Luvcbus

First steel beam goes up for Honda, LG battery plant for EV's "Honda and LG Energy Solution have hit a milestone for the electric vehicle battery plant they're building in Fayette County near Jeffersonville, putting up the first steel beam for the factory that will create 2,200 jobs. Honda and LG have committed to invest $3.5 billion to the plant with overall investment expected to reach $4.4 billion. The plant is expected to be completed by the end of 2024. It will make pouch-type lithium-ion batteries in 2025 exclusively for Honda electric vehicles to be sold in North America." https://www.dispatch.com/story/business/automotive/2023/06/21/first-steel-beam-goes-up-for-ohio-honda-lg-battery-plant-for-evs/70339113007/

Microsoft to join parade of data centers in New Albany area "Add another major high-tech company to the growing list interested in doing business in Licking County, according to a county official. Microsoft appears to be joining Intel, Meta, Google and Amazon in western Licking County, purchasing nearly 200 acres near Beech Road for a data center, Licking County Commissioner Tim Bubb said. “I’ve heard it from New Albany Company,” Bubb told The Newark Advocate Thursday night. “They confirmed the sale. It was part of a nationwide search for a site, and they settled on that site.” https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2023/06/16/microsoft-joins-the-parade-of-data-centers-into-western-licking-county/70328657007/

Columbus further commits to affordable housing in 2023 Capital Budget "The city of Columbus's 2023 Capital Improvements Budget more than doubled its annual allocation for affordable housing. More than $50 million of the $1.74 billion capital budget is dedicated to affordable housing and home preservation. In 2022, the budget allocation was about $21.5 million. Mayor Andrew Ginther said this decision aligns with the Columbus Housing Strategy released in June 2022." Full story found here: https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2023/06/16/affordable-housing-2023-capital-budget-increase.html

Not technically Canal Winchester but close... Over 1,800 Housing Units Proposed for Winchester Pike Area "A stretch of Winchester Pike near Brice Road could change dramatically in the next few years if several new development proposals move forward. The two largest proposals are essentially next door to each other – at 5700 and 5601 Winchester Pike – and call for a mix of different housing types, including townhomes, three-story apartment buildings and small single family homes. This section of Winchester Pike runs parallel to State Route 33 and is a rural, two-lane road surrounded by farmland on both sides." Details on all four area proposals found here: https://columbusunderground.com/over-1800-housing-units-proposed-for-winchester-pike-area-bw1/

CBF had a small update on Eastwood today... Reynoldsburg's $170M Eastwood project to bring more than 600 residential units, 14 acres of commercial space to city's east side "Construction has started at Reynoldsburg's Eastwood development, which will eventually include more than 600 residential units and 14 acres of commercial space on the city's east side. The $170 million project — located between East Main Street and Summit Road — has completed the bulk of underground utility work and is getting started on roadway paving this week. Once the infrastructure is in place, Ciminello said vertical construction will begin on two multifamily developments encompassing the majority of the residential portion of the project. Those developments — the Residences at Eastwood and Thorton Hall — will have a combined 423 units when completed." Ciminello said he's working hand-in-hand with Reynoldsburg officials to create a development that serves an entry point into the city. "We want to create a gateway from the east into Reynoldsburg." https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2023/06/14/reynoldsburgs-eastwood-project-begins-construction.html

Just posted this over on r/Columbus and thought some of you may be interested in helping Columbus be a "home city" in the PLL... "The Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) recently announced that beginning in 2024, all eight PLL lacrosse clubs will be assigned to home cities. “Moving our eight teams into home cities will mark the biggest investment in the league since its inception,” said Paul Rabil, co-founder and President of the Premier Lacrosse League. “This move will unlock deeper, more connected relationships between our fans, teams and players. Continuing to build a global presence around lacrosse and driving our mission forward will remain core to our approach. We’re giving the PLL local love and global awareness.” The PLL will maintain its touring model with its eight teams playing in one city over a two-day weekend. Beginning in 2024, the home team will play a double-header when the league is competing in that team’s market. The PLL will continue to operate as a single entity, with the league owning and operating all eight teams. Each teams’ location is set to be announced in the fourth quarter of 2023. The league is evaluating a combination of cities, states, and regions to assign to its eight teams." You can vote for Columbus to be a home city here: https://premierlacrosseleague.com/home-cities-voting

New park coming to Brice Road "Two million dollars is headed from Columbus to Reynoldsburg to build a park on Brice Road. During its meeting Monday, Columbus City Council approved the funding and the partnership with Reynoldsburg to build the park, just one of the big additions coming to the area. The land technically falls under Reynoldsburg’s jurisdiction but is owned by Columbus. The approved partnership is going to be a 10-year deal between the two cities with Reynoldsburg being responsible for maintenance. The park will be a passive park, meaning it will have walking trails and a bike path, but not a soccer field or dog park, and now that it has been approved, planning can start. Reynoldsburg hopes to break ground this July and have the park open by spring 2024." https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/reynoldsburg/columbus-paying-2-million-to-build-park-in-reynoldsburg/

^ someone had it on their imgur

Just a reminder for anyone interested in taking the Columbus public art survey... It's now open: "The City of Columbus and Franklin County are creating a plan to guide the future of public art in Greater Columbus. The process is being led by the Greater Columbus Arts Council, who have engaged cultural consulting firm Lord Cultural Resources, along with Columbus-based cultural leaders Jonna Twigg and Marshall Shorts to help carry out the work." Learn more about the plan and take the survey here: https://www.takepartcolumbus.com/

Saw this a little earlier... Some people were complaining back and forth that "Columbus gets everything" 🤣😂🤣😂

Onyx+East starts building housing development in Lewis Center "Onyx+East has started construction of its first residential development in Central Ohio. The Indianapolis-based homebuilder recently broke ground on Greenery, a rental community featuring 121 homes in Lewis Center. The 37-acre site is located east of Columbus Pike and north of Shanahan Road. The community has been designed to preserve over 50% of the property as open space, accessible by new trails and paths. A creek also runs through the middle of the development. Greenery is the first development in Onyx+East's $125 million initial investment in Ohio. Onyx+East has more than 300 homes planned – including Haven, located in Upper Arlington." https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2023/06/08/onyxeast-greenery-housing-development-lewis-center.html

Thought I'd throw this in over here too... Nice picture in today's Dispatch showing some of the progress on the Downtown Ramp Up project https://www.dispatch.com/story/business/2023/06/09/millions-more-in-city-money-going-toward-downtown-freeway-project/70306073007/

Nice picture in today's Dispatch showing some of the progress on the Downtown Ramp Up project https://www.dispatch.com/story/business/2023/06/09/millions-more-in-city-money-going-toward-downtown-freeway-project/70306073007/

Both the Columbus Metro and the State of Ohio are on quite a roll these days... National, local leaders unite to kick off mega construction projects in Ohio "There are major, multi-billion-dollar projects happening in Ohio. Intel broke ground on its more than $20 billion project late last year. Honda recently broke ground on its $4.4 billion electric vehicle battery plant, and that’s just the start. In the next few years, there will be nearly $200 billion worth of projects happening in Ohio that are expected to have a multigenerational impact—not just on the state, but on the country. Leaders at an event held at the Local Union 189 Thursday called Columbus America’s “opportunity city,” and said Ohio is becoming the nation’s capital for upwards mobility. Right now, there are about 100,000 men and women who work in the skilled trades in Ohio and next year, industry leaders are estimating that 13 million hours are projected to be worked by those people as they build these projects. “It is so exciting to be part of this and your members, your people, will see how different it is to build a facility like this,” said Pat Miller, senior facilities manager/labor leader at Intel. “It's really, really exciting. We’re really excited to be here.” “It's a fierce competition for deals like Intel, Honda and others... Right now, we're still competing for over 15 what we call mega projects. They're projects that include at least a billion dollars of capital investment, at least $75 million of annual payroll, and an average wage of three times the federal minimum. And right now, our pipeline just in that category projects is up 700% from a normal year.” Full story here: https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2023/03/30/national-and-local-leaders-unite-to-kick-off-mega-construction-projects-in-ohio

Homeowner plans to convert historic Franklinton home into neighborhood speakeasy "The owner of a historic Franklinton home has received approval to convert his 2-bedroom and 1.5-bathroom home in Franklinton into a neighborhood speakeasy during a May 24 meeting. The speakeasy would be located at 500 W. Walnut St., a home located in a stretch of Franklinton just north of Yellow Brick Pizza, and south of Land-Grant Brewing Co.’s taproom. The first floor of the Walnut Street home would house the speakeasy bar and social space, with a 490-foot rear patio and a 110-foot patio on the front of the building. Currently, the project is in its early stages, so a potential opening timeline was not shared." https://614now.com/2023/food-drink/homeowner-plans-to-convert-historic-franklinton-home-into-neighborhood-speakeasy

Columbus named a frontier market for data centers Columbus is now the 9th largest data center market in US "In the next five years, the fastest-growing segments of the data center market will be hyperscalers in key markets and edge data centers, providing greater connectivity. Columbus is already feeling the burn as one of those markets, becoming the 9th largest data center market in the U.S. Available supply in the data center vertical is attracting big names to the Buckeye State – Meta, Cologix, AWS, Google, DBT and Lincoln Rackhouse to name a few. The state’s power and utility availabilities are favorable to other markets, specifically compared to Virginia where power is limited. In fact, primary markets in this industry have at least 600 megawatts of supply and many are now pushing beyond the 1,000 megawatt mark..." (Sorry, this is the only link I could find) https://hello.jll.com/columbus-frontier-market

Weird colored skies today. And todays sunrise was crazy!

Some of the Intel related widening of SR 161 to start in July https://www.transportation.ohio.gov/projects/projects/116322

Speaking of public art- don't forget to take the art related survey that the city is launching June 5th... "On Thursday, the Greater Columbus Arts Council (GCAC) announced a formal plan for the future of public art in Columbus. The program has been dubbed “Greater Columbus. Greater ART.” and will be the city’s first comprehensive plan for the city and Franklin County. “This will lay out a blueprint for the next five to 10 years for strengthening the cultural infrastructure of greater Columbus by casting a bold vision to catalyze the creation of more public art. The plan will serve as a tool to guide communities in public art planning in the short and long term, with an emphasis on the equitable distribution of art in the public realm and diverse and inclusive representation of both artists and the communities they serve.” Additionally, the larger community is being asked to take part in a survey that will launch on June 5th to help evaluate the meaning of public art in Columbus and collect ideas for the future." For more info, or to take the survey when it launches, visit www.takepartcolumbus.com. https://columbusunderground.com/columbus-makes-plans-for-more-public-art-we1/

According to a recent article in CU, they finished the primary excavations in mid-May: "By mid-May, archeologists for Lawhon & Associates had finished the primary excavations of graves under the North Market parking lot ahead of the Merchant Building’s imminent construction... “...The next sequence in the work plan is the remainder of the sitework and deep excavation. In order to maintain the consistency and integrity of the grave remediations to date, Lawhon will continue to monitor and observe all utility and excavation work as we proceed with the balance of this work for the project.” https://columbusunderground.com/come-get-your-dead-the-shifting-plans-to-rebury-1000-columbusites-jb1/

Construction begins on 205,000-square-foot spec warehouse on far east side of Columbus "Crawford Hoying has started construction of a new warehouse in east Columbus. The Dublin-based developer is partnering with Contegra Construction to build a 205,000-square-foot infill spec building on Outerbelt Street between McCormick Boulevard and Broughton Avenue. Crawford Hoying says this is the first large Class A warehouse project constructed in this area of Columbus in more than 40 years. In addition to its location near the I-270 Outerbelt, the building is near the East Broad Street corridor and is next to an AEP substation that can provide up to 10 megawatts of electricity to the property. Construction on the warehouse is underway, and is scheduled for completion in spring 2024." https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2023/05/31/crawford-hoying-spec-warehouse-east-columbus.html

Found a decent article on Starlab recently... Just curious -As the permanent facility and the area around it gets built, where's the best place to post Starlab related construction info? Here's some of that article: Starlab - Ohio State opens new terrestrial science park devoted to space research "Students, researchers and leaders from The Ohio State University as well as business and community leaders recently helped open the temporary home of the George Washington Carver Science Park’s (GWCSP) Starlab terrestrial analog facility. The lab, located in the AE Building on the Columbus campus, marks the launch of the first-ever science park devoted to space research. The space park is a collaboration between Voyager Space, The Ohio State University, the State of Ohio, JobsOhio and One Columbus, and will house a replica laboratory of the Starlab space station developed by Nanoracks and associated facilities, enabling researchers to prepare, evaluate, validate and test spaceflight experiments, and conduct parallel research on the ground. The collaboration between researchers across the university as well as in government and industry makes the new science park an exciting opportunity. “This has opened an entirely new frontier for exploration, research, education and fulfillment of key national objectives.” In the future, the George Washington Carver Science Park will operate in a stand-alone facility on the Ohio State Aerospace and Air Transportation Campus, home to the university airport, Ohio State’s Aerospace Research Center, Knowlton Executive Flight Terminal and Education Center, and a range of corporate, government and private aviation and aerospace activities. Horack said the grand opening was the start of a new space age that would include Ohio State at the center of new research and innovation. “Today we’re marking the beginning of a decades-long journey that will transform the landscape of Ohio State, the state of Ohio and the world through the pursuit of social, economic and educational quality of life outcomes that all leverage commercial space flight.” Full story here: https://ocj.com/2023/03/ohio-state-opens-new-terrestrial-science-park-devoted-to-space-research/

Plan would bring over 1,800 homes to new Heath "downtown" starting in 2025 "The Heath Planning Commission heard a proposal Thursday night for a mixed-use development on the 300 acres behind Walmart, Rural King and Target for a sort of downtown for the city in an area called Central Park. It would add more than $700 million in new taxable property when built out. “This area has been thought of for decades by this community as an area that could become downtown Heath," Mayor Mark Johns said. "Heath has no downtown area. It has been this community’s dream to have that type of development happen on this property.” The proposed development includes a boulevard entrance to the development on an extension of Central Parkway, various types of housing, a retirement home, retail stores, greenspace and parks, walkable trails including the Hopewell Trail and possibly a new city building and relocated police department. The housing offerings would include 213 single-family homes, 302 units of multi-family ranch housing, 116 units of townhomes, and 1,226 multi-family housing units – for a total of 1,857 housing units." https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2023/05/28/heath-development-behind-walmart-proposed-25-years-ago-may-happen/70256154007/

It's funny- I keep seeing people make a huge deal about this... I don't seem to remember any of us freaking out about all of the "pure Michigan" billboards that blanketed our state and on all of our local radio stations for years. I think it's pretty normal for states to put tourism ads in other states especially adjacent ones 🤷

I know you're probably joking, or maybe you didn't read the whole article (if not, you definitely should)... But this is an article from Bridge Michigan, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news source out of Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was wrote by Paula Gardner, the Business Editor who was "born and raised in metro Detroit, moved to Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan, and has lived in the city for 20 years..." https://www.bridgemi.com/about/paula-gardner?page=1