DTCL11

Yeah. Its not about seeing the river itself but the idea of experiencing and being connected to the park without a river of asphalt between. And even at a posted speed of 35, which is insane, cars still fly by. But, some sort of development where you could see the river valley would be cool but I'd be happy if riverside drive had been routed to the east by a could hundred feet. I think the best opportunity for river views is the west side of the river. I think of places like Cuyahoga Falls or Chargrin falls where there's at least a couple that view the rivers

This. The blandness and sterilization doesn't come from it being new. It's from the architecture. I give Easton alot of grief but their newest area that still sits incomplete is an amazing example of architectural diversity making a much more pleasant experience. Sure, it might not be exactly the most efficiency thing to not have 5 over 1 but it does create a better experience. And while Arena District isn't much better, the architecture and materials will age better than alot of Bridge Park. But overall, my biggest gripe is the disconnect from the river and riverfront Park. Yay, let's have a fancy dinner and have to look through rows of parked cars and watch cars speed by at 45mph to maybe enjoy it. The center focus of retail and restaurants etc should have been more Park centric

I'll take a dozen more 80 Commons over 250 S high. But that's largely becuase I'm not a fan of the 250 S high panels, and the randomized punched in balconies compounded by the color they chose. Kind of like the new gravity Tower. The gravity tower would be 100% better if they used the same stone texture 80 Commons did. Both generally lack great treatment of ground level aesthetic so that's a wash for me too.

And it's been nothing but full again for a few weeks now. I swore it was the fullest I've seen it in a few years this week so the number of cars in the lot probably isn't going to help us speculate... until they're all gone lol

Not going to lie, the tower portion of gravity is such a big disappointment. Big. Boxy. Tan and bland. I'm not sure the mural will help either. I would have rather a facade of brick to tie into the peninsula. Without the architectural flare the original proposal had, it kind of sticks out in a bad way with the rest of Gravity.

Well, this thread took a fascinating twist. Next let's analyze local companies and see what C Suite folks in the metro might also be able to afford either of these 2 units 😅 I'll put it this way, if there are folks willing to rent or mortages of insane amounts outside 270, at some point, surely there will be a person or two who will do the same downtown. The 1% gonna 1%. And worst comes to worse, the rest of us might get it for a steal at $5000 a month some day 🤣

I think this state of downtown discussion might fit with the downtown strategic plan and the downtown discussion I just posted in that thread. Maybe it should be a 'downtown strategic plan, trends, and general discussion' to keep these kinds of topics together and out of the random thread?

I'm going to pop this into the general downtown plan... My God, there's alot more hand wringing over more units coming downtown than there should be... https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/local/2023/03/01/will-new-downtown-columbus-apartments-be-empty-if-demand-is-not-there/69937648007/ The one panelists highlights downtown residential occupancy is at 92% and he'd like to see it back to 96 or 97 percent before we consider adding more units downtown. Another panelist goes as far to say downtown is better for dense development because less building and parking restrictions, which is correct, but then goes further seemingly to imply that downtown is where dense development belongs and not in the neighborhoods anyway. There's even more concern over top much residential and not enough office space while almost casually ignoring that commercial office space is 21% vacant. Oh no.... we shouldn't be looking to convert a ton of old office space to residential... that would be devasssssttttaaaatttinnnngggggg.... (more or less). There's so much focus in the article on the concept that downtown needs to be incredibly populated with workers or people won't want to live downtown and very little acknowledgement that a good neighborhood is a good neighborhood. Many of the best neighborhoods here and around the world aren't the central business districts. The ones burgeoning at the seams aren't the ones overbuildong office space. So what if there aren't 90k people working in offices anymore? You put in enough transit, amenities, entertainment, food, etc that won't matter. They way they talk, I think about the newest areas of Seattle development and they are massive job centers (aka amazon etc) so they built up all these beautiful office towers and residential towers and its not a vibrant area of the city. Same with Dallas. The most vibrant areas focus on residential, amenities, transit, etc and some jobs. West loop didn't explode because they became a massive business district. They grew together. To be fair, they aren't being overly dramatic but it is certainly alot more skepticism and focus on white collar workers coming back to the office than what I think is warranted. Anywho. Some of these people are still very much stuck in a different time.

The same Akron real estate investor who bought the house to the left also bought this property. They replaced the roof but this is the first that anything else has been done that's visible in about a year.

So Grant is tearing down the existing parking garage for the tower? Am I reading that correctly? Trying not to be too nitpicky since it's a medical facility and campus I suppose. I like the street and sidewalk improvement concept but hope they get much better upgrade than the renderings show as the process goes on. Would be nice to see the old ED be used for more community based health outreach and care either through grant or another partner like Equitas etc especially as the downtown population grows in a similar vein to Mount Carmel. Edit. I also wonder if they've been conscious of their limited land and are building to allow future upward expansion on the new builds or at least the new garage. Im assuming the old garage cant sustain that kind of expansion or we might see either of these on top of the existing. It was kind of fun to watch them basically lego their last expansion on top of the old building.

I wonder why the city hasn't revived the Front and Marconi plans. They were completed and slated for construction in 2015 and I remember we got noticed about the work starting when I was in the AEP building but then it just never happened. According to the designer, it even won an award. https://www.burgessniple.com/our-work/front-marconi-two-way-street-conversion/

East Colossus Development and News But in terms we understand, how many (Jeffrey Parks/Bridge Parks)×GrandviewYards^Intel is it?

Re: Root They have been fighting a losing battle since the day they decided to be an Insurance Company rather than an Insurance Technology company. There's lots that can be said but ultimately, they tried to beat legacy insurers at something legacy insurers were already starting to offer and thats a losing proposition. Let's see if Branch fairs any better.

Pre-face: it should be approved as is with some aethetic changes perhaps but that's it. But throwing spaghetti at a wall here: I know Stonewall is new, but I wonder if there's capability to build above it to step down toward the corner with limited impact? Then maybe amenities and commercial space is technically added to the Stonewall facility (which also makes sense for community access) then that knock a little off the top of the 10 stories? It is far fetched and would suck to impact Stonewall's operations again but might be an out of the box solution. I also wonder if there's opportunity to purchase or work with surrounding owners to expand the footprint to the north. It wouldn't stand out if Out of the Closet had been pushed to be part of a 4-5 story development and the City had given up its lot already... but thats ifs and buts at this point I suppose.

Love the objectivity of 'shouldn't overpower the buildings surrounding it' /s And this unfortunately won't be one the developers can take to the city since it appears that the city is already pointing out they are outside the Short North Plan. You'd think that something for so much good could get variances... like the Bollinger that stood out for all those years.

I hope they build them as wooded lots otherwise it's a huge desecration of Central Ohio's tree Canopy. I think these suburbs need to adopt some more protections of wooded areas. Leaving 16 acres isn't quite a consolation when it seems you're wiping out almost 60 in phase one.

I do kind of wish they would keep 5 towers. Even if they aren't all operational, the 5 felt substantial from a scultpural standpoint and full whereas the 3 seems a little sparse. Or maybe a few other similar elements that give it height and fullness when all that's on is lights.

I would argue it's not how little they learn but how little they care. Westerville is content. They are content with their tax base. Content with their demographics. Etc.

CU had a bit on it in a never built article. It was originally an early 2000s idea that was pulled and later was included conceptually in the 2010 plan. I'd have to double check but I also think there was a similar plan in the 90s to go along with the Polaris-Downtown light rail levy. On the topic of Rail, A rail connector between downtown and the airport goes all the way back to 1973. Though they anticipated a subway line for it. Some Summaries from prior plans For all intents and purposes, Columbus has fallen behind in it's Downtown Development. And by not doing these basics in the 2023 plan over the last 30 years, we haven't seen the downtown growth potential we could have and then we will sit here and pat our backs for finally coming around to these concepts or implementing them (IF that even happens) and say, 'wow guys, this 1973, I mean 1988, I mean 2002, I mean 2010, OH, This 2023 plan REALLY WORKED!' Yes. Some of these things like major transit, arenas, massive parks, etc can take time but bike lanes, parking lot regulations, housing initiatives shouldn't take decades.

It's the most vague plan to date, includes the absolute most basic concepts of urban development, and just carries over all the vague parts of the previous plans over the last 30+ years. Everything you listed has been included in almost every plan since the 80s plan. These are the universally understood goals of any downtown development/corporation. The only thing that has truly changed is the market. To say it has the opportunity to be the most impactful is just real estate trends catching up with the concepts of the last 30 years or the city finally doing the bare minimum. In fact, the 1988 strategic plan specifically outlined 'eliminating incentives for surface parking in downtown, building strategic structured parking, and use shuttle services to encourage satellite parking.' Fun fact. The 1988 strategic plan also included the idea to cap 70 and 71 through downtown. Restoring Broad Street and Bus Only Lanes goes back to the 1973 Strategic Plan. I still hope we see a bigger more detailed plan with big ideas talked about and conceptual targets seen in some of the presentations. Otherwise that's alot of money and time for... general knowledge.... and direction to spend more money and time on additional studies. The strategic plan should (or should have) also encompassed these basic things it refers for future study as well as specific big project goals. How long do we have to continue waiting and paying for the city to develop a plan to disincentivize downtown parking. That's one of the easiest things the city can do and doesn't actually involve much cost for the city and it's been 35 years since disincentivizing surface parking first appeared in a strategic plan. The other thing a more detailed strategic plans give us is these benchmarks to see how long these concepts have been around and what has been successful or continuing to fail. The big ideas give goals and clues to developers where to focus their efforts as well. From 2010. I guess the flip side is by paring it down to the absolute basics of urban development, maybe they will actually do the basics?

Wait. A. Minute. I missed that the plan was completed and adopted. The 3 previous plans all included specific goals and projects. This plan is literally just says, in varying forms, 'Conduct more studies on how to grow downtown'.. Holy. Cow. We knew it was a waste but wtf. How did they come up without even outlining specific projects or goals other than the same platitudes every downtown has? Or are we waiting on a better PDF or what? It really seems like alot of work for a handful of fancy images and a 4 page PDF? For reference, the 2010 strategic plan was 105 pages, included the normal platitudes about more studies and collaborative and developed but also had specific projects and strategies outlined. Thats what I had been and still am expecting?

If this uses existing freight rail and relies on pull off, this will never be successful. By federal law, priority must be given to passenger rail however the federal government has never enforced it or taken action against freight rail for violating it. Freight rail still controls all the access. The biggest problem is now freight rail makes the trains longer then the pull offs so passenger has to yield. The governors spokesperson also highlights that their priority is to not impede freight rail at all. (Paraphrased) 'We have to make sure it doesn't impact freight rail which is vital to our economy'. The administration needs to couple all this investment with enforcement of federal law prioritizing passenger rail. This timely video will then be particularly applicable to any passenger rail that shares with freight.

I think alot of that has to do with the fact that the earthen levee that exists and will continue to exist for a large portion of it, particularly by the Shoe. Perhaps some development on the levy by the shoe with views of the river might be appropriate. More specifically, I think something across from the towers in place of Drake makes the most sense. The other factor is the dam removal projects of the early 10s (and to some extent, this project) were intended for restoration of the river which has been amazing so developing anything along the lines of the Scioto Mile/Greenway with more direct access to the river itself would be counterintuitive to those goals. Perhaps a boardwalk system might be a nice touch further south but we won't likely see anything along the lines you're thinking. OSU is also unlikely to invest heavily into anything more than modest access in the flood plane further south by the bed center. I think I'm ok with it not having the same type of riverfront development if it means a proper restoration. I cant recall but is the substation going to be relocated? I think that would be a missed opportunity if not. Edit: the CU image seems to show some sort of hardscaping the others don't in line with a plaza across from the towers. Would be really cool to see a land bridge that connects the entrance level of the towers, covers the parking and provides a significant connection. Of course, that all depends on the true long term vision for the towers.

Dang. I could have spotted the infamous CbusOrBust from my window and missed him! The paparazzi will get you some day!