Wagenbrenner lands $3M grant for Kimball project off Goodale St.

clipped from columbus.bizjournals.com A Columbus real estate developer has landed a $3 million state grant to assist in the redevelopment of the former Kimball Midwest Inc. property off Goodale St. into an 110-unit apartment complex. The Ohio Department of Development’s Clean Ohio Council on Thursday approved the grant Wagenbrenner Development Inc. and the city of Columbus applied for to assist in the partial demolition and an environmental cleanup of the 4.2-acre property at 582 W. Goodale St. The grant was one of 10 Clean Ohio Revitalization Fund grants approved totaling $23 million. Wagenbrenner Development President Mark Wagenbrenner said the $11 million project calls for turning the lower level of the former distribution and fulfillment center into parking. The second and third floors of the 80,000-square-foot building would get converted into loft apartments with the possibility of building two more floors atop the structure.

“The idea is to convert the building into apartments,” Wagenbrenner said. “It’s a stout, stout building.”

Four new buildings are planned for the complex as well.

“The plans are subject to change,” he said. “We’ll react to what we find in the field.”

According to a state news release, the property has a more than 120-year history as an industrial and commercial operation, including use as a metal foundry in the late 1800s.

“With its location between the Arena District and Grandview Yard, it’s time has come,” Wagenbrenner said.

The Columbus developer has the Goodale site in contract with JDS Goodale LLC, an affiliate of Columbus developer J. Daniel Schmidt. Schmidt had paid $1.4 million for the site in March 2006 in hopes of building up to 250 residential units.

Wagenbrenner said the redevelopment project includes running the city’s pedestrian path and bikeway network through the south side of the lower floor since the building sits so close to Goodale.

“There’s just no right of way there” for a bike path, Wagenbrenner said.

Wagenbrenner has emerged as a leading redeveloper of brownfield sites in Ohio, whether former industrial properties or, in one case, a former city landfill, in the first seven rounds of Clean Ohio funding. It has built more than 200 townhouse condominiums and apartments on the former A.C. Humko site in the Short North’s Harrison West neighborhood. It also received funding to clean up the former Columbus Coated Fabrics Corp. site on West Fifth Avenue at Grant Avenue in hopes to build 700 residential units on that Weinland Park site. The company also served as co-developer with Daimler Group Inc. on three office buildings on the former Gowdy Field landfill along Olentangy River Road just north of Goodale.

Wagenbrenner still has plans to redevelop the former Johnston Metal Industries finishing operations that parent 3M Co. owned at 1206 N. Fourth St. at West Fifth Avenue not far from the Columbus Coated Fabrics site. It withdrew an application for a $3 million Clean Ohio grant in the last round of funding after the Ohio EPA determined the site could have even more industrial contamination than previous testing had found.