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A 12-story, 170 room Hilton Garden Inn has been proposed for 77 E. Nationwide Blvd. Currently, the HER headquarters is located there in a 2-story building, which would be demolished. The building is old, but has virtually no historic features left after renovations over the years. I actually thought it looked like a 1970's era office building.
Hilton Garden Inn or Hampton Inn is usually my preferred lodging choice. Great to see one proposed for downtown Columbus.
A historic, but long-vacant apartment building at 1509 N. High Street, along with a historic row house directly behind it on W. 9th Avenue, would be renovated and turned into residential under a new proposal. Along with the renovations, a new garage would be built behind the buildings that would connect the two.
So a bit of an update and some clarification... this project is actually bigger than the article mentions. First of all, the 3-story building at 1509 N. High and the 6-unit rowhouse behind it at 14-24 W. 9th Avenue are the two buildings that will be combined. Ground-floor office/retail space will be included on the 3-story facing High Street, and the buildings will include 18 residential units in total.
Aside from that, another project will take place on the west side of Wall Street at 30-40 W. 9th Avenue that was not mentioned before. 2 existing 2-story buildings (one from the 1960s and another from the early 1900s, both long vacant and in bad shape) will be torn down and a 4-story apartment building will be built there. The building will include 16 residential units and will have a below-grade, 79-space garage to service all 3 new/renovated buildings.
A 105-unit, 3-story residential development has been proposed for 1281 Edgehill Road near Grandview Yard. Several single-story warehouse and outbuildings will be demolished, and units will line both Edgehill and Norton Avenue to the west.
Actually, there was a discussion recently about Cleveland's new 54-story residential proposal, and I was asking questions as to how a city like Cleveland can get that, but Columbus can't. It wasn't a knock on Cleveland, because I like the city and think they definitely deserve such a project. I just was wondering why Columbus, which factually has so much more population growth and a much healthier economy, hasn't seen a building over 26 stories in 25 years. I made the point that, for all the good infill (and contrary to what you think, there is a lot of it), local developers are clearly building behind the curve when it comes to meeting demand. Not only that, but that these developers are building 7-8 story buildings on prime lots Downtown, like on Gay/High. That's ridiculous to me. There is no reason this should be happening when a building at least 2x-3x the size could easily go into these sites and demand would not lessen whatsoever. The 54-story and other projects in Cleveland actually have Columbus design/developer connections, yet they don't seem interested in doing anything remotely similar in their home city. So on some level, we do agree on this. My disagreement is more about that you're always being selective on what you talk about. You highlight some far suburban project and make grand claims about how it resembles the mentality of the entire city. There is a lot of good infill projects, but the ones happening Downtown, for the most part, are not. HighPoint at Columbus Commons is a joke, for example. I would argue only 250 High has been okay in terms of size for a prime space.
It is strange that development right Downtown is the same height as whatطs being built along the greenway through Uptown over here: 15 blocks south of our downtown. Even though that development looks generic I'd say it has better aesthetics than HighPoint. In my neighborhood on the very edge of Downtown you'll see a wall of 12+ story apartments and now, sadly blocking my view of the ornate basilica, a 36-story luxury apartment tower. Why Columbus doesnt manage something similar I don't know: there's still no complimentary luxury apartments for North Bank Tower. We're a city of 400,000: half that of Columbus. Even if I were to cheat and throw in St Paul we'd still be just shy of 700,000.
Sure, there's plenty going on near High St and Downtown, but that's been the case. 3/4 of the city is suburban sprawl and I was merely pointing out that Columbus overall is continuing that pattern instead of building new walkable pockets which could later be connected and provide an attractive area which the other sprawling suburbs don't offer. Where is urban development in all of NW Columbus north of 5thxNW? Where is urban development in the hug NE area around Morse, Polaris, and Easton? Where's urban development east of OTE? SE of Driving Park? South of 104? These and more encompass a huuuuge area and a clear majority of Columbus. For every mixed-use 6-story building in the SN or Downtown are a dozen or two sprawling segregated-use projects elsewhere in Columbus being built. And then on top of that roughly 3/4 of the 25% of Columbus that is urban is in serious disrepair with virtually no infill going on: the north side is doing well from Downtown to Clintonville, but no such equivalent is occurring on the respective east, west, and south sides. So, you're talking about 6.25% of Columbus at best as though it were the end all and be all of Columbus, which I'd say is far more selective.
It is strange that development right Downtown is the
same height as whatطs being built along the greenway through Uptown over here:
15 blocks south of our downtown. Even though that development looks generic I'd say it has better aesthetics than HighPoint. In
my neighborhood on the very edge of Downtown you'll see a wall of 12+ story
apartments and now, sadly blocking my view of the ornate basilica, a 36-story
luxury apartment tower. Why Columbus doesnt manage something similar I don't
know: there's still no complimentary luxury apartments for North Bank Tower.
We're a city of 400,000: half that of Columbus. Even if I were to cheat and
throw in St Paul we'd still be just shy of 700,000.
Before you get out of hand, the comparison between similarly-sized metros like Columbus/Cincy/Cleveland/Indy is much more realistic than Columbus vs. MSP. We've been over that before. MSP is simply much larger and has more leverage in getting much larger projects. City boundaries, as many people like to point out, are not great at determining full size of a city.
The thing is, Columbus IS building the equivalent of 30-40 story residential buildings. Using Cleveland's proposed tower for comparison, if Highpoint had been built with the same number of units per floor, it would be 34-stories. And in this case, it wasn't a local developer, but one from Atlanta (Carter). In any case, given that such a poor project like Highpoint is still able to fill up rapidly indicates that a tower would've done just fine. As I said, Cleveland's project has Columbus ties, so it's not like local developers can't build this stuff. And city development commissions, at least Downtown, would not block such a proposal at all, so I really don't know what this issue is.
North Bank Tower has no more units for sale, I believe, so perhaps a complimentary tower will come at some point.
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Sure, there's plenty going on near High St and Downtown, but that's been the
case. 3/4 of the city is suburban sprawl and I was merely pointing out that
Columbus overall is continuing that pattern instead of building new walkable
pockets which could later be connected and provide an attractive area which the
other sprawling suburbs don't offer.
Before 2002, almost no major urban development was taking place in Downtown, and only a limited amount in the Short North area. It wasn't really until after the recession that it picked up substantially. 2015 is on track to finish about 5 or 6x what was completed in 2010. So I disagree that that's always been the case.
As far as suburban sprawl, Columbus urban core is the same square mileage as Cincinnati, Cleveland or really many cities considered to be more urban, it's just that the city boundaries include areas that other cities do not because they're smaller. If Minneapolis was 220 square miles, it would include a lot of suburban sprawl. Even so, I've done density profiles for Columbus' peers and Midwest cities and Columbus is nowhere near the bottom. It actually is in the top half.
And we're obviously going to disagree that no other areas are seeing walkable development.
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Where is urban development in all of NW Columbus north of 5thxNW?
Those areas weren't part of the old urban core, they were later suburbs for the most part that were annexed into the city at some point. They don't really have a center to focus on. Dublin has Bridge Street, was does that area have? It's largely just one residential neighborhood after another. There are some long-term plans for some areas, but there is no central place to focus development on.
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Where is urban development in the hug NE area around Morse, Polaris, and Easton?
Again, same as above, built within the last 50 years, and in the case of Polaris and Easton, less than 20. I just don't see these areas getting seriously urban while there are many actual urban neighborhoods that have a decent starting base that can be far more easily improved into a walkable, vibrant format. Columbus is just far too big to try to fix everything at once.
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Where's urban development east of OTE?
East of OTE is Bexley. East of that is Whitehall, separate cities that Columbus doesn't control.
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SE of Driving Park?
SE of Driving Park is the industrial corridor along Alum Creek Drive. That's unlikely to be fixed for a long time, and not until the areas to the west see more revitalization. Old Oaks is seeing some, as well as Southern Orchards and Driving Park itself, but there are so many houses needing fixed that it'll be a slow process. And before you say it, yes I know you don't think it's enough. The pace of development in these areas seems to be picking up from what I'm seeing.
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South of 104?
What the hell is south of 104? Very random development there.
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These and more encompass a huuuuge area and a clear majority of Columbus.
You used to include a LOT more neighborhoods in this claim, so I'd say the city must be making some decent success if even you have to remove some.
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For every mixed-use 6-story building in the SN or Downtown are a dozen or two
sprawling segregated-use projects elsewhere in Columbus being built.
So what exactly do you expect the city to realistically do? US cities had what, 60 years where the suburban format was preferred? Every city has this exact same issue to one degree or another. Minneapolis certain does outside of its smallish city boundary. There is not a city in the US or anywhere in the world with the kind of resources to turn 6 decades of building preference around to something different in the kind of time you want (immediately). Cities have to prioritize their resources, and Downtown/Short North up through Campus are the obvious places to prioritize (it's not like Downtown is in any way completely done). More investment is coming to other neighborhoods now, particularly Weinland Park and Franklinton, but unless you have billions to grant the city, what you want to happen is just completely unrealistic. I really don't understand what you don't get about this. What you want is impossible without unlimited funds.
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And then on top of that roughly 3/4 of the 25% of Columbus that is urban is in
serious disrepair with virtually no infill going on: the north side is doing
well from Downtown to Clintonville, but no such equivalent is occurring on the
respective east, west, and south sides. So, you're talking about 6.25% of
Columbus at best as though it were the end all and be all of Columbus, which I'd
say is far more selective.
Again, it made sense to focus on the strongest existing corridor... Downtown to Clintonville. It was the obvious choice. OTE's main corridors were devastated by urban renewal, as were Franklinton's. South did better with German Village/Merion Village, but south of there was the same story. North High had the most left intact, and with OSU providing a central anchor between Downtown and Clintonville, it's not at all surprising that the city would want to invest there first. That said, within 10 years, Franklinton's going to be massively different, and OTE/K-L should be well into major changes. South, east of GV/MV will likely be doing better, but I think this area is going to recover the most slowly. The point is, the city is rebuilding from the center out. I don't think private developers are building nearly enough to keep up with demand, but where development is taking place makes perfect sense to me.
MSP is simply much larger and has more leverage in getting much larger projects.
Metro population doesn't matter for the simple reason that sprawl over here is outside of city boundaries and that's money kept out of the city. To link more suburbanites to having more leverage to build tall dense urban developments doesn't make sense, because the suburbs don't care and don't want dense development, no matter how many or few suburbs there are in the metro especially in a city in which they have no stake. Minneapolis only has control over what goes on in its borders just as Columbus does and the answer has more to do with better pro-urban policies which encourage such development and that's why we're able to punch well above our weight. Development is occurring out there in Columbus' newer land, but lax policies guarantee sprawl.
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As far as suburban sprawl...we're obviously going to disagree that no other areas are seeing walkable development.
How can you disagree with my statement that within the 3/4 of Columbus which is sprawling we're not seeing walkable developments being built? Fact is that there's none, it's not something you can disagree with, otherwise you would have posted about it by now. Columbus is choosing to build more sprawl there, not walkable developments when given the chance. You can't walk if you're not going to take a first step and Columbus is choosing to stay right where it is. Unless, of course, you can show me this kind of development being built in suburban areas such as, for example, Eastmoor and the Far East Side (east of Whitehall) which do exist: east of OTE and Bexley mind you. You can be forgiven for having forgotten about them: they're not memorable in the least. I spent half of my childhood off of Livingston out there near Walnut Ridge High: development out there is exactly the same decades later, but older building stock hasn't aged well and new cheap sprawl sitting right next door will share same fate in just a decade or so.
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Columbus is just far too big to try to fix everything at once.
Columbus being "too big" to fix everything at once is a cop out, pure and simple. Columbus gets to enjoy the additional revenue from another ~600,000 residents thanks to annexation; that's a lot more to work with for citywide improvements than other cities that have to make do with much smaller populations in many less sq mi, some have been much more successful (Minneapolis) than others (Cleveland). Otherwise, as you're implying, Columbus might as well not have annexed because now as you said it's "too big" to fix itself up across the board.
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So what exactly do you expect the city to realistically do?
It's absolutely realistic for Columbus to have zoned for more walkable developments so that what's being built now on its fringes were more accessible to pedestrians who now have to not only walk along grass or snow banks where no sidewalk exists, but also have to trek across a parking lot to the front door of their destination when the city could have zoned for entrances up against the sidewalk (or where a sidewalk should exist) even with a suburban parking lot that has drive-in/out curb cuts. Suburbs over here already have lots of MUPs (Multi-Use Paths) to accommodate cyclists and pedestrians where the existing built environment is car-centric and even gets plowed in the winter. Why do Minnesota suburbs no one outside of the state has heard of have them while similar strips like Bethel Rd in Columbus, a city of 800,000, the 15th largest in the nation have no such accommodations? It should be the other way around, but it's not because Columbus' urban policies are behind those of Twin Cities' suburbs.
Not only that, but Minneapolis without the help of the metro through it's Neighborhood Revitalization Program allotted money for improvements in all of its neighborhoods.It can be done and it has. We could have solely invested in Hennepin Ave because it connects Downtown to Uptown, but instead we also focused on Nicollet, Lyndale, Lake, Central, Franklin, etc and are all the better for it: Main, Broad, Sullivant, Livingston and Cleveland combined can't compete with a single one of those. And more recently, even in our worst neighborhoods which are our equivalent of South Linden/Highland West/Southern Orchards/Driving Park, the city is proposing a huge investment with a car-less greenway along several blocks where a street now runs that would connect directly to Downtown and convert much of the existing street into parkland (car access would be via alleys). The city has also spent money to rehab the facades of numerous commercial buildings via grants on the roughest commercial corridor in the same area. Nothing is stopping Columbus from doing the same except Columbus. All the city would have to do is budget and then commit to allocate amounts for all neighborhoods and not just the bare minimum for the most unpopular ones like it has been doing. The city as a whole benefits when all neighborhoods are given a helping hand, but Columbus won't see that until it adopts policies to do that.
Metro population doesn't matter for the simple reason that sprawl over here is outside of city boundaries and that's money kept out of the city. To link more suburbanites to having more leverage to build tall dense urban developments doesn't make sense, because the suburbs don't care and don't want dense development, no matter how many or few suburbs there are in the metro especially in a city in which they have no stake. Minneapolis only has control over what goes on in its borders just as Columbus does and the answer has more to do with better pro-urban policies which encourage such development and that's why we're able to punch well above our weight. Development is occurring out there in Columbus' newer land, but lax policies guarantee sprawl.
How can you disagree with my statement that within the 3/4 of Columbus which is sprawling we're not seeing walkable developments being built? Fact is that there's none, it's not something you can disagree with, otherwise you would have posted about it by now. Columbus is choosing to build more sprawl there, not walkable developments when given the chance. You can't walk if you're not going to take a first step and Columbus is choosing to stay right where it is. Unless, of course, you can show me this kind of development being built in suburban areas such as, for example, Eastmoor and the Far East Side (east of Whitehall) which do exist: east of OTE and Bexley mind you. You can be forgiven for having forgotten about them: they're not memorable in the least. I spent half of my childhood off of Livingston out there near Walnut Ridge High: development out there is exactly the same decades later, but older building stock hasn't aged well and new cheap sprawl sitting right next door will share same fate in just a decade or so.
Columbus being "too big" to fix everything at once is a cop out, pure and simple. Columbus gets to enjoy the additional revenue from another ~600,000 residents thanks to annexation; that's a lot more to work with for citywide improvements than other cities that have to make do with much smaller populations in many less sq mi, some have been much more successful (Minneapolis) than others (Cleveland). Otherwise, as you're implying, Columbus might as well not have annexed because now as you said it's "too big" to fix itself up across the board.
It's absolutely realistic for Columbus to have zoned for more walkable developments so that what's being built now on its fringes were more accessible to pedestrians who now have to not only walk along grass or snow banks where no sidewalk exists, but also have to trek across a parking lot to the front door of their destination when the city could have zoned for entrances up against the sidewalk (or where a sidewalk should exist) even with a suburban parking lot that has drive-in/out curb cuts. Suburbs over here already have lots of MUPs (Multi-Use Paths) to accommodate cyclists and pedestrians where the existing built environment is car-centric and even gets plowed in the winter. Why do Minnesota suburbs no one outside of the state has heard of have them while similar strips like Bethel Rd in Columbus, a city of 800,000, the 15th largest in the nation have no such accommodations? It should be the other way around, but it's not because Columbus' urban policies are behind those of Twin Cities' suburbs.
Not only that, but Minneapolis without the help of the metro through it's Neighborhood Revitalization Program allotted money for improvements in all of its neighborhoods.It can be done and it has. We could have solely invested in Hennepin Ave because it connects Downtown to Uptown, but instead we also focused on Nicollet, Lyndale, Lake, Central, Franklin, etc and are all the better for it: Main, Broad, Sullivant, Livingston and Cleveland combined can't compete with a single one of those. And more recently, even in our worst neighborhoods which are our equivalent of South Linden/Highland West/Southern Orchards/Driving Park, the city is proposing a huge investment with a car-less greenway along several blocks where a street now runs that would connect directly to Downtown and convert much of the existing street into parkland (car access would be via alleys). The city has also spent money to rehab the facades of numerous commercial buildings via grants on the roughest commercial corridor in the same area. Nothing is stopping Columbus from doing the same except Columbus. All the city would have to do is budget and then commit to allocate amounts for all neighborhoods and not just the bare minimum for the most unpopular ones like it has been doing. The city as a whole benefits when all neighborhoods are given a helping hand, but Columbus won't see that until it adopts policies to do that.
*sigh* I'm honestly sick to death of having this same debate over and over again with you. I must be mental to even try. We come close to agreement on one post for like 5 seconds a year, and then you go off again on your many ridiculous SimCity views. One of my resolutions this year was to eliminate, as much as possible, negativity in my life. Part of that negativity can obviously come from online sources given the amount of time I spend here. Frankly, the amount of negativity from you is off the charts. I just don't want to be around it anymore. I know you'll never stop complaining, and what's that saying about learning to accept the things we cannot change?
Well, you could just admit that what I'm saying is fact and based on mounds of evidence and still be all over Columbus despite its shortcomings like it's the best city in the country after NYC. There's nothing "SimCity" about the views I'm posting because there are real life examples to back them up. I think the main problem is that your starting point for all things Columbus is the mentality that if it's not happening it Columbus it can't be happening anywhere else. And when presented with evidence to the contrary just block it out and throw out accusations of having unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky SimCity ideas.
The irony is that I believe Columbus is much more capable of doing a lot more than it is now than one of, if not its biggest booster, online or off. It can and should match or best what other mid-size cities are doing, let alone their suburbs, especially when it's now being ranked as one of the cities with the highest taxes.
Well, you could just admit that what I'm saying is fact and based on mounds of evidence and still be all over Columbus despite its shortcomings like it's the best city in the country after NYC. There's nothing "SimCity" about the views I'm posting because there are real life examples to back them up. I think the main problem is that your starting point for all things Columbus is the mentality that if it's not happening it Columbus it can't be happening anywhere else. And when presented with evidence to the contrary just block it out and throw out accusations of having unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky SimCity ideas.
The irony is that I believe Columbus is much more capable of doing a lot more than it is now than one of, if not its biggest booster, online or off. It can and should match or best what other mid-size cities are doing, let alone their suburbs, especially when it's now being ranked as one of the cities with the highest taxes.
Do you ever post anything different? It's been a variation of the same for the last two years that I've been reading this forum. Development isn't good enough/fast enough/spread out enough for your tastes. Fine. Quit whining about it.
Do you ever post anything different? It's been a variation of the same for the last two years that I've been reading this forum. Development isn't good enough/fast enough/spread out enough for your tastes. Fine. Quit whining about it.
He moved hundreds of miles away to his supposed dream city to escape the oppressive way in which Columbus is developing, and he can't still be happy about literally anything. This has never been about Columbus doing better, because in his view, it can never do better. It will always fail because he will always see failure. Take it from someone who has spent a few years trying to debate him... don't waste your time. You can't fix something that broken.
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