And it makes me very happy to hear of the plans to possibly maintain the greenspace behind the school. I’d love to have a back yard!

I sincerely hope so – I live a couple blocks from High and 5th and desperately want to see that area improve – I’m sick of passing all those dark, empty units on my way home from the Short North.

Brad – I’m not “picking apart the short north”, whatever that means, I was just wondering if there was any plan for development of that area around the Jackson that you were part of, or knew of (with the benefit to you that it would help sell units).  Regardless, I wish you the best of luck with your venture. It will really be great for our neighborhood.

To your presale question.  If The Jackson has only sold 35%…why are we building and nobody else? 

Anyway, the thought really didn’t occur to me to ask about current sales figures, as I was looking at the project more from a development standpoint, but seeing that Brad has a CU account and has been fairly active on here lately, I imagine that he can jump in here to answer that and any other questions anyone else may have about the project. ;)

I was pointing all of the empty retail space north of Scully’s below 5th (where there used to be a couple of uniform clothing shops). Right now these have broken windows and are in serious need of remodeling. Across the street on high you’ve got 2 sex shops, a head shop and more empty retail. Add all this up and I would say “languishing” is appropriate. My point is, there should be some concern about how the Jackson units are going to sell. The actuall current sales status of the Jackson was never brought up in the interview.

It’s a rendering from their website. I imagine they just put the skyline in there the best they could without renting a helicopter or a crane to snag the most accurate representation of what the skyline would look like. ;)

Sounds like you just answered your own question. ;)

howatzer Says: Another big issue is the languishing development at the 5th and High area. I’ve heard rumors that someone may be renovating the Garden Theatre, which would be huge, and also a small gourmet food shop taking over half of Mary Catherines, but just rumors.

I don’t think the development around here is languishing. These types of projects just seem to take a much longer time than we want them to. The Jackson was announced three years ago, and I’m sure there was plenty of pre-announcement work that went into it beforehand.

Keep in mind that you’ve also got the just-completed Smith and High development and the Weinland Park Kroger revamp that should be starting soon.

As for those other two projects you mentioned, I don’t think either of them are rumors. The Ohioanna Market was announced over a year ago for half of the Mary Catherine’s space, but was delayed due to the Dirty Frank’s project. And the Garden Theater Condo Development has been going through rounds of Victorian Village commission meetings to hash out the details of the project.

I have also heard many people reference the parcel at the NE corner of Fifth & High several times as the potential site for a Walgreens (ugh) development, but I’m not sure if that was information that came from a University District Commission Meeting, or just rumors. I would hope that the UD would ask for something a little taller than that. ;)