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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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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.
Sorry I meant Windsor Terrace… 11 & Cleveland, 5th and Joyce
I think you should blame the architects for that.
I do.
However, in defense of architects, they are usually only responsible for the design of the actual building. The developer almost always dictates what gets put into the project. I think the building at Fourth and Gay were well designed (the architect), just wrong for that location (the developer). Many times, the developer even dictates the look of the buildings and the architect is merely their bitch.
Hard to say how “innovative” the design of this will be until its concept drawings are up. There are practical limitations for putting other uses on that site, for one the site doesn’t have much major road frontage (except for a small sliver on 5th). So retail, which requires some visibility, would be difficult. I think these will sell quickly (relatively speaking), given their location.
I know the designs of some projects are not as jaw dropping as some would like, but I’m very happy just to see the investment/capital flowing back into these areas (its a start at least).
I’m growing more skeptical of how cutting edge architecture and innovative design ages and impacts these communities. Remember, it was cutting edge/innovative thought in design and planning which motivated us to bulldoze many of our historic neighborhoods and downtowns in the 50′s and 60′s.
As the IACTH, how about we have local artists come up with the designs for the new condos on this space? It could be an unusual and compelling attraction, what with the people living there having tourists walking around gawking at all the unique architecture. A reason to visit Weinland Park (or is it actually in Milo-Grogan?), how about that?
i watched that building burn for the 3rd time 2 years ago. what will be interesting is to see if there going to utilize any of the exisiting buildings.
one thing this town lacks alot of is interesting and creative new buildings.
an architect can present his heart attack presentation of a project, but that rarely gets built. creative projects are expensive to do based on the amount of custom items that are needed, like windows and custom made steel. stuff is not cheap. wagenbrenner to my knowledge hasnt really dove off the deep end in the design catogory either.
The entire building complex is down to the ground so there is nothing left to utilize. The City has opened up Grant Ave for the first time in about 3 years. There was always risk of the building collapsing into the street. Take a drive up Grant and you can see how much land(on both sides) that there is to re-develop.
Maybe they have some mixed use plans, I don’t know.
Check out the Weinland Park Development Plan if you haven’t already:
http://assets.columbus.gov/development/planning/WeinlandParkPlan.pdf
Much broader in scope than just this one development by Wagenbrenner, and includes residential, commercial, and public space in the plans for the entire neighborhood.
wow!! i havnt been over there in awhile.
maybe this project could jump start the timken lots again.
Maybe they have some mixed use plans, I don’t know.
Check out the Weinland Park Development Plan if you haven’t already:
http://assets.columbus.gov/development/planning/WeinlandParkPlan.pdf
Much broader in scope than just this one development by Wagenbrenner, and includes residential, commercial, and public space in the plans for the entire neighborhood.
Looks fantastic…and imaginative!!! 8)
Should also make a nice Transit Oriented Development when the North Corridor Light Rail gets built.
While Columbus Coated Fabrics has been demolished it is not all gone. About half of the place was underground and a lot of it has just been covered over for some reason. I remember one room that had hundreds of these old steel wheeled carts similar to the horse and buggy days that had clearly not been in use since the early 1900′s. Just when you thought you’d explored every nook and cranny you found a new doorway and whole new underground world. I went back and looked after the demo crews left and as far as I could tell most of the underground parts are still there. Many of the base shells of the buildings are still intact as well. I’m gonna miss the place but I empathize with why it must go.
Maybe they have some mixed use plans, I don’t know.
Check out the Weinland Park Development Plan if you haven’t already:
http://assets.columbus.gov/development/planning/WeinlandParkPlan.pdf
Much broader in scope than just this one development by Wagenbrenner, and includes residential, commercial, and public space in the plans for the entire neighborhood.
Area plans are not binding in any way and, as a rule, seem to be ignored by both developers and the City of Columbus. I don’t know why they keep funding them.
Area plans are not binding in any way and, as a rule, seem to be ignored by both developers and the City of Columbus. I don’t know why they keep funding them.
yeah, if you look at the franklinton overlay/plan its pretty broad and lots of room for interpretation. just in the last 10 months more private development has sprung up in the area that obviously was not covered in the plan. alot of the renderings used are from design competitions held by the city. but they are a great start and a good vision for the neighborhoods.
hey what ever happened to that loft project in the old factory down in the bottoms? Last I remember the city threatened to knock it down.
not get off topic but real quick. its still here, its in the midst of its phase 2 enviro study. so far the test wells arnt turning up anything[thank god]. its to be completed in may and well the waiting game begins. we’ll see what lance wants to do next. below is a site that has all of his projects listed on it. alot of info is not available yet, i think its because he wants to be exclusive about the properties that he working with for develpment reasons, ie people coming in and buying up homes and land ect.
http://www.urbansmartgrowth.net/
well put. i’d like to see more modern design, something that will make me look twice……and then wreck my car.
Do you have a preferred alternative to fix this problem? What do other cities do?
I’ve always assumed that the neighborhood plans give developers the jumpstart on research for what the neighborhood needs and wants to see developed. Of course the developers don’t have to adhere to the plans, but it gives them a good idea of what would be most widely accepted.
Do you have a preferred alternative to fix this problem? What do other cities do?
I’ve always assumed that the neighborhood plans give developers the jumpstart on research for what the neighborhood needs and wants to see developed. Of course the developers don’t have to adhere to the plans, but it gives them a good idea of what would be most widely accepted.
I agree that the plans are valuable, but I wouldn’t mind seeing them given a little more teeth. Alternatively, I would just require all new developments over a certain size to be LEED-ND certified. No zoning, just LEED-ND.
Do you have a preferred alternative to fix this problem? What do other cities do?
I’ve always assumed that the neighborhood plans give developers the jumpstart on research for what the neighborhood needs and wants to see developed. Of course the developers don’t have to adhere to the plans, but it gives them a good idea of what would be most widely accepted.
I think as a sort of broad brushstroke solution, the City should empower the various arms of the Department of Development with real teeth. We’ve talked about it in other threads but the Historic Preservation office has no real enforcement ability. The Building Department has no way at all to not approve a demolition permit.
If a developer was interested in doing what was best for and what the neighborhood wanted, an area plan would be a great jumpstart for that. But developers aren’t interested in that, they’re interested in making as much money with the least effort.
Let’s use the Lifestyle development as an example. I think it’s generally agreed upon that commercial/retail space on the first floor is great for downtown. Especially a block away from a beautiful new park with a huge fountain with no shops or restaurants nearby. But try to convince Lifestyles that is the way to go. They don’t do commercial spaces so that wouldn’t be something they could knock out quickly and cheaply. No amount of telling them that it’s best for the neighborhood, and in the long term, for the health of their project is going to change that. They can’t make money off of it and aren’t going to do it. So how do you solve this? Have the zoning code mandate a certain percentage of the square footage to be commercial space. But is the City going to push this? They are pushing this project, and a parking garage on the next block, as being the keystone for revitalizing this part of downtown. They aren’t going to do anything that might stop someone from building something. As long as they get to 10,000 downtown residents.
Do you have a preferred alternative to fix this problem? What do other cities do?
I’ve always assumed that the neighborhood plans give developers the jumpstart on research for what the neighborhood needs and wants to see developed. Of course the developers don’t have to adhere to the plans, but it gives them a good idea of what would be most widely accepted.
I think as a sort of broad brushstroke solution, the City should empower the various arms of the Department of Development with real teeth. We’ve talked about it in other threads but the Historic Preservation office has no real enforcement ability. The Building Department has no way at all to not approve a demolition permit.
If you gave them all those teeth, I think you’d just send a lot of developers right back to the suburbs where they’re more comfortable anyway. Columbus is a big market but not one with the power of capture.
Personally, I think the Dept. of Development has just about the right amount of teeth and the various local area commissions have too many. Witness how hard some fight to reduce density, e.g., by lopping floors off proposed projects in high-demand areas where there are real opportunities to bring large numbers of people downtown.