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The lit up signage really does make a city feel more alive. I guess we won't be getting that speculative Memorial Day groundbreaking though, but news saying it'll start this year is good news! I would imagine they would like to start before the winter as well so hopefully we see some serious action within the next 3 months or so. I haven't been down there in a few weeks, but has the Dahlia building had demolition started? I imagine once we see that go down we can expect to see them close down the North Market parking lot soon after.

That's what I've been talking about! Make this thing open air, connect it to the street then you've got an awesome elevated parkway for pedestrians to hang out and it keeps the streets active if the only way to get up there is to use the stairs/elevators on the street level. Have those entrance points dump people off at spots where you have a lot of foot traffic businesses and you've got a win-win!

The Ohio Department of Health buildings right across the street from Nationwide are all connected via tunnels underground as well. They do have to walk outside to go from the garage to the building, but it isn't like there are a ton of things to walk to in that area for a quick and easy lunch anyways. They all eat at the internal cafeteria as well since it's 50% cheaper than anything they'd get elsewhere and is actually good food. I imagine a lot of the big corporate buildings downtown have similar things going on.

I'm not advocating that we continue the trend of adding 1960s/70s enclosed elevated walkways between skyscrapers and parking garages. Just that excluding any type of elevated pedestrian access from consideration (both open and enclosed) is short sighted and they should not just be off the table because they were done poorly 50 years ago. Whether that's way above the streets, along the streets, going over the streets or even under the streets, just outright saying "no, bad!" makes no sense to me whatsoever. We can learn from the mistakes of the past ones, make adjustments and consider those types of developments in the future if it makes sense for whatever parcel of land/area it is being proposed for. That is all!

You are not at all following me correctly! Don't take my spit-balled random examples too literally here. I'm trying to be a realist here. We have A LOT of car oriented infrastructure. That likely is not going anywhere, at least anytime soon. We also live in a growing city with a rapidly increasing urban population that is also under serviced by public transportation. Cars are everywhere and will continue to be for decades to come and we are only going to see a huge increase in day to day traffic flow. It would be great if they were planning to account for this, but they aren't, and even then whatever they are planning is always decades behind what we actually need now. In a perfect world we would be eliminating car oriented infrastructure in favor of more public transit and more pedestrian friendly ground level developments. Eliminating all vehicle traffic on High Street in the Short North and reclaiming that space for pedestrians would be 1000x better for the city compared to my elevated parkway mentioned above, as an example. That is obviously the best option. Sadly, we do not live in a perfect world and have to plan for that. Exploring all options available to us to create more pedestrian friendly infrastructure, regardless of what that is, is just a good idea. These commissioners or whoever saying "this is the one and that's it" just seems so incredibly short sighted to me. All options should always be on the table to increase pedestrian activity and pedestrian safety and be looked at on a case by case basis since the car oriented infrastructure is not going to go away.

We are already car focused though and they clearly aren't making any changes to how things are done around here to make it less car focused, so it's not crazy to say we should explore all options of making this city more pedestrian friendly and less car oriented. If the cars aren't going anywhere, then it's in everyones best interest to look into other pedestrian friendly developments. How much nicer would it be if there was something elevated off the street in the Short North for example so you didn't have to eat your lunch while sucking on the tail pipe of some jacked up pickup truck rolling coal? Or you get to use an elevated walkway to cross over High Street so you don't have to risk getting run down by an impatient driver who Deons't care that you're in the crosswalk? Until they actually start making big changes, pedestrian friendly developments that work around our car oriented infrastructure are going to have to be considered.

Whatever Minneapolis has done in the 15 years since this article has made enormous impacts on keeping those elevated walkways incredibly useful while also keeping the street level active as well. It certainly is not an "if this, then that" type situation. Both things can be done well together to create one cohesive pedestrian friendly environment and maintain an activated street level.

Why not both? Just look at what they've done in Minneapolis for ease of movement of pedestrians downtown. It's sky bridge and sky walkway galore in that city and they have a significantly more vibrant downtown than Columbus does. I for one welcome more elevated and non-street level pedestrian friendly features and activities. We don't all want to be sucking down exhaust fumes while strolling around. This city is just so car focused it's sad. Like if they are so adamant about activating street level, why do we not have any pedestrian only streets? You ever have a meal outdoors on High St. in the Short North? It's absolutely awful.

Well that's incredibly disappointing. "We can have the one cool thing, but no more!" - that guy probably. God forbid we create pedestrian friendly walkways in the urban core! Get those folks back on the streets where we can run them over with cars!

Anyone have any idea what was meant by that last quote in the article? Some commission guy saying they don't want to make a habit of removing people from the streets? What the hell does that mean?!

The Kirkersville PD entire responsibility is really to just be visible when the school ages kids are going to and from school. They generally aren't even full time employees, only work like 20 hours a week. Other than that, the speeding ticket was probably the highlight of their month.

I wonder how many more articles we can get about the Intel development that provide little to no new information. They keep pumping these things out!

That describes a lot of places and things in Ohio.

280-Acre Commercial, Industrial Development Coming to Harrison Township A large development that allows for restaurants, gas stations, convenience stores, a hotel, warehouses and more could be coming to Harrison Township. The Harrison Township Zoning Commission voted to recommend rezoning more than 280 acres along Outville Road to a Planned Unit Development during a special meeting May 18 Will contain a mix of commercial and industrial development, no mention of residential in the article. Development will be broken into 4 phases. Phase 1/2 - Industrial uses such as warehouses and storage, excluding personal storage facilities and warehousing of anything flammable, toxic or explosive. Manufacturing for a variety of industries are all permitted. Phase 3 - Grocery, conveinsne stores, gas stations, dry cleaning services, barbershops/hair salons, restaurants, day care, nursing or assisted living, hotels and other similar uses. Phase 4 - to remain a wetland and no commercial or industrial developments will occur in these areas. Sounds like Pataskala is going to have some major industrial/commercial land uses right up against them whether they want to or not! This will likely be a major positive for the small village of Kirkersville as well which is a fairly depressing little stretch of roadway if you've never been over there before. https://www.newarkadvocate.com/story/news/2022/05/23/280-acre-commercial-industrial-development-coming-harrison-township/9822773002/

The street sign in the Home Depot bucket is just great.

It was more of a tongue in cheek comment haha. I don't think anyone would watch that unless New Albany went from 80s farm town to 2050 "City of the Future" or something.

My goodness, I wonder when the documentary about the evolution of New Albany since the 80s will be out. Probably needs another 10-20 years of boom to make that an interesting watch though.

Wow, that's going to be significant. The current apartment is likely quite outdated I would imagine and it was a fairly poor use of space. Like why do they have all that pavement out front when there aren't even parking spots there? It's just all dead space leading up to the sidewalk. Not relevant at all, but the Columbus Fire Department was doing some kind of big training at that building yesterday. There were a ton of trucks and what not on the premise with ladders going up to various windows. It was kinda cool, just made a ton of traffic on Lane. EDIT: Went on their website as well, they are no longer even leasing apartments. Makes a lot more sense why they were using it for training now, I thought that would annoy some residents.

Are they demolishing the already existing apartment building right there or would this be more of an add on and renovation of the existing structure?

My lord! There is literally a parking garage right there! Why do we need all this surface parking?!

It kinda looks like a spec manufacturing building. Looks like it would belong in an industrial park.

A bunch of officials from various Licking County organizations visited the Intel campus in Chandler, Arizona recently. This article from the Newark Advocate highlights some of their thoughts. It's almost entirely positive! Here are a couple quotes from the article. Licking County Officials Impressed with Intel's Efforts in Arizona Johnstown Mayor Chip Dutcher still has some concerns but came away feeling confident Intel will work with them to help alleviate those concerns. “I still have concerns," Dutcher said. "The more we learn, the more facts that are shared, the anxiety level will go down because we’ll see the reality. I felt good about having been out there and seeing with my own eyes and experience the reaction of the officials in Chandler and how they lived through the growth." Heath Mayor Mark Johns was impressed with how Intel has worked with the surrounding communities and land uses, particularly the ones who share a property line with the Intel campus. "On the west side, there's a Native American tribe reservation," Johns said. "A sovereign nation on the other side of this two-lane road from Intel’s operation and they’re growing alfalfa and cotton. The city of Chandler, years ago, partnered with this tribe, so that non-potable water from Intel is actually being pumped over the tribe’s farmland for use on their crops because water is a pretty important resource in Arizona.” John Fisher, director of the Licking County Department of Job and Family Services, came away from the visit with an even more positive view of Intel (they are bringing a ton of jobs here so I can see what the guy who promotes job growth likes them!). “Chandler officials talked about the great deal of cooperation and communication between the city and Intel and showed Intel as a positive community partner," Fisher said. “Intel came into a community and grew with that community. "It was convincing to me Intel will be a welcome community partner and employer in Licking County. Certainly, there will be bumps along the way, but the benefits and opportunities far outweigh some of the issues.” There are some other good quotes from other officials in there as well. https://www.newarkadvocate.com/story/news/2022/05/12/licking-county-officials-impressed-intels-efforts-arizona/9730566002/

This photo confused the hell out of me. I thought that yellow-ish glass was the bar top and those stools were like 1ft tall. Now I see that it's a glass roof over the bar haha.

Such a nice contrast between the buildings, the greenery and the red bricks.

Best we can do is 3-6 stories in car-centric neighborhoods that are anti-pedestrian. Take it or leave it!