UPDATE (10/27): The article below was published on Monday, October 24. On Tuesday afternoon, the applicant informed the city that they would be pulling the application from the October agenda, so the proposal outlined in the article will not be heard by the review board at this month’s meeting, although it could be re-submitted to be reviewed at a future meeting.
Landmark Properties will be back before the University Impact District Review Board this week with another iteration of its proposal to redevelop the northeast corner of High Street and Lane Avenue.
The new design calls for an 11-story building with 173 apartments (containing a total of 574 beds), and a 259-space parking garage. That’s down from the previous proposal for the corner, which called for a 15-story building with 215 apartments and a 287-space garage.
The project has been before the review board multiple times since last fall, and board members have provided feedback on several different design iterations. After initially proposing to demolish five existing buildings on the site and replace them with a single, six-story building, the Georgia-based developer came back with two different proposals which would have preserved a portion of the Alhambra Court buildings (two brick row houses that face each other across a shared courtyard). The second of those two proposals called for a 17-story building, and was not well-received by the board.
The latest proposal would require the demolition of four existing buildings – a one-story CVS pharmacy, the Alhambra Court buildings, and a row house on Norwich Avenue – because a single family house at the corner of Norwich and Pearl Street that had been a part of the project’s footprint is now not included. The two-story brick building at the corner of High and Norwich has never been a part of the project.
The development steps down in height from 11 stories at Lane to two stories at Norwich.
Renderings submitted to the city in advance of Thursday’s meeting show a mix of exterior materials – including brick, cast stone, metal panels and precast concrete panels – and include a more detailed view of the plaza area proposed for the northern end of the site. Also, now shown within the patio space is the CoGo bike rack and station which are currently located on the sidewalk along High Street, just north of Lane.
For more information on the University Impact Review Board, see columbus.gov. All renderings by BBCO Design.
