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All it takes is a quick walk around Goodale Park, Schiller Park, or Franklin Park to find some of the nicest, largest, and most valuable homes in our urban neighborhoods. A stroll through the Topiary Park downtown is just as pleasant, but the residential aspect surrounding the park is drastically different. The south side of the park still boasts several beautiful old brick homes, but the north and east sides of the park are surrounded mostly with parking lots.
The largest of these parking lots runs almost completely along the north side of the park and is owned by the Motorists Mutual Insurance Company located on East Broad Street. They’ve also got a multi-story garage next door and several other small buildings in the area.
First, I should point out that some condo developments downtown have been a tough sell, while others have sold out amazingly quickly. Despite the current market conditions, the Neighborhood Launch condos continue to sell like hotcakes today because they offer a product that specifically caters to the type of units that are still in demand. They’ve also got great proximity to existing amenities.
There’s really no reason that Motorists couldn’t build something similar in this location. In addition to having the beautiful and historic Topiary Park as your front yard, you’ve also got the number one Library in the country located next door, and the Columbus Museum of Art, CCAD and Jefferson Center all within a 5 minute walk. Additionally, the whole Capital Square area is only a 15 minute walk away giving you easy access to everything around it while remaining secluded enough to be out of the downtown traffic and noise.
Nationwide has carved out their own neighborhood with the Arena District, and Grange is in the process of rebuilding the Brewery District as speak. Wouldn’t it be nice to see Motorists turn their parking lot into a dense residential development? Who knows… they might find that they’ll need fewer parking spots if they can provide some of their employees a new place to live where they can walk to work.
To further illustrate the potential that lies in this space, I’m displaying two photos below. One is of the view along Library Park, the narrow access road between Washington and 9th that runs parallel to the Topiary Park. This street is alright nice and narrow and cozy. The other photo below shows the view along John H McConnell Blvd in the Arena District. Again, a narrow street that also borders a park (Mcferson Commons). And instead of a parking lot, they’ve got the 100% occupied Burham Square condos.
Some food for thought.
Great article. I used to live a block from this parking lot. The biggest eyesores in that area have to be the two empty/abandoned buildings at the corner of Broad and Washington. Both are owned by State Auto, and both are complete with broken windows and no utilities. It seemed to us that Capital, State Auto, and Motorists were in cahoots to pollute the neighborhood with blacktop and unmaintained empty buildings that they own. Another blight is an abandoned house and office building at Washington and Town, both owned by CBCS. The potential is awesome, hopefully someday these things will bring enough negative attention to get something started.
What Walker said earlier in the text made me think: Why not try single family homes in this space? If the demand isn’t quite there, then a lower density could work. All, those beautiful, single family houses around Goodale and Schiller are a nice example of what could be, and no one else is buidling single family homes downtown presently.
Condos are great, but there’s a whole lot of people who aren’t interested in one but still want to live downtown. When we were buying, we looked a lot in Town Franklin (where most if not all of the single family homes downtown are located) but didn’t find anything in our price range.
i have walked past this so many times and have thought the same thing. Such a perfect area to build upon. I agree with the single family home suggestion above. Also, what’s wrong with a little mixed income residency like they are doing with Ibiza (i think..) I’ve seen this done is chicago and it seems to work.
This area has held my heart since I was a child. It is the closet thing we have to a developed downtown neighborhood. You are exactly right about the eyesore, constantly empty parking lots. This spot is a great candidate for a mixed-use site with a TRADER JOES anchoring the bottom.
I forwarded a link to this to my dad – he’s an exec at Motorist (vp life marketing, not exactly the development side of things). They’re all out of town at a meeting this week but I’m hopeful he’ll pass the suggestions to the right people when they get back. I’ve talked to him in the past about whether they had any development plans. He wasn’t sure, but they own a ton more land in that neighborhood than just that lot…
I’ve often thought the same thing about this strip. If you look on the Auditor’s web site you’ll see the original single family lotlines.
This is like me saying your driveway is wasted space and wouldn’t it be nice to build a jungle gym on it for the neighborhood kids. Not up to anyone but the owner. If there was any potential to profit from this space, I think they would have tried it. So unless everyone who supports the idea lines up to give Motorist money, this is just wishful thinking. All indications are that now is a bad time to sell residential downtown.
I think there is a huge difference between residential property and a business. Call me naive, idealistic-whatever, but I think there is such a thing as corporate responsibility. Isn’t there something to be said for giving back the community? Some of our greatest universities, museums, libraries are the products of corporate America giving back. Or just trying to buy themselves out of moral bankruptcy in the early days of American industry. Whatever view fits.
Given how much corporate Columbus has done to build and develop this city-be it Wexner and Easton, Nationwide and the AD, Grange and the BD-I don’t think there is anything wrong with speculation on what could be in an area that most agree needs a good boost. Given what was there before it was replaced by a parking lot, I think it’s only right for us to consider what could be and put the bug out there.
But yeah, ultimately it is up to Motorist to decide.
Sure, it’s always easy to tell someone else how to spend their money or what to do with their property, but I would think it to be a prudent business decisions at some point to sell this space to a developer. I would guess that this land is, or will be, worth more to a developer to build on than a business for parking spaces. This isn’t just unique to this location, there are surface lots all over downtown that will one day be developed. Columbus has a lot of potential, and the demand is going to be increasing every year.
UncommonSense Says: this is just wishful thinking.
Bingo! I never said it was anything more. This is part 7 in an ongoing series of wishful thinking I’ve been doing for awhile now. I’m not saying that Motorists is a bad company if they don’t do what I say.
As for it being a bad time for selling residential downtown… could someone tell that to Neighborhood Launch or Lifestyle Communities? Both of them are still building and still selling, so they must be doing something wrong.
UncommonSense Says: This is like me saying your driveway is wasted space and wouldn’t it be nice to build a jungle gym on it for the neighborhood kids.
Oh, and actually it’s more like you saying that my driveway is wasted space and wouldn’t it be nice for me to build residences on my property that I can sell/rent to make money from, or sell off at a healthy profit to a developer to do something similar.
Motorists stands to make money from something like this. I’m not asking them to give up their parking lot for free.
In my opinion this is one of the most valuable piece of property to be developed in downtown. It is so close to everything and overlooking the beautiful Topiary park. Comparing the pictures you posted with this article something along the lines of the Burnham or any residential
would be 100% better than the parking lot I don’t understand why they haven’t seen potential in this space already! Imagine 5 to 6 story condos (or apartments) with balconies looking out towards the park.
A. Replacing a parking lot on the fringe of downtown, with condos or single-family homes is not the same as endowing or creating a university, library, museum or even park. Those are community assets that generate good will and name recognition. These would be residences for individuals. For profit. Doesn’t give anyone warm fuzzies.
B. It would probably be worth more to sit on it until property gets scarcer in downtown’s hotter areas. Supply, demand etc. There are lots of empty lots and not many developers looking to start up anything new until they get rid of present and planned inventory. Throw in a rotten economy and this makes no sense. Ten years from now, maybe.
And I’ve seen some figures for all downtown condos either here or the Dispatch that don’t look so good. Neighborhood Launch and Lifestyle Communities may be exceptions but you’d have to show me.
In RE: to your A, yeah a bunch of condos isn’t some museum, but the property tax revenue would be great for our city. So would the greater density that could support more local business in that area.
I’ve long been confused by how this space is being wasted. Unlike Walker, I’ll say it’s obvious that Motorists knows that they could make better use of this land and do something positive, but would rather continue to shit on Downtown and keep it as cheap surface lot.
I like the undertones I’m getting from some posts in this thread. Corporate responsibility may not be in building condos, granted. However, is it responsible to bury 35-40 % of an urban neighborhood under blacktop just because you own half of it?
UncommonSense Says: These would be residences for individuals. For profit. Doesn’t give anyone warm fuzzies.
I beg to differ. I think there are a lot of people here who get warm fuzzies when they hear about new condo developments replacing surface lots downtown. You don’t have to live in the new building to benefit from increased residential density and vibrancy in our urban core.
If you own half of a neighborhood, is it actually a neighborhood? Corporate responsibility is primarily to shareholders. Another interesting theme in this thread is that Motorist holds on to this lot to spite the city, neighborhood or downtown and drag down property value. Qui bono? Corporations don’t act like people. If there was profit to be made, they would have. My guess is that no one has approached them about this property because demand isn’t there yet. Show me where a developer has expressed interest and been rebuffed, and I may subscribe to the notion that Motorist’s board is acting irrationally and against their own interests. Where is Gramarye when I need him? :)
As per Neighborhood Launch, they have sold 27 out of 47 units, 30% behind their own projections. They are going forward, and may well be positioned for an eventual economic recovery. But those kinds of numbers likely don’t have other developers salivating over new projects. Downtown condo sales peaked 3 years ago and have tumbled 50% the past two years. Median sale prices have also dropped from a peak of $299,543 in 2006 to $263,491 as of last August.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2009/03/16/ZONE0316.ART_ART_03-16-09_C12_KPD7BB0.html?type=rss&cat=&sid=101&title=Developer+doesn‘t+shy+away+from+putting+up+more+condos%2C+townhomes
That’s why I suggested single family homes. It’s a virtually untapped market – no one else is building them downtown, and lots of people are interested in living downtown but not in a condo. Someone should try it. I’m not saying Motorist should do it if it’s not in their interest, but that parkside real estate would be an excellent place for new homes.
UncommonSense Says: Another interesting theme in this thread is that Motorist holds on to this lot to spite the city, neighborhood or downtown and drag down property value.
I don’t find that interesting at all, nor do I think the person who said it has any idea what they’re talking about.