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The Arena District is arguably the most vibrant mixed-use large-scale development in all of Central Ohio. Weighing in at 75 acres, this urban mix of offices, residences, entertainment and greenspace is a shining jewel in the heart of Downtown.
Not content to sit idle, developer Nationwide Realty Investors (NRI) is continuing to grow the area with several recent announcements.
Columbia Gas announced in March that they would be relocating into a new six-story office building to be constructed at the northeast intersection of Neil Avenue and Nationwide Boulevard. This new building would replace an existing surface parking lot and contribute an additional 280,000-square-feet of office space, ground floor retail and a new 1,400-space parking garage. (Rendering below)
The neighborhood is also continuing to grow west of Neil Avenue with additional development on the other side of Huntington Park. It was announced last week that the FBI would be constructing a new three-story local headquarters at 425 W. Nationwide Boulevard.
Additionally, NRI is picking up where Plaza Properties left off in 2008 on what is now the former Casino site, and just announced this week their plans to develop between 600 and 800 additional residential units on the land that abuts the Olentangy River.
The FBI office building is expected to be completed in late 2012, the Columbus Gas building is expected to be completed in in 2014, and there is no timeline determined yet for the residential development on the western side of the district.
More information can be found at ArenaDistrict.com.
Arena District photo and site map from MSI Design. Rendering of Columbus Gas Building Provided by NRI.
Not to mention the office building they might construct on the corner of Nationwide and Front after the parking garage is expanded. Those bees are busy.
Word on the street is that Nationwide is going to expand onto that Nationwide/Front open lot very soon….they have a lot of people moving downtown from Dublin with no place to put them…..
Yeah, the site map image up above shows three building and a plaza in that area bounded by High, Front, Nationwide and the railroad tracks. It also looks like there’s another pedestrian bridge to connect over the tracks, similar to what’s at Arena Crossing. Between that an the plaza, it should make that block more walkable. It’s a very long walk all the way around with no cut-through access. To go from Chipotle to Char Bar is a huge walk-around currently. That land being developed will make for a much more walkable connection between the Convention Center and Arena District.
How many of those ground-floor retail spaces are actually being used right now? Whenever I have been in the Arena District, the overwhelming majority have appeared to be vacant, so it’s not clear to me why they would add MORE ground floor retail spaces to that area. I haven’t been down in the area since the springtime, but I’m pretty sure it hasn’t changed that drastically that quickly. Can someone update me on that?