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Clarmont could become place to live, eat, shop
60-year-old restaurant site may be redeveloped
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Mike Pramik and Barnet D . Wolf
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The owner of the Clarmont Restaurant, 684 S. High St., would like to tear down the 60-year-old icon and build in its place an eight-story restaurant, condominium and retail development.
Many of the particulars are to be determined, such as how the project would be funded and how long the restaurant would have to be closed. But owner Thom Coffman thinks that it’s time to take the Clarmont, a longtime favorite of politicians, lawyers and business people, to another level.
“Customers love the grand, old Clarmont, but it’s in a 60-year-old building,” Coffman said. “To keep it there another 15, 20 years, it needs a little change. I guess a big change.”
He said the idea “came up because of what Grange (Insurance) is doing across the street. It got me thinking.”
The building also would have 54 condominiums, a rooftop patio and underground parking. The Clarmont space would be on the second floor, with seating for 150 and the addition of banquet rooms.
Comments
- itinerantfoodie: Not one mention of Huntington Park or their sparse advertising. (Seriously
- Liz Samuelson: Why can't they just pay someone to do it versus a contest? I really like t
- RichLauro: Awesome! Good for Justin and best wishes!!
- Liz Samuelson: @jpizzow – Thank you for the compliment, yes lots of potential and lots o
- Taz Devil: Oh, and it should be finished soon considering that they work late into the
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Clarmont could become place to live, eat, shop
By: Walker
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I saw this in the dispatch this morning. My first reactions was…AWESOME! It sounds like a great complement to the Grange HQ expansion that is underway.
Then I saw the picture. :cry:
It looks like they took a suburban Holiday Inn Express, painted it pink, and put the Statue of Liberty’s torch on the top. There needs to be balconies, more glass, and more red brick. The connection to street level and the height are both really nice though!
Let’s hope that the design is flexible. The article states that it’s in a conceptual phase right now.
Really? I thought the building would look pretty unique as is. If it were glass & brick it would like exactly like the Grange building across the street.
Haven’t people complained about all the structures in the Arena District looking too similar? All glass & brick.
I think this building would be a real eyecatcher if it comes out looking like the concept art.
Maybe I just need a better picture. It just looks like it has really small windows and no balconies to me. Is that ivy growing up the sides?
Perhaps I was too harsh on a 200×124 pixel image!
I suppose the Brewery District Comission still needs to approve this, and as long as it meets thier standards, it should be fine with me.
Sounds good to me. Goodbye old-timey steak house. No longer do you need to own a Cadillac to go there. (kidding of course)
Looks pretty cool to me. I know the Clarmont is a classic, but redoing the building is a good move – not only does it add mixed-use, but a shiny new facility should draw in more people to the restaurant too – I know a lot of folks who avoid it just because it looks too old/shady.
Yeah, only downside for me will be missing out on cheap Round Bar drinks :(
Is the Round Bar and Hotel going to be a part of this project? My understanding from the article was that this was just a revamp of the building where the Clarmont sits. Same owners, but two buildings. I don’t think the hotel is going anywhere right now.
I’ve lived near it for two years and haven’t been there. I feel like I need to be wearing a white suit and sunglasses to go in. It looks like it was pulled straight out of Vice City!
It’s really not shady at all, it tends to be a lot of the older political establishment and old money from around town most of the time (particularly lunch). For years you’d find the McCoys or the Wolfes eating there.
I really like the look of it, and I hardly think the lack of balconies or floor-to-ceiling windows is anything more than a footnote. The height is great, and the street frontage and underground parking are even better. I hope this takes off and sparks a wave of following suit up and down that stretch of High.
Of course, since at the moment they haven’t even worked out a source of funding, this is definitely too early to get really excited. A lot of ideas look great sans price tags.
Well…I picked up a print copy of the Dispatch yesterday because it had a much larger rendering. It really is hideous. It appears to be pink stucco with tropical designs going up the sides. It also has a skywalk going to the Grange building (dumbest idea ever for urban development).
I love the connection to street level and the height, but the building looks like it should be in a cheesy retirement community in Florida, not in German Village/Brewery District.
Brewmaster – I totally agree with everything you said. Skywalks absolutely kill streetlevel activity. Why would anyone want to set up a retail shop in the first floor, if no one will be walking by your shop. I also agree that this building is terribly ugly and totally out of place. I agree with the concept and the height, but the building looks outdated, and it hasn’t even been built!
I hadn’t seen the thing about the skywalk; I wonder why they’d be bothering with that expense, honestly. Going outside isn’t going to kill people, and skywalks always made more sense to me as ways to connect office buildings to other office buildings, not to residential towers.
The pink stucco might be a bit of an architectural fashion faux pas, but I have a fairly strong prejudice against exterior appearance codes (tend to lead to much too much uniformity), so if the occasional oddball like this is the price to be paid for a little bit of architectural license, so be it.
My first thought when I saw that story was that nearly anything that removes some surface parking from High St./downtown is great, but that proposed alternative is one ugly building. I agree with Brewmaster — or maybe it’s the sort of building that belongs up in Polaris.
And the rush to build condos is starting to make me a little nervous. How many young professionals/empty nesters are there in Columbus? Any reason to think that the numbers are exploding or that big numbers of them want to move somewhere cool or cute in Columbus? Considering the condo gluts on the east coast, I wonder if Columbus (at St. Louis and other non-Chicago Midwest cities) will repeat that story 2 or 3 years from now.
Really, I don’t think we’re in as much of a rush as other cities. Columbus seems to have planned, gradual growth instead of wild explosions of growth.
2000 downtown condos built for a metro area of 1.7 million people is serving around 0.1% of the population. I think we’ve got a ways to go before we have market saturation.
Developers are still having no problem selling. I’m guessing that they’ll keep building until they do.
Since development of this sort doesn’t exactly turn on a dime, there’s the tendency to overshoot. No one really knows where that point is. That’s what has happened on the east coast, where developers have been turning buildings designed as condos into rentals if they can. There’s some loss in that, since condos have features, such as fancier kitchens and the like, that wouldn’t have gone into a rental project.
We’ll see — with the percentage of people working downtown going down, with commutes not that onerous except in lousy weather, and with a generally bad public school system there’s a limit on the population interested in downtown and in city neighborhoods in general.
I wonder if what we have in the downtown condo market is Delaware county for young professionals and empty nesters — the chance for brand new housing. The extended DOM for Clintonville, GV and the other South of downtown neighborhoods make it look that way.
Is the percentage going down? Really the only thing that matters is the absolute number increasing…not the percentage. Commutes are getting worse in Columbus, but still managable for many. Even still…why commute 30 minutes each way when you can have a 5 minute commute? I’ll give you the school system point, but you’re not considering all of the costs saved by living downtown compared to the burbs (lower taxes, lower energy use, lower gasoline use, lower car costs, more liesure time, etc…).
I’ll speak for myself here and say that the “new” factor didn’t come into play with me. I was looking for a lifestyle change that got me out of living in suburban apartment complex hell.
And what’s DOM?
Days on market.
If I remember right there was a story on the Dispatch recently that indicated that the numbers of people who work downtown are down but I don’t recall the timeframe. It might have been in a story about the office vacancy rate. If only Limited Brands were downtown instead of Easton or wherever…
Business First of Columbus – March 2, 2007
by Brian R. Ball
Business First
The landmark Clarmont Restaurant in Columbus could become the site of a 10-story condominium and commercial complex under plans owner Thom Coffman is testing for the 60-year-old restaurant.
Coffman and real estate broker Peter H. Luft have proposed building a 180,000-square-foot complex with 54 condos and 20,000 square feet of commercial space at 684 S. High St.
The building would include a new Clarmont restaurant spread over 7,000 square feet on two levels.
A two-level garage would offer more than 200 parking spaces.
READ MORE