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Will City Center’s Demise Spell Relief for Downtown Condo Sales?
February 4th, 2009 categories: About Me?, Columbus News, Condos & Lofts, Downtown
"In an urban setting, it's important to establish your street grid and establish your public spaces." - Georgetown Vice Chairman Edgar Lampert
Ding, Dong, the Mall is dead. So sang the Lollipop Guild Powers-That-Be from the Mayor’s Office to Capitol South Urban Redevelopment Corp. this afternoon. After years of full scale retail exodus, a not-too-hostile takeover by the City and an enormous amount of speculation, City Center isn’t getting a Target, a Grocery Store or becoming a Casino. City Center will be demolished to make room for a city park, Columbus Commons.
Eventually that park will see residential, office and retail around the edges as the market dictates.
I’m mixed on the news which has been all over the place today. It’s been a long time since the mall had any relevance to my life — probably not since Macy’s took off. Though not much of a shopper, I miss what City Center used to be and I miss what it stood for — bustling commerce in the core of the City. I want that back. In the red brick district, in the Gay Street corridor for sure but also all over downtown from the warehouse district to the Market Exchange District to the Arena District.
The uncertainty regarding the future of City Center was never good for Selling Condos in Downtown Columbus but it never really was too big a part of that equation. Its demise and subsequent greening with the carrot-on-a-stick called condos/retail/offices around it’s edges won’t be a difference maker for years to come in the sale of Downtown condos.
Just yesterday my wife and I were talking about how much it must cost to heat the mall and insure water isn’t intruding. We wondered why it wasn’t just shut and boarded. Was it simply to keep the walk-through open to the Ohio Theater from the underground parking?
This whole Urban Renewal thing is sooo slow. When the park exists, if it’s done nicely and the whole River South theme blends beautifully and effortlessly together with Columbus Commons, then it will make a difference. The end of indecision regarding the future of the site, however, can’t hurt.
related: Goodbye Macy’s, Hello . . . Macy’s to Pull out of Downtown Columbus’ City Center
Anonymous
February 5th, 2009
Joe, I think you hit the nail on the head. This solution is MUCH better thank keeping, and paying for heat, electric, etc. an empty building.
Although I think many people will miss the bustling center with thousands of people that shopping malls are by nature, we have to think about this being replaced with something better, more akin to the steady traffic in the Arena District or Short North, or now, also around places like Gay Street where restaurants are popping up supported by the residential nearby.
The focus should be getting people downtown; the retail follows rooftops as they say.