DTCL11

I saw this for the first time yesterday as well! Old North is also home to some interesting land due to the road layouts. It lends itself to some significant infill potential along the lines of Hamlet area of IV. These two blocks could be something interesting but the effort to acquire all the property needed would be prohibitive for something larger at play. But they do have longer than standard lots. Old North is kind of the Wild West architecturally speaking in the city. Which is where it lends itself to some cool infill of all styles. Sure, there are ubiquitous blocks of early 1900 homes but there is alot of random builds, larger and smaller, Victorian, Italianate, bungalow, Row Homes, 1960/70/80 abominations etc. Just patiently waiting for more retail and investment in High Street as it migrates north.

It's almost criminal. Let the clock begin for the rebuild proposal. Will it be Over/Under Main Bar? Certainly it won't be as long as Marconi Garage... right...?

There wouldn't be much if any need for this at OSU if the remainder of Lane and 15th and High gets developed properly. The University of Tennesee has nothing similar in terms of development demand along High, Lane, Short North etc near campus so they are taking it upon themselves to do it. While the lots around OSU certainly possess development opportunity, the need for another entertainment focused district would be redundant to 15+High, Gateway, and even Short North and Old North.

Most of the current panels are the final product. The entire east side and 90% of the north side is going to be sandstone and black panels. But they also didn't have all the panels in until relatively recently. While it looked done, they had misc panels and sections still Uninstalled for access to the structure behind.

I don't like having two big greenhouse projects and yet neither of them are actual greenhouses. 🫣 If we get a true urban greenhouse project do we have to call it something else? Lol Also. Mural work has begun on Gravity

Squads and fire generally don't run sirens after dark unless there is traffic congestion. Even if there is a car or two, they might squawk but general practice is to not use them unless absolutely necessary. And if there's going to be 10s of thousands more residents downtown, a hospital downtown is going to have to work or you're preventing reasonable access to care without forcing the entire south side and downtown from going to the north side or far east for care.

I would assume standard infill. Podium construction is basically 5/1 so any hope of something much more than that are already likely dashed. And they probably get away with saying below grade parking because current grade is significantly over street level. In reality, unless they are going below street level, it's mostly likely street level parking deck for a majority of the frontage. Definitely not getting hopes up for anything beyond a dense blob of apartments in the standard 5/1, Architecturally ubiquitous design. Wouldn't be a bad spot for a neighborhood embedded corner coffee shop or similar.

*looks at other old towers*

I understand the idea but no solar panel array should be built over an existing parking lot downtown. That would just create excuses to keep lots. As we've beaten to death here, the city just needs to pony up and make it difficult for land owners to want to keep surface lots. I'd have to dig it up but before CU got rid of forums, I did a bit of research and number crunching for Columbus, specifically addressing parking decks as beiing the most sensible low hanging fruit. And as part of that, the city would work with the entities that be to build solar arrays on all the parking decks and would mandate that any new deck would 1. Be built capable of upward expansion and 2. Have a solar array on top. The the Arena District deck tops alone are similar acreage to the average solar farm. That doesn't include the Front Street garage Corridor or the Columbus Commons deck that is over 4 acres alone. Another similar project is urban vertical farms. The potential is insane once you dig in to it but the leaders here rely a little too much on the developers rather than pushing hard for ambitipus sustainable changes.

So what is the commission asking for now? I feel like the reason it hasn't been approved is a key component of the report... thats missing...?

But the city can and should put the demands on it and property owners shouldn't be able to put whatever they want wherever they want all in the name of 'it's better than what's there'. Not that hard. Cities do it all the time. We have those expectations in plenty of places. We discuss materials, and balconies, etc all day for things in hot neighborhoods. The same should be applied elswhere. Columbus just needs to do it more and more consistently across more of the core. Easy as that. The idea that property owners should be able to do whatever, wherever as long as it's a net benefit of some sort is a farce. The city and commissions failing to push for better is just as detrimental as preventing good urban development. Especially when the consideration being asked is simply a reorganization of the sites to promote a better urban environment and potential future land use if the opportunity were to arise. That in no way is the same as demanding more units or a tower or a garage or other things we do regularly talk about here for many projects. But by golly, rearranging a site... too far! It's not your money! These developments ringed with parking lots have no place inside the loop. Most would balk at it in Franklinton, many would criticize the hell out of it in Clintonville, just about everyone would scream if it were downtown. I doubt this many commentors would be 'well, at least its another parking lot gone' if it wasnt fronting the street or arranged to allow future expansion if it was on Long Street. Remember how frustrating it was and still is that the Hyatt on third has a parking garage fronting the street and a massive parking lot. That we spent alot of time discussing that the parking should be buried or at least behind the Hyatt? That the Nicholas also has all sorts of dead street front on Long St? In the long term vision of the city, we should be doing the same even for these outlying areas of the core. The idea that 'it's just an old dilapidated part of town so be happy it gets anything' is on the verge of discrimatory. Expecting and wanting the best for higher value neighborhoods but meh, it's the Southside, they'll get what they can get. And that's the consistent difference. I'm not willing to write off any part of town for poor development concepts simply because its not the prime areas. Again, if we spend so much time excusing case by case that we have more excuses in the end than not. How many exceptions for this reason or that before the exceptions become the rule. And upon second glance, I got Rice Bowl and the one to the south mixed up. At least the Rice Bowl building fronts the street. The one between Dering and Fornoff is terrible as well.

The rice bowl site should receive criticism as well but there haven't really been updates since. The reason this site is getting so much discussion now is there are updates. And it goes beyond criticizing what other people do with their money to meet arbitrary vision. Again, this isn't anymore more than pushing for a better urban layout. Its not even asking developers to add more floors or more units as we do all the time in those 'Next Short North' and downtown areas. It is incumbent on city leaders to push back and make these developers do better everywhere. To have a longer term vision in mind. There's a ton of low value sites on the south side but if we just treat each as being grateful for what we get, as the city densifies toward 104, we will be stuck with rather large developments that are suburban in nature. We don't necessarily need to wait until the south side is the 'Next Short North' before we ask for urban oriented development and not this stuff that belongs in exurbs. And that's the thing with Columbus. We look so singularly at individual projects that we lose the potential long term impacts. Even in these forums so much gets written off as 'its fine. Its just THIS location or THIS project' but when you continue to add it up, it's those allowances time and time again. It really isn't that hard or outlandish to expect better of our city and developers that will be better in the long run as we hurdle toward that 2050. We have to stop acting like anything inside 270 can be written of as 'better than nothing'. If we set the precedent to expect better we will get better.

They appear to be 15' x 20'. Which could look something like this

The other thing is we need to consider on retail is that if it is going to be a multi-modal hub, a fair amount of space will be taken up for transit at ground level is my assumption.

I'm leaning towards Hills making a permanent move depending on timing if Edward's bought that land for redevelopment. I think Columbus will be reaching peak market/food hall before long. Unless they manage to truly be more market driven like West Side Market and less food hall driven, I think having another market at the Greyhound site might be a tough sell with proximity to an expanded North Market and East Market. Though proximity to events at the Commons, Riverfront, etc could be a selling point.

It wont be a Trader Joe's. Never will be. I almost need to save the post to keep it handy but the household income within the 3 mile radius of downtown is not sufficient to support it. *most* (not all) Trader Joe locations have a median household income of $100k within a 3 mile radius. Many have a median household income of 120-150k per household in the radius. The balance to that is usually population density. Downtown Columbus doesn't meet the general standards for a Trader Joe's so chances are slim to none. Trader Joe's is also not usually one for being part of big urban mixed used outside of major cities. Even in places like NYC and Chicago, many Trader Joe's are stand alone or part of a smaller development. Perhaps it could be a good relocation of the Hills Market.

We don't have to have crappy stuff slip through like this. It shouldn't be acceptable. Sure, some projects may not be the best utilization of a site in terms of density, units, etc but there is no excuse for a 100000% suburban style development in the core less than a block from High Street at this point. Slipping through shouldn't be a thing or something to shrug off. Every single site matters. And it's not like the commission is hearing hundreds of them to even warrant 'slipping' by. This isn't saying it needed more units or anything fancier etc. Just a more appropriate land use and set up. This is a perfectly simple battle to take up because allowing these here will allow developers to do more of the same in this area and that's the last thing we need.

It looks like a picket fence... or prison bars...

They have too many busy bodies that demand it to give time to sharpen pitchforks and refill their torch fuel.

Or we could expect the city and commissions to do their job and not rubber stamp terrible things for the sake of good enough. A simple reworking of this site would have born little to no additional cost to the developer while also adding to better urban fabric and future potential of the site. The city and commissions are the exact people who should be pushing for things to be correct and not good enough.

Lulz... Schiff 'Tower'... I'd say we should try to refrain from calling it a 'Tower' until we actually see something. Remember, Schiff's development partner is trying to go bigger and Schiff is trying to hold back additional height. We will likely end up with something better without Schiff involved, at least from what we've heard so far. And with or without that last plot, any developer with funds can go 30 stories if they wanted. The lot is already huge and not having that little corner shouldn't impede a significant development.

You made me do it.

And semi-catty corner from the 30 story* COTA building. *Based on the fact that Columbus17 never blinked Edit: I hope we get AT LEAST something like this at Main and High

My one wish (not a criticism) is if they were going full art deco, some sort of pinnacle type feature such as a clock tower, lighted sculpture etc. This is likely to be the tallest building in the Short North, at least in the hub of the SN and a bit of a beacon would be fun.

Maybe a little bit of musical chairs. The current Hills Location is great. But to build, they'll have to close so do they wait it out or move to another Edward's location temporarily or permanently. Good scoop!