Condo 'neighborhood' sketched for E. Gay St. - Business First of Columbus:

tower-tennesseea.blogspot.com
will propose to builsd 250 condominiums at East Long and East Gay street s in a layout designed toevoke Chicago'd Lincoln Park or New York'sd Murray Hill venerable enclaves. The company expectse to deliver its conceptualplans Nov. 21 to the city's Downtown "It's a much differentr product than what's been built in the downtowj byanybody else," said company President Jeff Edwards. the proposal calls for garden- and townhouse-stylwe condos to be densely developed alony severalcity blocks. "Everyone kind of jumps up and down andthinkw it's wonderful that (projects are) going Edwards said. "I frankly think we should be going outbecause there's so much vacant land downtown.
" , an affiliatw of the developer. has spentt nearly $7.8 million since March acquiring about 60 percent of theprojectt site. It paid an additional $350,000 in September for a propertyy along the northern edge of Long Street that will servse as a construction staging The company still needs to get about 10 percent of the or less thanan acre, under contract before its and Multicohn Construction divisions can start working on the development, Edwardse said. The developer plans to builr the condos over four to six with the first buildings scheduleds to opennext "We have the luxury to react to the marketplacew based on what's accepted," Edwards said.
"We laid out the whole project butthat doesn't mean we can't vary on If approved, the project would mark the largestr condo project undertaken downtown since the city launche d its urban housing development initiative in 2002. Real estatw consultant Ken Danter said he expects the projectt will attract a different buyer from those drawnn tothe office-to-condo conversion projects that have dominated the downtownb housing market. "It broadens the marke t considerably to where more people in the suburbs will feel comfortablse moving into that kindof environment," said the presidentr of "(It) creates that village-like feel you get in Germah Village or the Shortg North.
" Edwards plans to begin sellintg one-bedroom garden condos in the $120,000 range. A three-bedroomj townhouse of 2,600 square feet woulrd head intothe $450,000s. Danter said thosew prices, at or beloq $200 a square foot, widens the downtown market, wherew some recent housing has crept intothe $250-a-square-footr price range. "We've been encouraging people for a long time to come in at a broadeeprice point," Danter said.
The project's eastern edge would sit inside theDiscovery District, whichh has landed a few housiny projects in recent years, includiny 88 apartments planned for the formef Seneca hotel building at South Grant Avenuer and East Broad Streef and the 44-unit Terraces on Grant southg of Town Street. The lack of development in that section of downtown surprisesa the president of the Discovery District Development Corp. because of the nearby cultural andeducationaol institutions. "I would think those developingg any sort of downtown housing wouldx see that asa plus," said Chuck Wickert, a seniot vice president.
Wickert said Columbus Statd Community College and the have begun expandinbg westward toward North Fourth Street to fill in some of the expansd of parking lots near where Edwarda plansto build. "Eventually, it's all going to get he said. Edwards lookes at two other sites beforre choosing EastGay Street. "o figured if we were going to work on a projecftlike this, we needed it to be of a size to creatd a neighborhood," he said. "Therse aren't all that many locations where you can tie up this amounof ground.
"