Columbus Landmarks is hoping that a historic building can be saved before it is demolished to make way for a new development.
The organization sent out an email to its membership late last week, offering to help facilitate a deal – the service station that has occupied a small section of North High Street near the corner of King Avenue for almost 100 years can be yours for free, provided you have a place to put it and a feasible plan to restore it.
It could be turned into a cafe, a bakery, or even a garage, the email said. The use is not as important as having “an appropriate available site and a creative vision for the adaptive reuse of an endangered building.”
Susan Keeney, Preservation Director, said that the group has fielded more than a dozen inquiries so far. Several of those she described as “quite serious.”
The developer of the site, Collegiate Development Group, has committed to paying for the relocation of the building to a “nearby site.” Keeney said that she is waiting to hear back from them for an estimate on the maximum distance the building could be moved.
Although it is not a simple or easy thing to do, there are plenty of examples of historic structures being moved in Columbus. The Union Station Arch was moved twice, for instance, and a handful of homes in the Circles were moved to a small courtyard off of West Fifth Avenue when Battelle was expanding its parking lot into the neighborhood in the 1970s.
Collegiate Development Group has been working on a plan to redevelop the corner of King and High for well over a year. The latest plan for the building, which was presented to the University Impact District Review Board in April, calls for seven-story, 174-unit building on the site.
More information on the historic building is available on the Columbus Landmarks Facebook page. If you think you have a site to move the building to, contact Susan Keeny at [email protected], or call the organization directly at 614-221-4508.
