chivespa1

The initial color scheme in that drawing makes the Metropolitan building look so nice whereas the colors they actually ended up choosing to go with look terrible, IMO. Hopefully someday they'll go back to the original color scheme because the building itself could be really nice looking, right now it looks like Devine was it's make up artist.

From my blog. If you want to see the pictures go to: http://elephantsonbicycles.teenymouse.com/?p=129 City Center Redevelopment As a companion to Kingsdale let’s not forget City Center. City Center is another shining example of a retail only center which takes up a substantial amount of land in the heart of a city and has failed miserably - sitting on life support for years. The city of Columbus has a vision of building a better future and, as part of this vision, was forced to take City Center over because the owners were unwilling to embrace this vision. Dreams don’t come true without exerting effort and Mayor Coleman understood this. I hope that our leaders in Upper Arlington understand this as well and know that they have the support of the residents when pushing for the Kingsdale we all dream of. Columbus Monthly Magazine, November 2007 issue, has provided a very nice article about the redevelopment of City Center which includes the following proposals from three leading Columbus based architectural firms. I can honestly say that I don’t see any of these plans as a stand-out over the others just because I think they are all fabulous. If I were pushed on it I would probably rate them in the order I have presented them below. As with the previous article, I would suggest you go out and purchase this issue of Columbus Monthly and consider getting a subscription. I have also linked the architect’s websites where you can find more information about the proposals. Lincoln Street Studio’s new City Center proposal: Moody Nolan’s new City Center proposal: Blostein Overly Architects’ new City Center proposal: I think it is fair to say that the Blostein Overly Architect’s proposal is the most feasible in its current draft which is certainly not a bad thing. This proposal seems to respect the current layout of the downtown skyline as well but I think these are also the reasons that it is at the bottom of my list. I think Lincoln Street Studio’s proposal is the most beautiful and dares to dream the most. The Moody Nolan proposal is a nice combination of both and the exoskeleton of the street level glass boxes remind me a bit of the Hancock Tower in Chicago which is one of my all time favorite skyscrapers. As I stated above though, I love all three of these proposals and I definitely hope to see elements of all three appear in the final design.

For pictures, etc. Check out this link: http://elephantsonbicycles.teenymouse.com/?p=125 Regency Offers Kingsdale Plan… I received a preview of the Regency Centers proposal for the redevelopment of Kingsdale Shopping Center and I am gutted by just how bad it is. After all of the back and forth over the UDO Regency has chosen to submit a proposal that goes against the ordinance in several ways and that totally disrespects the vision laid out in the Master Plan. What I hope to accomplish here is to lay out a clear set of reasons that even the most hardened anti regulation residents can come together to reject this proposal. Currently this proposal will officially be discussed at the next BZAP meeting on Nov 5 and could be voted on as early as Nov 19. Assuming that BZAP will follow its mandate this plan will be rejected at which point it could be brought before council. This is where the first level of concern lies. If Regency has played its political cards right they may get Leslie Heath and Dan McCormick onto city council, which would almost certainly mean a plan like this could be pushed through. Thus it is imperative that voters choose Seidel, Kraus and Yassenoff for city council if you hope to see Upper Arlington continue to prosper and to be developed in a way befitting a premier community. First, let’s look at what has been offered as a proposal from Regency. You can click on the picture for a larger view. Where you see the dotted red lines are where current buildings stand that will be demolished. The new buildings in some cases re-use parts of the old buildings but are vastly all new construction. At the top of the plan you see Macy’s which owns its property and parking so that is not part of this plan. The street facing walls of the proposed big box store are intended to be blank mixed brick. As you can see the bulk of the 20 acres is surface level parking. All of the buildings are currently designed as single story retail only. You may be asking yourself what is wrong with this picture. From a purely aesthetic perspective I have my opinion that it is akin to something like Northland, Southland, Eastland or any number of other single story failing shopping plaza’s in and around Columbus. Looking at Regency’s website you can get a good idea of what they feel is acceptable refacing of buildings and it certainly doesn’t inspire someone to come and check out the new retail space. Unfortunately you can’t persuade people to action just on the outward appearance of a development; you need more substance so that is what I will outline. 1) Regency’s proposal includes 17 retail shops, 1 of which is already occupied (Giant Eagle). Currently Kingsdale Shopping Center offers about 30 store fronts of which 18 are occupied. Doing the elementary math shows us that not only are we not increasing the retail space but we are guaranteed to lose at least 1 of our current occupants. 2) Regency’s proposal contains 0 new office space, 0 residential, and 0 entertainment options making no new opportunities for revenue. 3) Current tax assessments of big box stores, in this case Target stores, show that the property value of Kingsdale will effectively decrease during this process which will cut into city revenue. When the city loses commercial revenue it must make up shortfalls through residential revenue. Also, due to low wage jobs associated with this type of business, annual revenue is likely to be as low as $50k-$60k, hardly worth the cities time. 4) As a comparison, the recent incentivised National Church Residence office expansion adds a mere 7000 square feet of office space on 0.75 acre which should return $40k in revenue to the city. The Kingsdale redevelops almost 20 acres building out over 100,000 square feet of retail. 5) Although the proposal uses the Target name as the occupant of the big box store there is no guarantee that Target will move into that space. The reality is that Walmart or even an Odd Lots is just as likely to lease that space as a Target. In fact, with five Target stores within 10 minutes of Kingsdale and only two Walmarts that close you must consider Walmart to be a real possibility. 6) This development completely ignores any attempt at sustainable development meaning that our city will continue to expend unnecessary resources to support these buildings for years to come. 7) The decrease in property value at Kingsdale could have a similar effect on the property surrounding Kingsdale, particularly the new condo units on the west side of Tremont. The community at large needs to retain its vision and understand that there is a reason for government regulation. Pure market driven solutions discount quality of life issues for bottom line. Regulation is necessary to maintain quality of life in the face of the bottom line. I am constantly amazed when residents of Upper Arlington miss this point. The reason many of us live in Upper Arlington is a perception of a higher quality of life afforded to us here than we would find in Columbus or Obetz, etc. The reality is that the quality of life resources we have in UA are slowly disappearing as the community continues to deny investment in these resources. The other clear effect of this lack of investment is a loss of population to other suburbs and Columbus. Investments are only effective when a clear vision is maintained so that a particular goal can be reached. This requires leadership that believes in this vision and uses their skill to grow that vision in all of the stakeholders. Some of our leaders, and hopeful candidates, believe that it is in our best interest to allow someone else (the market) to dictate what our vision and goal should be. In this case specifically we are being told to let Regency dictate our vision and goal which is essentially the fox guarding the hen-house. I believe that our community deserves better. Currently two very similar communities have decided to embrace their vision, and to do better for themselves. Gahanna Ohio, another suburb of Columbus, has set forth to build (and I believe are nearing completion of) a new, dense, beautiful multifunction facility to act as their new city center. Creekside Gahanna has brought together the city and developers in a way that the city now has a new economic engine which can be used to further other goals in the city. According to Gahanna’s Fiscal Impact report they expect to generate about $300k in revenue after servicing the development debt. The estimated property value INCREASES to $652,530,700. Below is a photoset of some of the features of Creekside Gahanna. The second example is from Carmel Indiana, a suburb of similar size and affluence as Upper Arlington, just north of Indianapolis. Carmel City Center is what I believe our community is in desperate need of. Currently Upper Arlington has no center, no place to bring people together on a daily basis. This fractured nature of our infrastructure is often reflected in our fractured and disjointed sense of community we see when discussing these types of investments. Carmel City Center is built on 15 acres but offers exponentially higher density and thus an exponentially higher ROI than what Regency is offering. Below are the plans for the street level and plaza level development of Carmel City Center. Click on the pictures for further information. There will be several meetings over the next weeks regarding this specific plan. Hopefully the end result will be the removal of this plan from the table and the development of a new draft plan that more closely resembles our vision. I’ll continue to follow this story and update you as to the progress.

There is an interesting article in this weeks The Other Paper (Aug 16th) which suggests that the recent proclamation by the mayor to take this to litigation was done without any discussion with the current owners. The main point of the story is that the owners may, out of spite, drag this court case out for 3, 4, 5 or more years. I don't know if that will happen or not but the tone of the article made it seem like this was a strong possibility. I'm hoping not.

A few months ago the city of Upper Arlington changed the traffic pattern on Redding Rd and added bike lanes. Of course they did not put up no parking signs so these lanes are usually blocked but I thought it was a step in the right direction. Per usual the local paper is publishing exclusively anti-bikelane letters. For some reason I continue to be surprised by the constant fight citizens of UA put up against improvements to our cities infrastructure and services. Anyhow, if you would like to make a step forward for positive change please send Mr. Valentino with the cities traffic division at [email protected]. Here is the letter I sent. Mr. Valentino I have written the papers similar emails as this one I am sending you, but they haven’t printed them so I want to make sure someone at the city knows I support building infrastructure such as the bike lanes on Redding Rd. As a point of reference I live 2 houses down from Redding Rd. My wife grew up in UA and because of her appreciation for the school system and it’s proximity to downtown when we decided to start a family we chose to live here. Since moving in 4 years ago I realized that this community has many good things about it but, as a resident, I feel like we’re stuck in the past. Every time there is an attempt at improving the infrastructure (unless it is for cars) either fails or is met with extreme resistance. Obviously this is again the situation with something as simple as bicycle lanes. While I am disappointed by this I am not willing to give into it - I want UA to move forward and become a better city. I am a cyclist. By choice we only have one car in our family. I use my bicycle to ride the 8 miles each way to and from work at the Rhodes Tower downtown. I do many of my errands on my bicycle and I like to go for bike rides with my wife and my daughter (in my bike trailer). When we aren’t on our bicycles we’re often walking. While we do this because we enjoy it we actively understand that our actions are improving our community, even if just a little. The primary complaints I hear from residents against things such as bike lanes, especially the ones on Redding are the following. 1) Cars are parked on the bike lane making the lane useless and travel by car in the auto lane difficult. So why don’t we limit parking on the street? Give them what they are asking for. with 35 mph speed limits being the maximum in most of UA there are few roads that require 4 lanes of traffic so why not turn more streets into 3 lane plus bike lane? The most glaring issue though is that all of these people have driveways. If you take a trip down Redding Rd you will often see multiple cars parked in the bike lane while driveways sit empty. Seeing as all or nearly all residents have driveways in UA I’ll ask the question of why I should have to pay for them to park their car on a public right of way? 2) Bicyclists and walkers should avoid major streets and should use sidewalks. Besides the fact that sidewalks are a tough commodity to come by in UA the ones that do exist are barely adequate for walking, much less cycling. If you walk with a stroller on the sidewalks you often have to negotiate rotating between sidewalks and the streets because of sidewalks disappearing. Sidewalks are also often damaged and over grown by privets and trees. While walking on primary roads is dangerous I would argue that drivers on the residential streets are at least as careless as the drivers on the primary roads. Safety is always a concern of mine and I would like to point out a few things regarding my experiences over the years as a cyclist living “car-light”. Bike lanes are very useful but not just because they provide cyclists with a place to ride. In fact, often bike lanes are not the respected and thus are, in and of themselves, difficult to use because of people parking in them or throwing broken glass and debris in them. What they do for us though is force people to be aware of the possibility of cyclists. Now of course in towns where the lanes are properly enforced they do work beautifully. I have been assaulted several times when riding in UA. I have had people deliberately try to force me off the road. One recent example of this was when I was riding near the Main Library and a driver brushed me with her mirror. I yelled out “Be Careful You Almost Hit Me” and she immediately gave me the middle finger. I caught up with her at the intersection and noticed that her young son was in the car with her and this was her way of dealing with some “anonymous” bicyclist on the road. When she passed me there was no oncoming traffic stopping her from taking the other lane. This is just an unfortunate reality of drivers in our community. One final argument is the fact that UA’s primary competition - places like Grandview, Dublin and New Albany are all either fully on board with providing this type of infrastructure or have plans in the works to make this happen. The city of Columbus is pushing to become more bicycle and pedestrian friendly as well. Why are our residents asking UA to get left in the dust on this? With the current environmental concerns, concerns about overweight children and a general malaise about being neighborly isn’t it about time we invested in something as positive as bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure? I hope you take this to heart and I hope the city officials have the political fortitude to do what is right and invest in improving infrastructure like this - infrastructure that benefits our families and children and overall community. Sincerely Andrew Miller http://elephantsonbicycles.teenymouse.com

Well this is my first post to this website so we'll see how beat up I get over it. I'm glad I came across this site though, what a great resource for information sharing about our state. Anyhow, on to my first post (basically ripped from my blog - sorry)... From my vantage point on the 40th floor of the Rhodes Tower I spotted this building taking an interesting shape over the past month. Finally last Sunday Sophie and I took a field trip to the Art Museum and on the way we stopped off to have a look at this building up close. The developer is Blue Heron Land Development Company and they are responsible for this building at 199 South Fifth Street. Without completing any research (which I should do) I would guess that this was a parking structure with offices built in originally, possibly a small motor lodge of some sort. The attempt is to utilize the carcass of the building and put modernist touches onto it so that the end result is something fresh and new looking. Here are the pictures, I’ll pick up with my commentary after the jump. I don’t want to be dismissive, I really think the new design has some charms to it. My gut feeling though is that this would find a better comfort level in the “contemporary” category. Being a bit of a modernist snob I draw a distinction between what is modern and what is contemporary; but, being that I am not classically trained in architecture my opinions are only my own and my definitions are not necessarily on target. So, I’ll try and explain myself. I see modernism as a frame of mind as well as a historic period in art and architecture. I think that at any time in history once a style is established it can continue to be utilized throughout time in new builds, restorations and renovations. The idea of contemporary though brings to my mind the Walmart of creativity. Where an architect has the ability to truly design something that works in the context of the style they are emulating some architects instead just grab notions of a style and plug them into whatever project they are working on. When you are doing less design work and more plug-n-play development you enter into what I believe to be the world of “contemporary”. In my mind contemporary is a way to describe buildings which utilize as many components of whatever is popular without actually getting into the messy business of design. I don’t want to bash this building too much because I want to like it, and, perhaps when it is completed I will like it. Right now though my gut says that a developer opened up a copy of Wallpaper magazine or something similar and said “hey, use more corrugated metal with flying rooflines meant to look sorta Frank Lloyd Wright’ish.” What do you think? Andrew http://elephantsonbicycles.teenymouse.com