Representatives of Northstar Realty presented details of their proposed five-story, mixed-use development at the southwest corner of North Broadway and High Street to a roomful of interested – and somewhat concerned – residents last night. The meeting, hosted by the new group Positively Clintonville, was meant to provide information about the proposal and solicit feedback from the neighborhood before the plan is officially taken to the Clintonville Area Commission for approval.
Jack Reynolds, an attorney for the developer, said that the goal of the meeting is to “get some input from the community prior to filing anything official with the City of Columbus…this is a very important corner in Clintonville.”
He said that the initial plan was to build a simple one-story retail strip on the property, but that as they continued to look into it and hear from potential tenants, the plan changed. “As we got more feedback, we thought that this would be a better fit for the community in terms of driving development of this corner.”
Architect Mark Ford of Ford & Associates presented the plans to the crowd, explaining that the renderings they were seeing were still preliminary, and that the design could still see substantial changes as the project evolves.
The proposal calls for a five-story building with approximately 18,000 square feet of commercial space on the first floor and 60 apartments. A total of 160 parking spaces would be provided, 57 in a grade-level lot and 103 in a second-floor garage. All the parking would be accessed from the alley behind the building, which would be improved and widened where the right-of-way allows.
Complicating the plans are the fact that only seven of the eight parcels between North Broadway and Brighton Road have been acquired by Northstar – the owner of what remains of the former Clintonville Electric building has refused to sell. According to Northstar President Tom Brigdon, they spent six months trying to buy the building; “every time we thought we had an agreement, he said ‘no’…there’s no price he would sell at.”
Northstar did acquire the parking lot at the corner of Brighton and High, which they plan to use as an additional surface parking lot for the development.
The first floor commercial space – which would feature storefronts facing High Street but still accessible from parking via a passageway through the building – would be evenly divided between restaurant and retail uses. The apartments, meanwhile, would be split between one-bedroom (about 70 percent) and two-bedroom units.
Reynolds explained that because the property is currently zoned C4, the proposal would not require variances for its use. It has also been designed in accordance to the Urban Commercial Overlay, meeting requirements that it be built up to the street with parking in the rear, along with other design stipulations. The plan as presented would require variances on parking (a reduction of 40 spaces from the 200 outlined in code), height (the proposed building is 62 feet, about 27 feet above code), site triangle clearance (the obstruction of driver sight lines), as well a request to leave out a required loading dock.
After the presentations, about a dozen people lined up to comment on the proposal and ask questions. The most common concern was the density and height of the building, with one commenter lamenting the loss of Clintonville’s small town feel and another worried that a precedent would be set by this development, leading to taller buildings becoming the norm for the neighborhood’s commercial corridors.
Others were concerned about increased traffic flow and parking, citing parking problems caused by the Crest Gastropub. Not all of the comments were negative, though – many people praised the developer for the meeting itself, appreciative of the chance to comment on the proposal before it got farther along in the approval process. And there was also agreement from many in the crowd that the neighborhood needs new apartments, as well as additional retail and restaurants.
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