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Earlier today, Mayor Coleman and other city officials announced plans to update the 2002 Downtown Business Plan and to hold a series of public town hall meetings to help move forward with the next phase of urban development in Columbus. At that event it was also unveiled that a new apartment building will be coming soon to the southeast corner of Gay Street and Grant Avenue near CCAD. The building will be home to 68 apartment units housing 136 new Downtown residents.
Rents will range from $760/mo for single units, $1,250/mo for double units and $1,740/mo for triple units, and will be targeted as student housing for CCAD, CSCC, Franklin and Capital Law. The building is slated for completion August 1st, 2011.
Larger renderings are below:
I find it amazing that among the desolate wasteland of parking lots and crap in that area, they pick the one cool old building to tear down.
Crack house it may be. But it is a cool building. *sigh* I’m glad to see development happening in that stretch. I used to walk to my salon, which is across the street, and that area is bleak. But that building was the one structure with a little bit of visual interest.
So of course… let’s tear it down.
I think some of the desolate lot owners are speculators holding out for $$ while earning some revenue on the unimproved land (less taxes then a bldg). I think Columbus should start taxing the empty lot holders a bit more.
It’s a shame the crackhouse won’t be renovated. I don’t know who owns what parcel. Is CCAD providing the funding or is this a spec building? The developer appears to be Daimler (the name on the renderings) who is primarily known as a suburban office developer. They also developed the Gowdy Fields site (Time Warner) along 315. I wonder why they’re venturing into apartments?
http://www.daimlergroup.com/
^^ because commercial real estate is dead and so is residential, apartments however are profitable
this is also why condos are being changed into apartments
no loan required to rent an apartment, getting financing is tough these days, actually its back to what used to be normal save for the FHA which is still making what amounts to subprime loans and its losses show it
^^Good point. Can a traditional office developer pull off a succesful apartment project? Hope so…
Did they give any detail about retail space being on the 1st floor?
NO NO NO!
Why are they tearing down a building? That’s the last thing we need to do! Is anybody with me??? Have they started the deconstruction? We need to rally for them to place it elsewhere. Why can’t they build it attached to the older building? Utilize the existing structure? We don’t need another stand-alone building…
Haven’t we already lost enough older architecture?
I agree with cc on the speculation about parking lot owners. It’s very easy to say “they should have built this over a parking lot” but does anyone know if those parking lots are even for sale? From my understanding, most flat lots are cash cows, so I doubt many owners are interested in giving them up for cheap for the greater good.
I imagine one of the parking lots belongs to CCAD. I also imagine they are trying to help downtown urbanize while building a larger structure. If they cleaned up the smaller building a little and connected the two it would add a lot to our density. Since they’re expecting more students living down there, they could also add a third building, a parking garage. Sounds a little out there but wouldn’t you guys prefer that over a lost building for a stand-alone building surrounded by parking lots?
sure would but like I said earlier…thats one thing Columbus loves to do…destroy buildings.
A lot of the owners are using the lots as income to pay the taxes on the buildings they own, I know several that have been doing this. Scott Schiff for example owns the lots around 16 west main and the 88 west main building which is empty and the lots next to it. He rents the lots out, his office building has been empty since he moved to 115 west main.
that way you can sit on empty property and office space and still stay alive or at least bleed money very slowly anyway
The city owns quite a few of them downtown, that is how some of the development and payroll for the downtown development corp is paid for, last I heard several years ago they had like 2800 parking spaces in garages, its more than that now I believe. At least this is what I have been told, never checked the recorders office to see if its true. Parking is a cash cow for the city too, a really big one. Its only the heart of downtown though, I think east of like 5th st or so its all privately owned.
Parking is also somewhat set in stone via building regs, you have to have X amount per square foot of office or residential space or you don’t get permits to build unless an exception is made. You can’t just buy up a lot and build something on it, you have to meet their standards and criteria and parking is a big part of that. This is why parking space square footage dwarfs office and residential space.
^^I don’t think parking is a requirement downtown. http://library.municode.com/HTML/16219/level2/T33_C3359.html#T33_C3359_3359.13
I took a quick look at the Auditor’s site and saw the properties immediately south of the project are owned by investors. Properties east to Cleveland Ave. are owned by CCAD (The parking lot between Gay and the new CCAD design center. Why can’t this new apartment building be located here thus allowing the crackhouse to be renovated? Just sayin’…
Again, I’m not against the development nor the developer, it just seems like a waste considering all the surface lots in the area.
pedex Says: Parking is also somewhat set in stone via building regs, you have to have X amount per square foot of office or residential space or you don’t get permits to build unless an exception is made.
Yeah, it’s a real problem holding back urban development in many areas of the world. It was partially addressed here in Columbus two years ago, but is still one of biggest reasons that keep suburban development cheaper and more attractive than urban development.
Worth watching:
@Walker – developers don’t have to provide parking in the downtown district by code. Nationwide doesn’t provide parking on site for all the employees in their tower. Workers park were they can afford, walk, bus or bike. They do provide some parking on site as an amenity for tenants.
I realize that many existing businesses don’t provide parking for their employees or customers, but I assumed that they were either grandfathered in or applied for variances. I seem to recall reading an article or two in the past where certain Downtown residential development approval hinged on mandated parking requirements. Will have to do some digging.
Nationwide has tons of parking. The garage behind 2 nationwide at chesnut and pearl and the garage behind 3 nationwide on front street. Doesn’t provide space for everyone but it is a bunch. Every highrise more than like oh I dunno 10 stories has attached or very close by parking garages that were built at the same time. The Leveque, Huntington, 10 west broad, 37 west broad, Riffe, Rhodes, Court houses, AEP building, Columbia Gas, National City Bank building/20 south 3rd, old Borden building, all of them. Sometimes they are undergorund, sometimes not. Most if not attached have tunnels or bridges to them. Heck you can walk all around capital square and never go outside.
land is expensive downtown so when parking is part of the cost what it does is basically put a floor under leasing prices, not good when you want to attract small business cause it prices them right out of it and the same goes for residential, it is somewhat self defeating. Having more road and parking square footage makes actual office and residential space quite expensive. Cities were made to get rid of the need for lots of personal transportation, it brings work and housing togther, until the car showed up, now its a place to work and flee to live somewhere else at 5pm. The old photos of Columbus from the 20′s to the 50′s show this. Although not nearly as much as older cities, Columbus is actually quite young and new so it didn’t change as much as others. It went into the car age and developed with it more or less.
I am pretty sure the parking requirements are tied to zoning, with each zoning level having different needs and building regs. Some do get exceptions and variances, that is a natural occurrence over time and as businesses change. At least that is what that link you out up to another CU thread is saying. Most cities are similar. It can be done thru building codes or zoning, end result is the same.
Good news. Probably leading to additional density. Isn’t Edwards building the 5 story condo diagonally across from here?
I don’t consider the existing structure worth saving and maybe this is the first phase of denser development?
High rises do provide some parking but not enough for every worker. According to the Cols. code I linked: “There are no requirements for off-street parking within the Downtown District. “ Don’t know if this applies to residential…
Back on topic – The building doesn’t look bad, hope it turns out well. Anyone else notice that the rendering shows Gay St. as one way westbound?
Wonder if they are doing underground parking? I hope they put some retail space in :)