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The Dispatch wrote
CONDOS, APARTMENTS NEAR DOWNTOWN
Housing planned on industrial site
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
BY ROBERT VITALE
Coming soon to a slumping housing market near you: 500 more condos and apartments that developers say can buck the trends.
Columbus City Council members gave their approval last night for an agreement with Wagenbrenner Development to clean and revive 17 acres in Weinland Park that once was home to the Columbus Coated Fabrics plant.
Time is on the project’s side, too. Downtown condo sales have dipped over the past year, and one building even auctioned unsold units. But the need for two years of cleanup and other preliminary work at the Columbus Coated site allows time for a housing rebound.
Wagenbrenner said the bigger condos in his company’s project will go for about $160,000.
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I wasn’t exactly sure where this was, although I had a good idea so I did some googling.
This guy has some cool photos of the site off of 5th ave. Lots of homeless living in there.
Looks like all it needs is a quick slap of new paint. Where do I drop off my deposit?
Sweet. 500 more condos… a plan just in time to meet up with the overwhelming demand.
I can’t imagine that Jeffrey place is too thrilled about this- very proximate (under a mile) and the prices undercut them substantially if I recall correctly.
Read that… I don’t think two years will make a difference in the realistic demand for condos. Just my opinion…
Hell, it is a better use for this land than the craphole industrial site that is there now. ‘More condos’ seems like a pretty unimaginative knee-jerk to me, now or 730 days from now.
So Columbus adds 12,000 jobs/yr and we don’t have the demand for 500 condos two years down the road? I know that’s not the only thing that balances the housing market, but I think we’re in pretty decent shape right now.
I also don’t get how condos are unimaginative. Would you rather build a skatepark?
I can’t imagine why anyone would care what Jeffrey Place thinks about this…
a skatepark/condo complex would be pretty bitchin’, actually! or at least “imaginative”
I also don’t get how condos are unimaginative. Would you rather build a skatepark?
That would be an awesome spot for 1st floor retail that embraces the organic nature of what is popping up there already- thirdhand bike co-op, sporeprint info co-op, freegeek (though they are moving I think), bristol, etc.
Maybe they have some mixed use plans, I don’t know. What goes in a hole on an industrial site? You clean it up and throw condos in- that does not require imagination. That’s what I mean… seems obvious to me.
Obvious != Imaginative.
If someone said they were putting in the world’s first 10 story amusement park or a snowflake museum I would think, “wow- that took some imagination.” (note: imagination may not be practical or reasonable).
Is there demand for people to live in “imaginative” places?
The population in Columbus has been steadily growing and is projected to continue, so more places to live are necessary.
As far as I’m concerned, Urban InFill projects are much better than growing outward.
I photographed Columbus Coated fabrics extensively over two years and just want to add that it is/was the most interesting thing to see the way nature evolves and reclaims abandoned buildings in the absence of humans.
Regarding “obvious != imaginative”:
Yes, but sometimes the obvious answer is obvious because it’s obviously correct. Taking all the factors into account, including the time one could spend dithering waiting for a “perfect” developer to come along, I don’t think we’d have done much better than this. Five hundred new builds at affordable price points that might well be able to be a diagonally opposite anchor to the Gateway and revitalize Weinland Park? I’ll take it.
I see what you are saying and I agree, but I think Columbus is trying to push new retail/small business to the already open space on high street. That development is only 2 blocks from Short North and with Columbus trying to define that as the premiere spot to shop/play I don’t think it would make sense for a street 2 blocks away to have the same stuff as of this time. But I will say in the future it could work with more population density (which is what I suspect is the overall goal).
Is there demand for people to live in “imaginative” places?
The population in Columbus has been steadily growing and is projected to continue, so more places to live are necessary.
As far as I’m concerned, Urban InFill projects are much better than growing outward.
I agree that urban infill is preferable to increased suburbanization and exurbanization.
Do people demand imagination in living spaces? I don’t know. I’m no expert. I do know that we don’t have a whole lot of draw that a place like San Francisco has in the form of mass transit, geographically rich features (oceans, mountains), etc. – so building compelling (imaginative) places to live might help make Columbus an attractive place to consider living/staying.
Do I know what the answer to what an imaginative twist on condo development is here exactly? No. Do I know I can throw a rock and hit an empty condo anywhere in Columbus? Probably… (then I run, because I probably just broke a window)
Has anyone thought about an urban infill ordinance? Cities like Portland, Oregon have done this, and it has worked sucessfully. Basically, they restrict people from building on new land and incentivize building on already developed land. Goes a long way to curb sprawl and preserve green space. Also, drives up the value of urban real estate. Might be worth looking at, especially with a streetcar in the works.
I’m with Mike 100% on this. This is my exact bitch with the new Lifestyle development downtown. Innovation and imagination seem to be completely absent from Columbus development as a whole.
Your post reminds me of a show I saw on Discovery about life after humans or whatever and how nature takes over. Pretty cool stuff!
I hope the future residents like the sound of trains and the smell of Rumpke transfer station on the eastern side of the tracks….
Much like Jeffrey Place, I have some serious concerns about the level and effectiveness of the clean up. CCF and Jeffrey Mining were always in the top 10 for pollution. I watched the Jeffrey clean up every day for years, it consisted primarily of parking equipment on the site and every once in a while pushing a pile of stuff around with a bulldozer. Old timers described the massive pits at the Jeffrey site that were loaded with all sorts of industrial wastes. CCF was really bad for years, a pungent chemical smell from the coating process, it was like a solvent or paint thinner and could give you a dozzy of a headache…if you want to experience it first hand head over to the 2 paint factors in Weinland park, on a day when they release the fumes and it will literally make you cry!
Where in Weiland Park are their paint factories at now? Most anything west of the RR tracks is abandoned.
The clean-up necesary to convert industrial land into residential is extensive. Wagenbrenner had to replace a lot of dirt to do Harrison Park, and I assume that will be necesary at this site. With the state kicking in $3 million to clean-up the site, and Columbus putting in streets and utilities, it should be pretty easy to build some affordble places. Also, Weiland Park is seeing huge foreclosure problems, and I am sure Wagenbrenner can scope up some more cheap land.
If you look at some of the most desirable places in the inner city to live, they’re all historic neighborhoods. What could be less imaginative than moving into a building that hasn’t really changed in 100+ years?
That being said, I’m all about unique/imaginative developments. But I don’t think they all need to be like that. Especially if the point is to keep things affordable. Extra bells and whistles cost extra money.
I think you should blame the architects for that.