COLUMBUS, Ohio — A big change could be coming to South 4th Street near East Rich Street. A developer wants to build two buildings in the area. One building would be 23 stories including 290 residential units and 347 parking spaces. The other building would be commercial space.
On Tuesday at a downtown commission meeting, the developer shared its plan to demolish nine current buildings in the space. But the commission said they can’t do that because they need to protect three historical buildings in the area. Right now, several businesses sit along that block including 16-Bit Bar+Arcade, Dirty Frank’s Hot Dog Palace, El Camino Inn, and the old Red Velvet Café.
That strip of business is very popular among people downtown. People 10TV spoke with said they love to walk around this neighborhood.
“We live on the northside and it’s nice to come downtown and have a guaranteed place to come every time. It’s fun, close to the commons,” said KD Krann, a Columbus resident.
KD and Clayton Krann said Dirty Frank’s is one of their favorite restaurants downtown, and they don’t want to see it move.
“It’s kind of a bummer. We have been going to Dirty Frank’s since it opened here in 2009 and I don’t want to see it go anywhere. It’s cool to see the restaurants exist here and not have a high rise,” said Clayton.
The plan was to demolish the nine buildings currently in the space, but now the developers will have to incorporate the three historical buildings. At the downtown commission meeting on Tuesday morning, people shared their concerns about potentially demolishing the three historical buildings.
“These businesses have been an anchor for the neighborhood. To have a proposal before you like this that tears down historic buildings and those buildings have thriving businesses in them is right now, simply put, not forward-thinking,” said Tom Vetty, who lives across the street from the potential development.
Now, the developers will go back to the drawing board of the design to incorporate the historic buildings into the plans.
“I want to emphasize that whatever we do, we want to build up the neighborhood, the community, and downtown,” said one of the developers in the meeting.
Nothing is official with the design of the potential two new buildings. The developer will submit more design changes to the downtown commission in the future.