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After looking at this photo on Columbus RetroMetro and reading the comment left by Matt on this post it really does give you a good telling picture of just how short the Edwards Development is going to be on Gay Street.
Of course, three story townhomes are a huge improvement over flat parking lots, but will it be enough? Is this project selling itself short? Will the future leaders of Columbus regret this development when land downtown starts to become more scarce?
Walker, you make a good point. I love what the city and Edwards Communities are doing (adding to Gay Street, making it a two-way street, drawing the eye to CCAD, etc.) but you do have to wonder if something ‘more’ should have been done.
I am always thankful for what redevelopment we do, but careful planning for the future of our city is important!
I agree that towers are a more efficient use of land and they’re where I’d personally prefer to live, but there’s something to be stated about the identity a neighborhood would offer. The new Gay Street neighborhood, though low density, would conceivably bring a personality to the area, though probably false or manufactured at first, and that in turn would bring higher density to the surrounding areas. (Land surrounding it would then be scarce, after all.)
German Village draws people with its charm and personality as does the Short North, and in the case of the Short North such personality has created the desire for high density. The scarcity of land in the Short North, in turn, fostered high density towers. (Urban Oasis, The Jackson.)
Maybe the Gay Street neighborhood will provide an identity and that will likewise foster high density.
Then I can live on the 80th floor of the building someone builds.
[mutters under own breath]
don’t say “I told you so”…don’t say “I told you so”
[/mutters under own breath]
Here’s another shot from a different angle…
Totally agree with PatT’s assessment. Start small and hope for momentum.
The problem (and I know many have said this before) is that you’re taking these nice BIG parcels of real estate downtown that are ripe for a large building with a large footprint and dividing them up in to many tiny parcels with individual owners.
If the city decides later that they should have built something bigger, it’s going to be next to impossible (without some severe imminent domain) to get all of that property back into one person’s hands.
It’s good and bad– great that the embarrassing and NASTY-A%# parking lots are going bye-bye. Thank goodness. But I was near Tuttle Mall recently and it looks like that development “Broadway” or “Orleans” (or something), or “high density-suburban” and low-impact urban. I can’t blame them in this market, but it sure doesn’t get the blood pumping.
I think they’re short. I think most buildings downtown are pretty short. As wide as downtown streets are here in Columbus, I would love to see the buildings built on a scale to match. Everything is pretty short and the streets just kinda feel underwhelming.
Too short. Too crappy. Too much of what we already have in this city – bad suburban development. Except this one is in the middle of downtown.
Who do developers sleep with in this town to get ahold of 9 city blocks in downtown? How much better could this have been if 9 developers with 9 different designers did 9 different blocks? Or would that not have been eclectic/diverse enough?
And in an effort to not be negative about everything being built in this city, I love the idea of the full scale elevation as a construction screen. That, at least, was creative.
i too think these are too small to be built there, but you have to remember, downtown is saturated with parking lots and older buildings that are expendable. with the rate things get built down there, it would take a while before land got really scarce. how many towers have been built in the last 10 years. fifth third, miranova, SERS, north bank and whatever that blue 12 story building by grant is, and they aren’t even that huge. the pace of economic expansion within our downtown and the vast availability of lots doesn’t justify to a lot of developers why they need to build higher.
point is, there is plenty of room, but i still don’t agree with the placement of this neighborhood. it would do better in one of the inner ring burbs.
BRING ON MORE TOWERS.
…….and anything is better than surface parking lots.
I can’t believe I am saying this but I am ok with this project. I like that it is NOT a tower or ultramodern building.
And you can build around it, on top of it, whatever. I like the mixture of types. I think it would be hilarious and neat to see a tower right next to it.
I still think the roof/patio should be in front though.
One step at a time. Downtown to develop needs to take small steps in which this project is doing. Gay St. being no wider than a three lane street would seem like an alley with trees in the center if something higher was built. I believe something is better than nothing. This is a decent concept and I believe would be a faster sell than the higher condos that are currently selling. It will be decades till land becomes scarce downtown that we must construct a 15 story building to make a profit.
If you’re talking about the Borden Building…it’s 34 stories and across the street from this development.
As for this development…I’m completely convinced that the developer saw an opportunity to take advantage of our gov’t officials. The market is soft…the mayor has set a goal of 10,000 units by 2012…construction costs are high (especially steel)…we’ve got lots of surface parking…so what do you get?
Cheap, easy to construct, wood frame houses that have been slickly packaged and pitched to the city as “Murray Hill”. They seem to have fallen for it and have given low intrest loans and tax breaks to make the project happen.
It’s weird. It doesn’t fit. It isn’t the same as GV, SN, VV, IV, or OTE because it’s right in the heart of downtown. If you want to do this in Franklinton…I’m behind you 110%. Just don’t put it on Gay St.
Cheap, easy to construct, wood frame houses that have been slickly packaged and pitched to the city as “Murray Hill”. They seem to have fallen for it and have given low intrest loans and tax breaks to make the project happen.
It’s weird. It doesn’t fit. It isn’t the same as GV, SN, VV, IV, or OTE because it’s right in the heart of downtown. If you want to do this in Franklinton…I’m behind you 110%. Just don’t put it on Gay St.
2 things:
Brew – why the conistent bashing of wood frame construction as inferior? I think elsewhere you’ve stated one of the problems is durability. My house in the IV is solid wood construction, and it’s been here for 110+ years? So why not use wood versus steel and aluminum studs?
As for fitting in, look at the few remaining sections of housing left in that section of town, from the Thurber house across to the few units on 6th. They’re all 3 story homes. I’d bet, but have no clue, they razed some 3 story structures when they built the Borden building.
I never said it’s inferior. I said it’s cheap. Perhaps I’ll start using inexpensive.
Wood frame houses can only be built to about 3 stories (4 at most), so I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if that was a key factor in determining the height of this project. It couldn’t be built on the cheap to fit the surrounding neighborhood of 20-40 story buildings, so they had to come up with a slick way to package it (Murray Hill).
As far as what was on the land before. It was mostly surface lots (zero stories tall). That doesn’t mean they fit in either.
I completely agree with Brewmaster, and with Walker’s reasoning:
While there is a great deal of severely underused space in downtown Columbus (most notably surface parking lots), there are comparatively few where massive amounts of surface parking lots are all together, providing the necessary footprint for larger projects. The photo Brew provided tells a story all to itself, but one should also compare the footprint of the Edwards project to the footprint of the Borden Building.
One could have put in a project at least the height of Carlyle’s Watch in that space, if not North Bank Park. It was one of the biggest contiguous surface parking lots in all of Downtown.
I’d much rather see some more towers to spruce up our skyline, but I have to admit, anything is better than a bunch of barren surface lots. Plus considering the amount of office space already available in our current towers, and the amount of units available in the small to midrise towers…where’s the market for addtional towers? How many units has North Bank sold so far?
I’m not really asking for a tower. Just something with some more density. Think Arena Crossing or Eclextion.
The development in its current form will do very little to improve street level activity or add any sort of vibrancy to the Gay St. corridor. There is no retail element and it won’t add many people considering how large an area it’ll consume.
I try to convince myself that, “anything is better than surface lots” in an attempt to keep being a cheerleader for downtown development, but this one makes it tough. I just feel like we’re settling here and will really regret this one in the future. Look what happened when we tried to fit a suburban mall downtown for crying out loud?
When you take opportunity costs into account, it’s not entirely true that “anything is better than surface lots.” That’s only true in the very short term.
I hear ya. I’m sure it all comes down to timing. If the real estate market wasn’t heading south, the demand for more density would have demanded something bigger and better be built.