NW24HX

Update on Del Mar, it looks about ready to open. I wonder if they're going to continue to renovate the rest of the building vs the rebuilt front portion, it's a bit odd as-is

Yes there's construction signage up for Chanel advertising a summer opening and work is underway. There's actually a lot of activity throughout Easton right now, even though some conspicuous vacancies remain to be filled

Some news tucked into this longer article on the downtown office market - the 5/3 building is in line for partial residential conversion of its top floors. I think that will do well Downtown offices stabilizing, despite KeyBank building's problems Columbus real-estate experts were surprised by problems with a Downtown office tower but said it doesn't reflect Downtown's office market, which is showing signs of recovery ... Plans are in the works for another major Downtown conversion: transforming floors 17 through 23 of the Fifth Third building on the corner of State and South High streets into residences "The owners invested about $16 million in past 24 months in that property, with major exterior renovations, back-of-house improvements, a beautiful entrance and a lounge on top of the building, and a new fitness facility. Now they're looking at bigger plans in terms of where in the building is correct for multifamily conversion" https://www.dispatch.com/story/business/real-estate/2024/04/19/downtown-offices-stabilizing-despite-keybank-buildings-problems/73353761007/

Absolutely the city should (but won't) object to closing 6th. The blank brick wall at ground level is just insult to injury Somehow the Mayo Clinic manages to span multiple city blocks not much different in size from ours, but does it much more densely, with more activation at ground level and without closing streets for superblocks. But that's impossible here? Sorry I don't buy it

I'm in favor of the height but the mass is pretty overwhelming to have a dozen plus floors of the same monolithic black wall. Their other projects shown have more glass and facade variation, I'd like to see that here as well Also some retail space should definitely be included. I'd suggest nixing the townhomes along 9th (they don't really add that much) and instead putting the leasing office there. Then repurpose that High St frontage as retail. The current site has no less than 5 businesses - a bar, carryout, chinese restaurant, pizza place, and karaoke bar. Replacing all that activity with zero seems pretty unreasonable to me - give us something. That was true for the previous Buckeye Real Estate proposal for this site, and it's true here IMO

Well this is discouraging if not surprising... the building had seemed to continue to do well even post-COVID and with virtually no parking. Sounds like the change in ownership was the biggest factor which is a shame Tenants flee Key Bank tower Downtown as problems mount The Key Bank building in downtown Columbus is losing tenants, including Key Bank and another anchor, after problems with the new owner that include threats of electricity being cut off. According to tenants, problems emerged after Baruch Broad Street, an arm of the New York firm Zamir Equities, bought the 21-story building from the Schottenstein Property Group in Columbus for $12 million in January 2022. Tenants say heating and cooling have been inconsistent, the building has been plagued with water leaks and janitorial services have been spotty. https://www.dispatch.com/story/business/real-estate/2024/04/17/key-bank-tower-downtown-losing-tenants-including-ohio-auditor-bank/73329084007/ I did get a laugh from this line though, Management has become so erratic that the company providing plant services to the building has repossessed the plants.

They're brothers, Schiff Properties is Scott They tore down the historic home in Chillicothe and previously proposed to tear down this one at 1045 S High for a Starbucks that eventually went in next door https://maps.app.goo.gl/1EvqcSuEkdrBqr4h8 Their other projects have been near OSU - they own Wilson place and the adjacent shops (Chipotle, Amazon, etc), the retail at 16th and High (Walgreens, Starbucks) and the shops next to the Newport (Waffle House, etc) Schiff Capital aka Mike was most recently involved with Market Tower and Copious

Are they really painting all that brick white? Yikes that's a shame I thought the brick was looking really good, especially in comparison to what's across the street

This graphic identifying LinkUS corridors is contained in the zoning report. I don't think I've seen it before, what stood out to me is that it identifies the mode for each including North High and Downtown-CMH-Easton light rail lines

Didn't get a pic, but Current is back up and looking good 😎

Seems like something is up with the Sheraton (former Hyatt) Hotel on Capitol Square... driving by yesterday all hotel brand signage has been removed from the building exterior (at least at street level, I'm not sure about the skyline graphic), and online, the property is not bookable for the entirety of this week The building was sold at the end of last year, but nothing official has been announced since. I wouldn't be surprised if the hotel is either closing, has been dropped by the Sheraton flag, or is being eyed for residential conversion by the new ownership

Weather permitting, Current will be reinstalled next Saturday, April 6th https://medium.com/the-columbus-museum-of-art-blog/newsroom-janet-echelmans-current-to-be-reinstalled-for-spring-2024-season-245170c205ee

Unfortunately the University Area Commission is limited in the kind of push back they can give as opposed to the UIDRB which provides an additional layer of review to High St projects. The UAC can only recommend on requested zoning variances, as opposed to also being required to approve general design and aesthetic details I think we're starting to see clear evidence that this lack of architectural review is leading to lower design quality projects on the north side of 5th Ave vs the south, which is under IVC architectural review. In my opinion including this proposal, 4 of the 5 large projects on the north side of 5th between High and the railroad are of subpar quality (all except Crossline). The south side has seen fewer projects overall but all 3 to me are of very good architectural and urban design quality

Yikes indeed but par for the course for Geis (as Cleveland forumers are well aware)

What a shame. We really have nothing else like this in town...

A bubble diagram and some concept renderings are not a plan. We'll be voting on this in November and design is supposedly well past 60%, there should be more openness about the actual plans being developed and more public engagement throughout this whole process. Have there been any public meetings over the last year? The most recent I can find is December 2022. This is another thing Indy was much better at when developing their BRT

It'd be nice if we could see those plans to better understand how well all these different initiatives are going to work together

They could make it moderately higher with slightly increased costs as a 5-over-2, which is permitted under the building code, as well as adding some top floor units with a loft or mezzanine area so long as the average roof height remains less than 85'

Pretty pictures aside, my first impressions are that this belongs on Broad St, not Gay, and also that it isn't quite large enough of a loop to really be useful... The Indy cultural trail is 8 miles, and was completed 11 years ago. So, 15 years later we'll have something 1/4 the size, and one that leaves out the Discovery District entirely. We should aim bigger IMO Also, I understand Edwards wants this route because it hits the most properties he owns or has interest in, but functionally and spatially a dedicated two-way cycle track makes much more sense on Broad than Gay. If it must be on Gay, at least one side of street parking should be preserved

Village to city happens automatically, you don't have to apply and you can't opt out. City to village also happens automatically if the population falls below 5000 But it's also correct that non-resident students (as well as prisoners) don't count toward the 5000, so Granville remains a village ORC 703.1, https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-703.01

Disappointing but not surprising they cheaped out on the glass roof for the food hall

Calling it now, our next TMUD winner!

Agree with the posters above. And I'd prefer a separate development on the parking lot anyway, rather than one large building that spans both. We need less block-long monoliths (ala Highpoint, Nicholas) and more variety downtown. If and when the funeral home decides it makes sense to develop the lot, we'll now get a better streetscape in the end

We should use this opportunity to finally realize the 90s proposal for the Serpent Mound canopy over the Broad St bridge Honestly I couldn't care less about where the Columbus statue ends up https://columbusunderground.com/never-built-columbus-serpent-mound-canopy-bw1/

Wow 50 million really doesn't buy what it used to. They named the whole hospital after Wexner for 100M, but 50's only enough for the lobby? They could've at least named it the Wolfe Tower at Wexner Medical Center or something