RSS
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
cab124 was the first I know of to catch wind of this. It appears to be far enough along to make it official. Apparently Tom Fortin of the Grandview Fortin Ironworks family and Carlyle’s Watch is behind the new ventures in the Gay St. building:
C Magazine wrote
[Fortin's] newest venture at 51 Gay Street, a once vacant photo store, will soon house the second location of the popular Short North ZenCha Tea Salon and Fortin also hopes to attract other social businesses to the location, such as dance, yoga and Pilates instructors.
“One of the issues facing our downtown is the fact that we suffer now from affordability and connectivity as it’s actually about 40% higher … to live downtown versus suburban locations,” he says. “To help attract and retain people to live downtown, we really have to market and accentuate lifestyle amenities. As I build and redevelop properties into residential or retail spaces, I keep that in mind.”
In that same spirit, during City Hop on June 14th, Fortin held a fundraising event at Carlyle’s Watch featuring local artists and photographers. All proceeds benefited the Columbus Symphony.
I walked by today and there were signs of work being done in that space. Does anyone know if ZenCha plans to create a copy of the Short North location or do something different with the new space? Gay St. is really being cemented as the core of the downtown redevelopment.
I couldn’t disagree more.
The conversion of Gay St. to two-way was the best $4 million we have spent in a long time. The street is now MUCH more pedestrian, bicycle and scooter friendly. The medians have helped to slow down traffic enough that bicycles are now able to flow in with the cars. The landscaping in the medians looks great and gives the street a much more inviting appeal. Also, as someone who lives one block off of Gay St., it has definitely been great to be able to travel in both directions when leaving/arriving home.
If you are having trouble crossing streets that have two-way traffic, you might want to move to someplace a little less urban. :wink:
Just for fun (streets are clickable):
View Larger Map
Red=Street for Cars
Green=Street for People
Blue=Street for People converted from a street for cars
We’ve got a long way to go before much of Downtown resembles Gay St. I wish that was a higher priority than it is now, especially if we really want a vibrant downtown.
How are you distinguishing between streets for people and streets for cars?
Seems to me that if it has pavement then cars can use it and if it has sidewalks then pedestrians can use it.
it seems to me he is saying simply that any street with a speed limit of more than 25 mph is not a “street for people” even though a lot of those up in red on the map have perfectly fine sidewalks and are great for pedestrians. i think columbusite is just biased against anybody driving over 25 mph
…all that development began long before Gay became two way.
I believe ZenCha is a post-two-way development. ;)
And everything else that opens up on Gay Street pretty much from here on out will be post-two-way development too.
Yes, they have great sidewalks, most of which get very little use. A street for people will have people there, ie Gay St. because it is feels (and is) safer and interesting. The physical form of these streets influenced the development we’ve seen which is a sea of parking. Many of our major streets are no more than traffic sewers. Their main purpose is to get drivers in and out of Downtown as quickly as possible.
Having some of these wouldn’t be so bad if we had a network of just half of the streets included given over to the Gay St model. Instead, the vast majority of the streets, and therefore Downtown, is given to the car and it shows. So many of these streets offer so little to people, but not cars, they get an abundance of parking lots and garages along with auto-body shops, gas stations, tire shops and even a couple of drive thrus. All that whereas there is only one completely intact block for pedestrians to stroll along: Gay St (the south side, the ne corner has a parking lot). As for speed limits, why in the world would you need to go 35 MPH (EM vehicles aside) in the urban core? Everything is closer together, unlike the burbs, rendering high speeds from point A to B pointless.
In any case, isn’t the whole point of the city pushing for condos to be built Downtown to make it a residential neighborhood once again? And doesn’t it make sense that the streets should reflect that fact in order to attract such development in the first place?
I, for one, am pretty excited about the continuous development of the Gay St. area. Hubs like that always excite me no matter the city. I’m especially happy to see the growth of ZenCha, as well.
…all that development began long before Gay became two way.
I believe ZenCha is a post-two-way development. ;)
And everything else that opens up on Gay Street pretty much from here on out will be post-two-way development too.
Including those dorms for 200 CCAD students. It’s great to see a crane in this city. I really think with the increasing number of quality businesses that have been opening up on Gay, including ZenCha, that we can hope to see that empty stretch of retail spaces on the west side get filled in sooner. Gay St already meets the ped-friendly requirements of; compelling destinations (increasing all the time), safety, defined space, and being interesting, according to city-planners.
For one, I have lived in several large cities in urban environments all my life and currently live in downtown Cbus now. But since when is the point of a downtown to resemble a suburban neighborhood?
You don’t see NYC, downtown Boston, DC (or any large city) trying to make the streets more suburban.
“Two Way” and “Suburban” are two very different things.
Two way is hot.
Suburban is not.
I can’t wait for this to open….I have a hankering for a bubble tea right now for an afternoon pick me up.
Sure seems like this project has stalled.
Maybe they were meditating so long that they forgot about it.
They shouldn’t have changed their menu. Bring back the teriyaki rice bowl!
Should we picket???
Is it still happening? I noticed a new for lease sign in the building this week. :(
:?
Not sure if Zen Cha is still in the works or not… but there’s some new signage in the window advertising Lofts for Lease: