New proposals for two prominent sites on High Street will be presented to the University Impact District Review Board this week.
At the corner of High and North Street, a new owner of the long-vacant site that once held Patrick J’s bar and a White Castle restaurant wants to build a six-story building on the property. A previous plan for the site, from Borror Properties, called for a three-story, 56-unit apartment building with first floor retail. That plan was approved in 2018 but never built, and the site was later put up for sale.
A company called Stark Capital Ventures LLC, which is connected to the Columbus-based hotel and retail specialist Sintel Properties, bought the parcel in March for $1.95 million, according to Franklin County Auditor records. The new plan calls for an 80-unit building featuring five floors of apartments over first-floor commercial and amenity space. A parking lot with room for about 70 cars would sit behind the building and to its north, in the Clintonville portion of the site (the southern portion sits in Old North Columbus).
A culvert runs underneath the site, channeling water from Glen Echo Creek under High Street and on to the Olentangy River. An easement means that no buildings can be constructed on top of that culvert, which also marks the border between the University District and Clintonville.
Materials submitted to the city in advance of the meeting show the building’s footprint but no design details, and no renderings were included.
Also back before the board this month is another iteration of a plan to redevelop the northeast corner of High Street and Lane Avenue, although the new proposal is almost identical to one that was presented to the board last fall.
It calls for demolishing all five existing buildings on the site – a one-story CVS pharmacy, two matching brick apartment buildings that face each other across a central courtyard, and two residential buildings on Norwich Avenue – and replacing them with a six-story, 165-unit building with first floor retail and a 334-space parking garage.
Both the city’s Planning Division and members of the board said last year that they would prefer that at least a portion of the historic buildings on the site be preserved, and that in exchange, a taller building could be allowed on the Lane Avenue end of the site.
The applicant, Georgia-based Landmark Properties, came back in December with a plan that preserved a portion of the two courtyard buildings (known as Alhambra Court) and called for a 12-story building at the corner of Lane and High. Then in February they returned with an altered proposal that called for a 17-story building at the corner, although that design was not well-received by the board.
Both of the High Street proposals are listed on the agenda as conceptual reviews, meaning no vote will be taken.
The University Impact District Review Board is scheduled to meet at 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 26. For more information, see see www.columbus.gov.