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Downtown panel wants details on RiverSouth
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
BY ROBERT VITALE
City officials have spoken for five years of grand plans for the south end of Downtown, an area that would include a new county courts building, a spruced-up riverfront, classier streetscapes and more.
Downtown Commission Chairman Harrison Smith said the panel has been asked to approve building designs but isn’t quite sure when the city plans to tackle its overall plan for RiverSouth, which includes converting Front Street to two-way traffic, replacing old sewer lines and installing better-looking curbs and crosswalks.
Franklin County has broken ground for its new courts building at one end — the commission will review design changes next week — and the Lazarus store has been renovated at the other end for state offices and other tenants.
The Downtown Commission yesterday approved the demolition of a vacant Lazarus parking garage at Front and Rich streets. Capitol South Community Urban Redevelopment Corp. will build a replacement there that will be owned by the city.
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Downtown panel wants details on RiverSouth
By: Walker
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I think most of the buildings in this area need to be torn down and replaced with new ones if they want to make a meaningful change to the area. Especially the buildings that are inbetween High and Front and the new court house and the old Lazarus building. I have a bird’s eye view of this area from my office and I don’t see how these buildings can be renovated into anything like condos.
Wiping the slate clean would be nice but they would have to address the needs of the existing businesses so that they dont leave downtown. The last thing they need is more business to leave the downtown core.
The area could use a high rise building or two to connect the Franklin County Courthouse Complex with the rest of downtown.
I didn’t know there were buildings in this area. It’s more of a parking district to me. :wink:
The storage warehouse was once slated to become condos, and there’s residential planned for the parking lots directly to the north of it.
But I agree with the downtown commission. There was a public meeting about 3 years ago and I haven’t heard anything since. Most of the city’s attention seems to remain squarely focused on the north side neighborhoods.
Maybe it’s kind of like what happened to the district proposed about eight years ago called Jeffrey Place. These grand plans can sometimes take a generation in Columbus. It’s a slow development city for certain, but I love it anyway. I just hope this will not be the case for streetcars. :lol:
NRI is one of the main developers on this. i just hope we don’t get another arena district. it’s already being replicated in grandview yard. don’t get me wrong, the arena district is great but each area needs its own identity. a highrise or two would be great, supposing the columbus market could handle it. i would like to see some more affordable rental units, all buildings should be ultra modern to match the courthouse and make a statement (although i hardly think the new courthouse design makes much of a statement.), something other than brick or grey and brown concrete. let’s pull some architectural muscle. it should be as dense as possible, include a large park space that somehow connects to the new riverfront park. rip almost all of those piece of crap buildings down except that bar on main. it would be kind of cool to have at least one small remnant of the old neighborhood in the middle of an all new one. most if not all should be built under LEED standards.
one other small design element i thought would be unique. how about some sort of river or creek with several waterfalls leading down to the river. the area does decline slightly towards the river. not sure about underground utilities. i don’t know exactly how these things work on a small scale, just that a pump brings the water up and gravity takes it down. just a thought though. i don’t think there are enough water elements downtown.
i do agree, there has not been solid news on this project for ages. the last thing i heard was back in the summer about an announcement for the first residential piece. we were supposed to hear something late 2007. not a peep. maybe it’s because NRI has too much on the table (grandview yard, riversouth, city center, and finishing out the arena district.) i wish some other prominent figure or company would step up and help out the redevelopment efforts, for the central core areas that is.
hey NRI, how about finishing out the arena district with another tower containing affordable condos or apartments. follow the market for crying out loud. we’re practically screaming for it.
oh yea, and tear city center down…..please.
Knocking all of those old buildings down and building new would be nice. But since most of the area is privately owned it may take even more time to gradually buy up the land, demolish the buildings one by one leaving brown fields until it’s all done. It would be like how they converted South Campus bars into the Gateway District. Only it would take alot longer.
I’m with Brew. The majority of Riversouth is parking lots.
I have heard rumblings that ground is supposed to be broken this spring/summer on the apartments taking over the parking lot on at Front and Town just south of the Lazarus building.
I’d still consider it a rumor though. I don’t think I’ve seen anything in the news about it. :?
Given that City Center is a prominent corner of this district, I’m guessing that all the backroom planning was basically on hold until the foreclosure-induced buyback of City Center this past fall. Hopefully all these various rumors will begin acquiring a little bit of meat this year.
That said, I imagine that NRI is planning something similar but not identical to the Arena District; they’re not likely to deviate all that much from it because the Arena District projects have been pretty successful even during the down market. Subtle variations, yes; complete conceptual departure, no.
I’ve said it before, but it’s a little concerning to have NRI involved in so many simultaneous projects. I know they are only landowners in the Arena District and Grandview Yard, but they would never design or promote anything to compete with their own interests.
True competition and market forces are a very good thing for urban devlopment. It’s how a city grows organically. Nationwide eliminates that with their hands in so many things, meaning they can create the market rather than work within the market. In my opinion, it’s good to have several land owners because it creates the variety of an urban environment. Columbus all too often tries to overlay large Easton-esque plans onto the urban fabric. Granted, we have large urban blocks that need attention, but I get tired of the master-planned developments.
It’s a real balancing act though, because building and development projects without any regulatory process, will tend toward the lowest common denominator, which is typically unplanned strip development. And qualified businesses with proven track records for timely, successful development projects aren’t that common.
In the past two days I have seen both the mayor and NRI CEO. Both are really good people. Both are good people, well travelled, and listening to much of what is needed to grow the city. Stand behind them while encouraging diversity in architecture, etc.
I live in the Arena District but in a private project. After seeing what NRI has done for this city, having them oversee development is not such a bad idea when you consider how polished and successful they have been thus far. I will agree though that much of the architecture is a yawn, but the area is packed with people and will continue to grow. What would Columbus be without them?
Support in ’08 lol
I wouldn’t worry too much about that, because while NRI might not have tremendous competition *within* the Arena District, Grandview Yard, or RiverSouth, it does have enough competition from nearby neighborhoods to keep it honest and punish it if it screws up. Also, considering how much of their own capital they’ve put on the line, they have every incentive to make it work.
Also, the Arena District has been very good to the smaller ships around the aircraft carrier of Nationwide. Look at how well the Buggyworks project has done, and I’m pretty sure that Kyle Katz has no formal relationship with NRI. They haven’t frozen out outside competition; if anything, they’ve helped it.