Hotel planned in Short North moves across High Street and grows

clipped from columbus.bizjournals.com Plans for a hotel and parking garage complex in Columbus’ Short North have expanded across High Street. Pizzuti Cos. expects to show its revised plans Jan. 19 to the Italian Village Commission calling for a boutique hotel of up to 130 rooms on a city-owned parking lot a block north of the Cap at Union Station. The Columbus-based developer initially proposed building the hotel and related development on the west side of High Street, on the site of the former United Commercial Travelers of America building at 632 N. Park St. and an adjacent surface parking lot. That site remains part of Pizzuti’s plan and would get a parking garage with up to 46,000 square feet of offices above it in the revised proposal. Developments on both sides of the street would offer ground-floor space for retailers and restaurants. “We want to create a dynamic front door to the Short North,” said Joel Pizzuti, the company’s president. “It’s a wonderful project for the city and for the Short North.”

High hopes

Redevelopment of the United Commercial Travelers property has languished since Dublin developer Patrick Grabill proposed a condominium tower and parking for the site in April 2007. Pizzuti Cos. took over the contract to purchase the property and in February 2008 unveiled plans for a 160-room hotel. It later reduced the hotel rooms to 130 but added 60,000 square feet to the complex for offices.

It also said it would fill the front portion of the United Commercial Travelers building with the acclaimed fine arts collection of company CEO Ron Pizzuti.

But the project stalled amid concerns by the Victorian Village Commission, which steers development on the west side of the Short North. At issue was the project’s 10-story height, nearly twice the 60-foot-high limit developers face in the Short North without needing a zoning variance.

Original plans also called for demolishing the back of the cross-shaped office complex, a sensitive issue in the historic neighborhood.

Pizzuti’s most recent plans call for a hotel as high as 15 stories in Italian Village on the east side of High Street, depending on the number of guest rooms. The Italian Village Commission approved a variance for the 11-story Ibiza condominium tower at 830 N. High St. That project, which includes a public parking garage, remains unbuilt while its developer tries to secure financing.

Rex Hagerling, a Moody Nolan Inc. architect who serves as Italian Village Commission chairman, said the hotel’s height will drive much of the debate over the proposal.

“There are a lot of questions,” he said, “so I’m sure there will be a lively discussion.”

Pizzuti said some details of the project will depend in part on how many guest rooms the Italian Village Commission approves for the hotel and what the Victorian Village Commission will OK for the office space and parking garage elements.

“All the numbers are going to change,” he said, “because it depends upon how much (development) the commissions approve.”

Columbus Development Director Boyce Safford III in a Dec. 21 letter to Pizzuti supported the developer’s plan to add a parking garage in the Short North.

“If this project does happen,” Pizzuti said, “it will be a private-public partnership and the city will have a big role.”

The city had hoped the Ibiza project, with a parking garage bolstered by city financing, would provide about 250 public spots several blocks north of Pizzuti’s proposed development.

Pizzuti Cos. has hired Smallwood Reynolds Stewart Stewart & Associates Inc. of Atlanta as the project’s design architect and Jonathan Barnes Architecture and Design Ltd. of Columbus as the urban planning consultant.

Pizzuti said the developer will present “massing studies” of the hotel project showing its relative size to surrounding buildings.

“It has yet to be determined what those buildings will look like,” Pizzuti said. “It will certainly fit into the neighborhood.”