Columbus City and Suburban Development News (Dublin, Grove City: studios, limit, districts)

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by Wilson513

And, COTA user complaints are down almost 15% over two years, operated within budget and received many awards.

Still, no one in Columbus or any other Midwestern city want to give up their cars to take their groceries, laundry or even gym bag on the train or bus because it is cars that represent the most convenient and economical mode of transportation for commuters.

Again, links? Anything? Even I said COTA's been working on improving service, but from what to what? And that still doesn't support what you said. Improving service doesn't make it good service.

With your last paragraph, you're merely projecting your own bias and assuming everyone else shares your view of the personal car.

[jbcmh81]

Stonehenge affiliate buys Keyes Plumbing property near North Market for redevelopment - Columbus - Columbus Business First

The 1920 building at 111-115 W. Vine Street in the Arena District has been sold and will be redeveloped. Ground-floor retail space with 2nd/3rd floor residential is possible.

[jbcmh81]

Wagenbrenner Sees Strong Market for Rehabbed Apartments in Weinland Park | ColumbusUnderground.com

The 91 units on 11th Avenue in Weinland Park are just about complete. Rents will range from $775/1 bedroom- $1,395/4 bedrooms. Not a bad price.

[jbcmh81]

Franklin County foreclosures drop to lowest mark since 2001 - Columbus - Columbus Business First

Foreclosures in Franklin County dropped to the lowest level in 13 years in 2014.

[jbcmh81]

Ohio State Buckeyes are country's most-valuable team topping $1 billion, hatless Urban Meyer costs Nike, Virginia Tech loss historically bad - Columbus - Columbus Business First

Ohio State football is now worth $1.1 billion, the most of any college football team in the nation.

[Mplsite]

Originally Posted by jbcmh81

Again, links? Anything? Even I said COTA's been working on improving service, but from what to what? And that still doesn't support what you said. Improving service doesn't make it good service.

With your last paragraph, you're merely projecting your own bias and assuming everyone else shares your view of the personal car.

Hey! It's too soon to post something else I agree with; give it another month before you scare me like that.

Seriously though, as someone who has ridden buses and trains in different cities both here and abroad COTA is a joke and I think it sounds like you might agree. Yes, people do, including myself carry groceries on the buses and trains here, not to mention strollers and one time on the Green Line (which has a daily ridership of 40,000, Blue has 31,000 fyi) there was a woman who carried on a mattress she'd bought at Target or Walmart next to Hamline Station. You can even bring your bike on the train and even in winter other people aside from myself routinely do. If you plan it to serve dense populations and invest seriously into it then you get ridership, whether it's the Twin Cities, Chicago, or even Columbus. This truth is also seen in biking infrastructure: why even in a city that gets -20 does it lead the nation in number of cyclists while Columbus which is measurably warmer lag far behind out numbers? Again, it's because real investments, ie big money, have been put into it and where lots of people find it useful: Dublin proves doing the former and not the latter guarantees failure by only investing in trails that are purely recreational and don't connect to shopping, dining, and other destinations. Well, maybe not a failure if all you want in recreational cycling.

You probably don't agree on this point, but I just found that the slow incremental progress of COTA is a perfect analogy for development in Columbus in general: improving doesn't make it good as a whole. Likewise, notable gains are made in a few highly visible spots, but over a long span of time and very little, if anything, elsewhere. To make my case I'll cite a few establishments which are the only big things to happen on the entirety of their respective mile+ long corridors: B & K Smoke House on all of E Main in OTE/Franklin Park, Dirty Frank's on W Broad in both the Hilltop and Franklinton, and Boujhetto's for all of Cleveland Ave in Linden (which I just discovered is closed while checking on how to spell the name). Oh, and Explorer's Club for all of S High south of the Brewery District. Yes, citywide Columbus is improving, but few new corners of the city are seeing significant change at a good clip; just look at how long Oak St in OTE is taking to make most of its commercial nodes look like the intersection at 18th or Parsons even though many nearby residential have been revitalized for years.

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by Mplsite

Hey! It's too soon to post something else I agree with; give it another month before you scare me like that.

Seriously though, as someone who has ridden buses and trains in different cities both here and abroad COTA is a joke and I think it sounds like you might agree. Yes, people do, including myself carry groceries on the buses and trains here, not to mention strollers and one time on the Green Line (which has a daily ridership of 40,000, Blue has 31,000 fyi) there was a woman who carried on a mattress she'd bought at Target or Walmart next to Hamline Station. You can even bring your bike on the train and even in winter other people aside from myself routinely do. If you plan it to serve dense populations and invest seriously into it then you get ridership, whether it's the Twin Cities, Chicago, or even Columbus. This truth is also seen in biking infrastructure: why even in a city that gets -20 does it lead the nation in number of cyclists while Columbus which is measurably warmer lag far behind out numbers? Again, it's because real investments, ie big money, have been put into it and where lots of people find it useful: Dublin proves doing the former and not the latter guarantees failure by only investing in trails that are purely recreational and don't connect to shopping, dining, and other destinations. Well, maybe not a failure if all you want in recreational cycling.

You probably don't agree on this point, but I just found that the slow incremental progress of COTA is a perfect analogy for development in Columbus in general: improving doesn't make it good as a whole. Likewise, notable gains are made in a few highly visible spots, but over a long span of time and very little, if anything, elsewhere. To make my case I'll cite a few establishments which are the only big things to happen on the entirety of their respective mile+ long corridors: B & K Smoke House on all of E Main in OTE/Franklin Park, Dirty Frank's on W Broad in both the Hilltop and Franklinton, and Boujhetto's for all of Cleveland Ave in Linden (which I just discovered is closed while checking on how to spell the name). Oh, and Explorer's Club for all of S High south of the Brewery District. Yes, citywide Columbus is improving, but few new corners of the city are seeing significant change at a good clip; just look at how long Oak St in OTE is taking to make most of its commercial nodes look like the intersection at 18th or Parsons even though many nearby residential have been revitalized for years.

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.

[jbcmh81]

Hilton Garden Inn planned by Indus for Nationwide Boulevard site - Columbus - Columbus Business First

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.

[jbcmh81]

http://columbus.gov/uploadedFiles/Co...0JAN%20agd.pdf

#12 on the Italian Village agenda is a proposed 2-story addition to the existing 1-story Garden building at 1172-1174 N. High Street. The information does not include what the addition will be for, whether residential or office/other space.

A Google street view:https://www.google.com/maps?q=1172+N...oIpw8cz6o1i-1g


And #13 on the agenda has 24 new single-family homes for 21 Jeffrey Park. No idea exactly where this would be as part of the Jeffrey Park development.

[Cbus76]

Originally Posted by jbcmh81

Hilton Garden Inn planned by Indus for Nationwide Boulevard site - Columbus - Columbus Business First

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.

I suppose that's good news, though you'd like to see something a little bigger. Not sure a 170 room hotel is going to move the needle in terms of helping Columbus land bigger conventions. I know the Le Meridien opens soon and they are planning a hotel in part of the LeVeque Tower, but Columbus needs more hotel rooms downtown, especially near the convention center to help land things like, I don't know, the Democratic National Convention.