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

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will propose to build 250 condominiums at East Long and East Gay streetd in a layout designed toevoke Chicago'sw Lincoln Park or New York'sd Murray Hill venerable enclaves. The company expectsa to deliver its conceptualplans Nov. 21 to the city's Downtownb Commission. "It's a much different product than what's been built in the downtown byanybody else," said company Presidenyt Jeff Edwards. Indeed, the proposal calls for garden- and townhouse-style condos to be densely developede along severalcity blocks. "Everyone kind of jump s up and down andthinks it's wonderful that (projects are) goinhg up," Edwards said.
"I franklyt think we should be going outbecausr there's so much vacant land downtown." , an affiliate of the has spent nearly $7.8 million since March acquiring about 60 percent of the projectf site. It paid an additional $350,000 in September for a propert y along the northern edge of Long Street that will serv as a constructionstaging area. The compang still needs to get about 10 percent of the or less thanan acre, under contractg before its and Multicon Constructiom divisions can start working on the Edwards said.
The developer plansd to build the condos over four to six with the first buildingw scheduled to opennext "We have the luxury to react to the marketplace basedd on what's accepted," Edwards said. "W e laid out the whole projectf butthat doesn't mean we can'tt vary on it." If approved, the project would mark the largesft condo project undertaken downtown since the city launchec its urban housing development initiative in 2002. Real estate consultant Ken Danter said he expectsd the project will attract a different buyer from thoses drawn tothe office-to-condo conversion projectsd that have dominated the downtown housinbg market.
"It broadens the market considerabl y to where more people in the suburbs will feel comfortablr moving into that kindof environment," said the president of creates that village-like feel you get in German Village or the Shorr North." Edwards plans to begin sellint one-bedroom garden condos in the $120,000 range. A three-bedroomm townhouse of 2,600 square feet would head into the Danter saidthose prices, at or below $200 a square foot, widens the downtown market, where some recentf housing has crept into the $250-a-square-foor price range.
"We've been encouraging people for a long time to come in at a broade rprice point," Danter The project's eastern edge would sit insidde the Discovery District, which has landeed a few housing projects in recenrt years, including 88 apartments plannedd for the former Seneca hotel building at Soutn Grant Avenue and East Broad Street and the 44-unitg Terraces on Grant south of Town Street. The lack of developmentg in that section of downtown surprises the president of the Discovery DistrictDevelopment Corp. because of the nearb cultural andeducational institutions.
"I would think those developing any sort of downtow n housing would see that as a saidChuck Wickert, a senioe vice president. Wickert said Columbus State Community College and the have beguj expanding westward toward Northn Fourth Street to fill in some of the expansd of parking lots near where Edwardw plansto build. "Eventually, it's all goinbg to get connected," he said. Edwards looked at two othee sites before choosing EastGay "I figured if we were going to work on a projec like this, we needed it to be of a size to create a neighborhood," he said. "There aren'tg all that many locations where you can tie up this amoungtof ground.
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