Two 8-Story Buildings Proposed for Park Street

[Walker Evans]

Eridony wrote:

…my one big complaint is only a single retail space is included. That area is pretty hopping with bars and restaurants. It seems like that would really change the character of the street.

The current plan is to have the hotel amenities facing outward to Park Street, including the breakfast area, bar and and lounge:

[ohbr]

King Gambrinus wrote:

I know the real world isn’t Sim City and it comes down to who owns what. But I think it’d be a shame to tear down those buildings on Park St. That little strip definitely has its own identity and it’d be a shame to lose that. Especially when there’s so many empty and underutilized spots just west of Park Street.

Exactly. And as I said on the article, the owners of the empty lots are likely very content with the guaranteed income from those lots. Can you blame them? That much money as far as the eye can see? If they even have a price in mind, it’s probably very high. The number one priority to them is low investment, high return. They don’t even want to invest in a garage and sell off plots because that involves investment. It’s a similar situation with the garage across from AEP.

Edit: if we want to see these and other lots gone, then the city needs to develop a comprehensive plan to do that. Such a plan (based off of suggestions from the Minneapolis Surface Parking Lot Study) would include more rigorous standards for surface lots such as lighting, landscaping, paving, etc that can be strictly enforced. Make it costlier to own and maintain the property increasing the pressure to sell. At the same time incentivize owners to work with developers through tax abatements (ugh), gap funding, or getting more private developers to come to agreements where the original property owner continues to get their guaranteed income in return for allowing the vertical development of the property. The city could also implement an aggressive tax on commercial land. This would cause land owners to maximize value by going vertical. It took the land tax being 6 times the building tax in Pittsburgh for an impact to be seen and surface lot owners to sell.

[Pablo]

I like the view of the project from 670. The office will have nice views of Goodale Park.

[Walker Evans]

ohbr wrote:

Also, let’s get this out of the way now for those that will say it later: why can’t downtown attract development like this? Why are we seeing things that should be downtown everywhere but downtown?

Uh… this proposal is located Downtown. It’s south of I-670.

[ohbr]

Walker Evans wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>ohbr wrote:</div>
Also, let’s get this out of the way now for those that will say it later: why can’t downtown attract development like this? Why are we seeing things that should be downtown everywhere but downtown?

Uh… this proposal is located Downtown. It’s south of I-670.

I’m not saying it isn’t. I was just getting it out of the way for those who complain about it not being, let’s say, downtown enough. Aka within X Number of blocks of Broad and High.

[MichaelC]

While geographically this isn’t the area of greatest need in terms of spurring development, Park Street has to be tremendously appealing to companies and hoteliers alike–proximity to North Market, restaurants, nightlife, the freeway, etc.

And Park Street staying put as the back of North Market and the entrances to a number of cookie cutter bars was just not going got cut it. Is it too bad that some buildings may be demolished even though a block over there is just a sea of parking lots? Sure. But this is the kind of development that can have a ripple effect for several blocks, and this would dramatically improve Park St., bring more bodies into our downtown, and bring some refreshing architecture and a new hotel brand into our city limits all at the same time.

[King Gambrinus]

MichaelC wrote:

And Park Street staying put as the back of North Market and the entrances to a number of cookie cutter bars was just not going got cut it.

I disagree with the cookie cutter assessment. Those bars are in buildings that date back to the early twentieth century. If this was a block with a 1970’s strip mall I’d agree with you. It’s not even as if the buildings have been abandoned and have significantly deteriorated. These are historic contributing buildings that play a big role in the nightlife that makes that area unique and desirable. I think as a city with very little of our historic buildings left we can’t just demolish the remaining ones because someone threw out something shiny on a PowerPoint.

[heresthecasey]

These buildings aren’t, but I’d say almost the entire block immediately to the south (with the exception of Park St Tavern) are bland single-story cookie cutter bars. Gaswerks, Brothers, Cantina, and BBR could be bulldozed for a project like this tomorrow with no reservations IMO.

[WJT]

Walker Evans wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Eridony wrote:</div>
…my one big complaint is only a single retail space is included. That area is pretty hopping with bars and restaurants. It seems like that would really change the character of the street.

The current plan is to have the hotel amenities facing outward to Park Street, including the breakfast area, bar and and lounge:

It is good that the amenities will face the street like that. I like the proposal overall-I just wish they could save/incorporate the existing two and three story streetfront into the project.

[Jason Powell]

What is disturbing to me is that these developers purposely targeted historical structures and didn’t concentrate their efforts somewhere else nearby. I mean, they have been planning this for a while with the time it took to acquire each property. It kind of tells me that they just don’t care. What’s been a more disturbing trend to me is the cavalier attitude of many developers in this city to just throw something up with little regard for how the building fits in with the community, how it interacts with the street level, what it’s replacing and what it look like. (Looks like it belongs next to the courthouse)

I’m guessing many of these developers never took a city/urban planning course. I wouldn’t mind seeing more planners take up real estate development.

Reply

[MichaelC]

King Gambrinus wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>MichaelC wrote:</div>
And Park Street staying put as the back of North Market and the entrances to a number of cookie cutter bars was just not going got cut it.

I disagree with the cookie cutter assessment.

The buildings aren’t cookie cutter; the bars are cookie cutter.

[jbcmh81]

I do like the height for the area (I don’t complain about that every time!), but I agree that they should definitely try to incorporate the existing buildings into the design. They’re in good shape and they add a lot of character to the streetscape that would otherwise be lost. I don’t want everything to be new just to be new, and the city seems to lose more and more of this character every year.

That said, it’s pretty unlikely, imo, that there will be any significant pushback on the demolition of the buildings there now, if any whatsoever. While regard for the city’s history is not quite as bad as it was in the 1960s, the reality is that the powers that be, and developers, have shown very little thought to saving much of anything *unless* the developer in question proposes it first. If the proposal is kept as is, expect the city to roll out the red carpet for the wrecking ball just like I expect to eventually happen with the hotel project on Nationwide.

[Nancy H]

MichaelC wrote:

The buildings aren’t cookie cutter; the bars are cookie cutter.

LOL

And tenants change regularly, especially in the bar business.

King Gambrinus wrote:

These are historic contributing buildings that play a big role in the nightlife that makes that area unique and desirable. I think as a city with very little of our historic buildings left we can’t just demolish the remaining ones because someone threw out something shiny on a PowerPoint.

+1

Below is an outline of The North Market Historic District. The older buildings on Park St are within the boundaries, so they will be treated with the same considerations any old building would get if it were located in one of the other architectural review commissioned areas (GV, VV, IV, SN etc). That is why this proposal is going through the Historic Resources Commission prior to the review process with the Downtown Commission.

Sidenote: The buildings might be older than what I listed further back. I grabbed those dates from the Franklin County Auditor’s website. The FCA is not very accurate with buildings older than around 1910/1920. The best way to check age is to look at the Baist or Sanborn maps, which is time consuming (and I didn’t bother to do). So, consider them to be at least as old as the FCA states.

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[ehill27]

I concur with the concerns over losing some of these structures. Since that horse has been beat, my next concern is where all the Bros will go when Bro Street is wiped off the map?! Maybe we can find them a nice new street in F’ton.

[ehill27]

Oh, also… it wasn’t long ago (last year?) that the Woodlands folks bought the bulk of the Bro Street bars from the Corso’s. I suspect that cost them a pretty penny. I wonder if they are facing serious losses if this plan goes through.

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