By JAMIE DUFFY
Published: August 7, 2012
The New York Times Article Is Here
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The transformation of the Short North — a 14-block artsy strip here — from scruffy to chic began in the 1980s. And the scrappy neighborhood, which connects downtown Columbus to the sprawling campus of Ohio State University, has defied the recent economic downturn by continuing that evolution with a string of new developments.
Pizzuti/Arquitectonica
The Joseph, a boutique hotel planned for Columbus, Ohio, is shown in an architect’s rendering.
Pizzuti/Arquitectonica
A gallery housing some of the Pizzuti collection is planned for this space, a century-old limestone building in the Short North.
Developers just broke ground on the city’s first full-service boutique hotel, the Joseph, at the south end of the Short North. The hotel is part of a $59 million multi-building project. Several residential developments are also under way and city officials have committed public funds to consider ways to improve the infrastructure in the area.
Supporters of the Short North describe it as a place where bohemians, lower-income city dwellers and better-off suburban residents come to mix and to find an eclectic groove that can be found nowhere else in Ohio. “It is now, frankly, the premier arts district in the nation,” said Mayor Michael B. Coleman of Columbus.
But it wasn’t always so. In the 1980s, the Short North, so named by the Columbus police for dispatch calls that fell short of being in the northern part of the city, was the “kind of place where you locked your door and hit the gas pedal,” said John Angelo, executive director of the Short North Alliance, a group of business and property owners.
Filled with great red brick commercial stock and side streets lined with grand old houses, the area eventually started to draw artists and gay people. Historic preservation commissions were formed to protect Victorian Village to the west of High Street, the principal road, and Italian Village to the east side.
The Joseph, the boutique hotel, will bring a different aesthetic to the Short North. Designed by the Miami-based architectural firm Arquitectonica, the 11-story modernist high-rise will feature 135 rooms, an in-house restaurant and spa services. The Joseph, a Le Meridien hotel, will also serve as a place to show pieces from the world-class modern art collection of the Columbus-based developer Ron Pizzuti, 72.
The Pizzuti Companies is developing the hotel as part of its million project on the two sides of High Street.
Across the street, the company plans the Offices at the Joseph, a 55,000-square-foot, six-story cubist-inspired office building, along with a 313-space five-story parking lot and an adjacent art gallery in a vacant century-old limestone building that will house more of the Pizzuti collection.
Named after Mr. Pizzuti’s father, Joseph, an immigrant from Calabria, Italy, the entire project will be managed by his son, Joel Pizzuti, 40, and it is one of a half-dozen real estate developments in the works in the Short North, City officials last year approved a $500,000 engineering study to review future improvements, including buried utility lines, better pedestrian-level street lighting and sidewalk bump-outs for alfresco dining.
The seeds for the Short North’s transformation were planted in the late 1970s, when pioneers like Sanborn Wood, a banker turned developer, started rehabbing homes and businesses, dodging the seedier side of life. Today, Mr. Wood, 74, has turned over the Wood Companies to his son, Mark, who is overseeing a four-story apartment building projecting over the strip’s popular Northstar Café.
The Short North’s renaissance began in earnest in 1986 with the opening of the now renowned Rigsby’s Kitchen in one of Mr. Wood’s first acquisitions on High Street. The restaurant drew followers of the chef Kent Rigsby from throughout Central Ohio. Around the same time, art galleries started to appear. The Gallery Hop on the first Saturday of every month began 27 years ago and now attracts 10,000 to 20,000 people each month. The perennial and defiantly countercultural DooDah Parade on July 4 also was born in the late 1980s.
“The Short North,” said Mr. Angelo of the Short North Alliance, “gives Columbus swagger.”
Losing that quirky, artistic edge would be bad for business, so design is closely monitored by historic preservation commissions and the alliance. Even with a proposal for a premier art gallery, the Pizzutis spent four years getting approval for their contemporary project.
Following the cues of the more traditional red brick design is the Hubbard on High, a $27 million, mixed-use project jointly developed by two local development companies, Elford and Wagenbrenner. The Hubbard will have 72 apartments above 17,000 square feet of retail space, a 322-space parking garage and a designated outdoor event space with a bar and fountain.
WesBanco, a regional bank out of Wheeling, W.Va., is financing most of the project while the garage will be built with tax incremental funds, said Jeff Meacham, a partner with Elford Development.
Farther north on High Street, Elford has also teamed up with a building owner, Michael James, on the Fireproof Project, another mixed-use project with 58 apartments, 14,500 square feet of ground floor retail space and 87 parking spaces. The 100-year-old existing red brick building had been the Fireproof Company’s headquarters for storing documents, Mr. Meacham said.
The only condominium development among the recent projects, the Jackson on High, offers a fitness center and a year-round rooftop pool for the owners of the 44 units, designed with cool, modern interiors, floor-to-ceiling glass windows and upscale kitchens.
Mr. Coleman said the creation of a special improvement district 12 years ago, a joint venture of the City Council and the neighborhood, bolstered development and has provided the city with a template for four other similar districts. Assessments for 80 commercial property owners and nearly 600 condo owners bring in $380,000 annually to the Short North.
These funds helped pay for the purchase and installation of 17 lighted arches across High Street, modern recreations of arches erected in 1888 to commemorate the centennial of the Northwest Territory as well as a gathering of Civil War veterans. The city has invested about $16 million in the Short North since 1982 when it was declared the first Neighborhood Commercial Revitalization District, more than half of that since the special improvement district’s creation, said William Webster, the city’s deputy director for jobs and economic development.
“The arches that are down there,” said Mr. Meacham, “really help unify that whole stretch of High Street.”
Developers point to a new Kroger grocery store that opened a year ago at the north end of High Street as a sign of the area’s growth. The 60,000-square-foot marketplace-style store, which hosts wine tastings, was built right up to the sidewalk, replacing a 30-year-old model that had been set back behind a sea of parking.
“That was an amenity that was really missing,” said Ricky Day, a neighborhood developer who appeared on the scene in the early 1990s and helped canvass the area to promote the special improvement district.
These days, he talks about the vibrant entrepreneurial creativity that seems to characterize the new businesses moving in. Next to Kroger’s, he has a project with seven loft-style apartments with retail space downstairs.
“I’ve got people who are moving in with an on-premises brewing place, a boutique vodka distiller distributing on the Internet, a great little restaurant going in, and someone making mead and they’re making it into a real business,” said Mr. Day.
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