seanguy

I worked next to the existing low income housing project at Grant & Fulton and it is surprisingly dead outside. You hardly see a sole walking by. This contributes to its reputation as being safe and a "good neighbor." Maybe it focuses on low income housing for those who are seniors and unlikely to be out, have kids, or those with jobs trying to make ends meat on minimum wage?

I was expecting this for years. It is very strange that corner of High and Nationwide is not developed. It really creates a big lag in retail space between the Short North and Downtown's northern border. However, the area already has lag from the bridge to the north and the Nationwide Plaza to the south. These other factors contribute to state to create a dearth of lost energy. However, with the bridge getting a hotel at its sidewalk level, the CAP built over the I670 highway (to the north), this plot of grassy land seems perfect for office with street retail. I would love to see something tall on this spot as the land is a smaller parcel. Maybe this is why Nationwide has waited. It is only cost effect to really build on the site when you can built the largest amount of density out of it.

I think Indy's downtown is one of the best in the midwest. I think some urbanohio posters are put off by Indy because it doesnt have the "neighborhoods." That plus a little jealousy.

COTA's growth keeps rolling Lower gas prices haven't stopped ridership increase Saturday, April 25, 2009 2:02 PM By Bill Bush THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH When gasoline prices surged to more than $4 a gallon last summer, the number of COTA riders surged along with it. The Central Ohio Transit Authority handled about 4.2 million trips in the third quarter of last year, up about 15 percent over the third quarter of 2007. Ridership is still up, even though gas prices plunged to under $2 late last year. The 3.84 million passenger trips on COTA during the first three months of this year is up about 6 percent over that quarter last year, and up about 12 percent over the first quarter of 2007. Read more at http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/04/26/wheelsonthebus.html?sid=101

I agree that if you decide to live on a main drag in a nightlife area then you should have ZERO right to complain about noise. I should know as I rent south of the South Campus Gateway area right on High St. (just a few blocks north of the Short North.) I have a bar in my backyard and never complain. The bar is only very loud on weekends or when there is a holiday or special event. They do play music outdoor on their patio but I have little problem falling asleep even though the bar sits next to my bedroom.

Well Columbus already has all of this. And we didn't need a casino to make it happen. Columbus is well enough off that the city knows casinos are not the answer to spur economic development. Things that create jobs, the mayors plan for light rail and street cars (infrastructure), and tax abatements for apartments, condos, and townhomes in the central city create a real turn around and have large aggregate economic growth. However, a casino could drain some money from the lower income pools, this would be awfully close to many poor living in the near west side (ala bottoms and franklinton.) Also, these area is already lively and it would be near most of downtowns entertainment, the short north, the hockey arena, the new ballpark, and a lot of modern office and condo development. From a political standpoint this casino plan trys to go for the "regional ohio approach." Ohio is a state defined by regionalism. Many in Columbus voted against the Cleveland plan because, "we are not getting one." This plan attempts to leave no urban area out and even trys to please Toledo, before they can succeed from the state.

It may appear this way based upon the second picture. However, this dorm building will have ground floor retail and does interact with Cleveland Ave. (as seen in the first picture shot.) Gay street is the second shot where it appears the building does not meet up with the street. Cleveland Ave is the main st. through this campus.

If you look starbuck's is closing stores in the columbus area, with the exception of the sawmill rd location, that are in more urban like locations with off street parking, no lot, and most likely higher rent prices and buildings that they rent from and do not own. Columbus does have more starbucks per population than any other ohio city. But in the last 5 years starbucks started trying locations in the more urban areas of columbus. The Short North location is one of the closures and has only been open for a year. The rent there is higher and foot traffic during the day lower. None of the closures are in the downtown Columbus proper. Those locations are very busy with office works and have restricted hours on the weekend to curb decline in profits. The Short North location, Worthington location and westerville location are all in buildings with no parking. However, German Village, Grandview, and many others are staying open. It is interesting that in the grandview/columbus area there are 5 starbucks all just a few blocks away. It makes sense to close atleast one of those. Columbus is a market where starbucks was working to have a monopoly on the central city and suburban coffe market. From these closures it looks like Starbucks is retreating on the their effort to control the central city market.

As already said German Village was one of the first areas nationally and in the state to start to gentrify. However, those houses do not house many "singles" these days. There are a lot of older couples, gay couples, young couples, people rooming with each other etc.. Prices in German Village are not your "starter home" market. Merion Village (just south of German Village) was more blue collar until recently and is now in its early stages of still having semi-affordable housing (for a nice neighborhood near downtown Columbus). German Village, also, has little rental space. Most of that is now in the Brewery District (in infill buildings) which is located across High St. from German Village. Also, a lot of rentals use to be around the Short North, but now the Short North is seeing most of its rentals turned into condos or back to single family houses. There is a real lack of "rentals" in okay/nice neighborhoods around and in downtown right now.

If you look at the district as whole, yes the scores are not the best in the metro. But when looking at the largest district in the state, it is best to look at the individual schools. If you look the Columbus Alternative High School ranks just with many of the best suburban high schools. Also, you have to realize not all of the columbus city limits is "urban." Columbus is 222 sq. miles. A lot of these areas I mentioned are very suburban in nature and nice. Also, many "newer" sections of Columbus city limits have parts that attend suburban schools. Most of these areas are located just inside or outside of I 270. Columbus city limits is almost developed in rings. The most inner ring is 19th century. Then there is a ring of development for nearly every decade until today. All within the city. Now I can understand if your parents do decide to live in a further out 'burb. However, I wanted to give a better, overall, description of the city and metro for others who read these posts.

I have to say i am VERY let down by the responses to this post. IS this urban ohio.com or some site dedicated to unneeded sprawling suburbs? Most of the responses to his post mention (other than Grandview) places way outside of 270 and in the exurbs. You can have a good school, neighborhood, safety and community/retail without being outside of 270 or even outside of the columbus city limits. I think a lot of the responses here are from people not from Columbus and thus they are just mentioning places they have heard of. For communities that are GREAT inside Columbus... (for a family) Look into Clintonville/beechwold/sharon heights These neighborhoods are just north of Ohio State and SO close to all of the great things in the central city of columbus. They are within the columbus city limits, but have their own community feel (which almost all of columbus' neighborhoods do a great job at.) The homes are older, renovated with nice yards, yet there's sidewalks and a lot of retail/restaurants/local markets along High ST. The Columbus schools (in these neighborhoods) are better than the others. However, I would recommend that your sister enters the Columbus Alternative High School program. The high school is always ranked on par with the suburban schools. It is a magnet school so you have to enter a lottery. If you cannot enter CAHS then she would attend Whestone High School, also, one of the better neighborhood high schools. ALSO NW Columbus It is kind of a bland name, but the neighborhoods just on the other side of the river from Clintonville/Beechwold is called "nw columbus." It is tucked in between the nice suburbs of Arlington and Dublin. Centennial High School is the local columbus school here and is also good. Now all of the high schools in these areas are diverse. They are majority white, but there are some lower income students, yet they still excel at academics. The neighborhoods i mentioned are all safe and have lots of character. NW columbus would have more homes in your price range. Homes in Clintonville/beechwold/and sharon heights are all above 250,000 for more than 3 bedrooms. I hope many read this and realize that you do not have live in some sprawl burb outside of 270 to have a nice community. Actually, by living in a place like "new albany" you may end up having great schools, but no sidewalks, community, and wasting gas to get from point A to point B. To clarify on the status of the Columbus City schools. The neighborhoods that are around downtown, short north/german village, that are so rich and nice actually do not have very good local city schools. This is because they just gentrified (in recent years) and families have yet to repopulate these areas and when they do they use private schools or make use of Columbus City Schools open enrollement. Yes, you can live ANYWHERE In columbus city school district and bus your kids to any of the schools in the district (provided room.) The neighborhoods that lie just outside of the original urban core have the better city schools they are: Clintonville Beechwold NW columbus Olentangy Rd corridor Eastmoor Berwick Far east side Far west side sections of Sharon Woods/Northland

Actually, yes it is suburban (the annexed development) but no space is not developed. Columbus would throw as much "tax making" development into the mix as possible. Office space everywhere was a major part of the suburban areas that columbus developed. And as much retail space as possible, this is why almost every section of columbus (that was developed post WWII) has about 3 retail strips. Most suburbs or townships would have had regulations against that level of bigbox/strip mall retail and massive office parks. The annexed areas of Colubumbus focus on office space helped to grow the metro economy. If these areas were left unannexed there would be lots of "bedroom communities." Also, even though a lot of this development involved retail strip malls and parking lots and office parks, since columbus does control the land, and as the city is moving toward more progressive development standards, the city (a few years from now) could easily adapt the suburban retail corridors to have towers, or multi-use buildings. Atleast the city will be able to transform these areas to adapt them with one focus and goal. Imagine if a dozen suburbs controlled this suburban land, then it would be much harder to get them to adapt to progressive building and unite. Regarding which comes first the annexation or the development, usually there was a plan for development then Columbus would annex to allow that development to occur. However, that development would, usually, be small in size compared to the area that was being annexed. There was woods or farms surrounding the rest and then Columbus would use their policies to develop the rest. Yes, most of the annexed areas developed from the 60s and on are suburban in nature, but it is very middle class/dense suburban development, with a lot of mixed use (even if seperated) that created A LOT of jobs.

The farms that are on "west OSU campus" are owned by Ohio state for their farming programs. If columbus owned this land, trust me, it would have been developed into something. Columbus leaves no piece of land untouched. They reap the economic worth of the land. Now there are city parks. I think its kind of cool to see that piece of Ohio State looking the way the rest of the "outskirts" now the "city" would have looked in the 50s or 60s, before all of the development.

OH I have so many things to say. Yes columbus did annex based upon water service. Almost everyone in the C-bus metro drinks Columbus water. As growing townships need water columbus would provide and then annex. This is how Columbus grew. And columbus DID NOT annex developed suburbs. Columbus DID annex growing townships and develop them in the "Columbus way." If Columbus hadn't annexed these townships then there would be lots of ranches where there is now mixed use development (retail, MASSIVE offices JOBSJOBSJOBS, and houses/apartments/condos) The fact is that the CBUS metro is larger and has more jobs than ever, and more than I am sure anyone in the 50s could have imagined. Columbus' metro growth was huge from the 70s and on. Maybe, initially, when Columbus first started to annex the cities population decline was masked by the annexation. However, now enough jobs have been created, infill developed that the metro growth is even greater than the cities growth. If columbus was in the "masking decline" by annexation, the metro would be shrinking while the city was gaining. Instead the metro and city are both growing. AND Columbus' city schools follows the cities traditional boundaries. Most of the "newer" areas go to suburban schools. This is from a 1985 occurence.... In 1985 the city of Columbus school district wanted to continue to have the students that would soon live in many of the developing and growing areas that were annexed by Columbus. The suburbs, though, would have had these students if they had remained townships and were not annexed. Thus an agreement was reached in 85. Columbus said that ANY area that was soon to be developed and annexed BEFORE 1985 would go to the suburban district that it would have gone to had it remained a township. Anything annexed AFTER 1985, once developed, would go to COLUMBUS. THUS< my parents moved us to Worthington for our schooling in the 1980s. There was one high school, two middle schools, and maybe 4 elementary schools (at the most) Fast forward to the 90s, you have a new high school, the number of middle schools has doubled, and the number of elementary schools tripled. How you ask? Well, all of that farmland that was surrounding Worthington was developed by Columbus, but it was annexed before 1985 so it went to Worthington schools. Now you ask, what about those areas of Columbus annexed after 1985? Well those have just started to develop now. Thus, you literally have pockets of areas OUTSIDE of the suburbs that are busing students into Columbus schools. Therefore, if you look at the map of the city limits above, those "yellow columbus boundaries" way out there beyond a suburb are now busing kids into the innercity columbus schools. The government functioning of Columbus is its own animal.

That is what i LOVE about this tower. It truely gives off a vibe that I believe is the future of Columbus. It feels moody, classy, sexy, and dark in a very intriguing way. It reminds me of a building that you would expect to see in Seatle or Toronto or some of Londons new glass buildings (some of my favorite cities.) I think that this dark, moody, sexy image would be perfect for Columbus and this building symbolizes that.

Okay, if you read the intro to the listing, it says that the list is for people who do not think retiring means living by the beach or lounging at the pool side. I think the magazine was trying to post a list that is reflective of places (larger cities as they say) that people maybe already live close by or in the metro of, that have "up and coming" or major gentrified areas that would be appealing to people nearing or in the age of retirement. They were looking for areas for older people who want to be "in the city." However, it is just a little strange to have so much of the top 10 by neighborhoods in the same big cities (though they are the largest and most urban (Chicago, NY.)

"The "amenities" are more geared towards YPs and gays." anyone who has been to the short north in the last year and a half would know that most of the newer business to open are high end restaurants (great for older people), and lots of shops with high end shoes, clothes, dress clothes (some targeting the empty nesters in the downtown/central columbus area.) There is now only ONE gay store in the SN, and it is all the way at 5th and High (at the end of the SN near the OSU campus) and don't expect that gay store to be open much longer. There are still gay bars, but even those are now targeting the straight crowd. The SN is now longer that gay, and many high end restaurants are opening in new retail spaces.

Not ture at all. This is some only a Columbusite could truely understand. The jobs around 270, at AF and Limited have in fact contributed to Columbus' urban gentrification. Of course jobs anywhere in the Columbus metro that lure creative types that are likely to open their own business or gentrify a property will have a positive impact on urban columbus. Columbus is a city where the job creation and economic boom happened mostly around the older city limits in 270. Then the money, wealth, and jobs from those buildings around 270 has drifted around the metro and inward to the center of Columbus. While some job creations did happen in downtown, Limited and Abercrombie's presence in and near New Albany has a positive impact on downtown. AF and limited corporate housing is around downtown, when people move to columbus from Europe or anywhere to work for these fashion corps. they are asked if they want to live downtown. Second, many of the creative types have left limited or AF to spawn off their own art or fashion oriented business. It brings fashion types to columbus that would normaly have never stepped foot in columbus. Many do live and own condos or rent apartments in the short north who do not work downtown. The presence of the Limited and Abercrombie has an Emense impact on downtown columbus and central columbus, even if they are not located directly in the center of the city.

Small image of the design from the developers website http://armsproperties.com/ibiza/index.htm

OHIO LOFTS on main and 3 rd st. are done with construction and is now a completed project

Heads up! This project is done and units are either sold or selling

It is a trend among sought after universities. Kenyon is located close enough to the growing columbus metro. And that does seem to have an effect. As a metro and cities wealth and job base grows and ages, the universities and institutions within the city and metro are affected. More people want to stay in the their city and do not want to go away, many babyboomers kids are in college and there was a slight 80s babyboom which is causing many colleges to turn to universities or offer more on campus housing. In columbus, Otterbein college in Westerville is more selective and growing. Ohio Dominican University was just a commuter college in 1999. Now it has dorms, is building more, and has expanded to the internet, building satalite campuses, growing majors etc. etc. Capital University in Bexley is harder to get in to and has more dorms. Ohio State is growing because of its own goals, but also many kids in columbus do not want to move so Columbus State Community College has become the largest community college in the state, which then sends off all of its 2 year students to most likely one of the growing local 4 year universities. Franklin University in downtown is also growing and expanding and buying other buildings downtown. Now, other universities in the state have made big transitions like Wright State in Dayton. The state has needs for more students, so many in state universities are growing. I cannot think of them off the top of my head but there are some state universities that I have heard are seeing a decline in enrollement.

It would be a DISASTER, to elimante the turn lane, in columbus car is still king, and if you get rid of the center lane, just put streetcars in there, then you are forced to get rid the of the meters that line high st. through the short north. Those business cannot afford to loose those meters. The lanes need to stay the same, on the high st. portion of the street car line. I go to Toronto a lot and there the street cars just run in the same lane as the traffic and when they must make a stop they stop even if the lights green, or cars in front are going. People are just aware of the street cars and realize they need to be watching in front of them to make sure they dont hit one. It becomes part of the driving culture.

Children's Hospital gets high billing in U.S. News rankings issue hits newsstands Monday. Columbus Children's Hospital was ranked No. 12 in U.S. News & World Report's first separate ranking of pediatric hospitals. The magazine created a separate list just for children's hospitals this year, and subdivided that list by pediatric specialty. It also changed how the rankings were done, so the results don't compare year to year. Instead of scoring by reputation alone, the magazine polled all 122 hospitals (113 responded) for data including patient volume, death rate, number of nurses and availability of advanced procedures. Reputation is still two-thirds of the score. Ohio fared well in the list, with Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital of Cleveland at No. 5 and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center ranked No. 7. The rankings are available online Friday at health.usnews.com/pediatrics, and the issue hits newsstands Monday.

Green construction forum scheduled for mid-September With the increase in green counstruction in columbus, especially in government directed projects: The New Franklin Country Courthouse, the Lazarus building renovation, and the new Columbus Clippers Baseball stadium are all fully Green buildings. The Columbus Green Building Forum will host its annual trade show and conference on environmental design and construction from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sept. 13 at the Columbus Atheneum, 34 N. Fourth Street. The Green Building Expo 2007 will include discussions on policy development and building strategies. Up to 45 vendors will market energy-efficient and environmentally friendly products and services for contractors. Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson is scheduled to give the keynote address on the Utah capital's pro-environment construction and development policies. For more information, visit the web site www.cgbf.org. More at http://columbus.bizjournals.com/