous with Battelle's surface lots and OSUWMC as you go north, not a residential neighborhood. Nobody is ever going to be fooled walking down that stretch of 5th that they aren't in an area with a bunch of big buildings and parking lots. More trees isn't going to change that on the opposite side of fifth you have a gigantic surface lot backed by big air exchange machines and Battelle's shipping and receiving. I would be happiest if the apartments on the east side were less modern and stepped back from Perry as they went up, that way it would merge a bit more cleanly with those lovely homes on Vermont. Otherwise, I see this as a huge win for the neighborhood. None of what is shown here reflects the current proposal, but this one is closest to it: I don't agree with the logic in your post that essentially is saying because the Battelle site is badly designed and has poor urban form, that lets this brand new project off the hook from being as good as it can be. Battelle may redevelop their entire campus, they may move from this location, or redevelop surface parking in exchange for structured parking. You can't assume the north of this site is going to stay the same forever. I don't oppose this project, I think it will be good for the neighborhood I just think that small tweaks are being overlooked that would make it a much better contribution to the neighborhood.

I live in the Victorian Village side of the Short North. It's safe I've never heard of anything bad happening here aside from car break ins which is common around the country. There are randomly some weird meth-y looking hillbilly types that come through that have a threatening vibe, but it's mostly a safe quiet neighborhood. High Street itself on the Short North is too busy with pedestrians for anything to happen. As others have mentioned there's that weird stretch between King and University Gateway, but I think with all the new developments going up there will be enough eyes on the street to keep that area in line.