Cap City Savvy

I used to border on being offended when people made statements like, “Downtown would be great a great place to live if you had a grocery store or a dry cleaner, but there’s nothing there.” Now that I’m more knowledgeable about everything downtown has to offer, I just see that as an opportunity to educate people (and to make them feel dumb about making such uninformed statements in the process).

We tackled the apparent grocery store dilemma back in April, so now we’ll debunk another apparently missing staple of everyday life…the dry cleaners.

Thanks to the magic of Google Maps, you can see for yourselves that there are 4 dry cleaners in the core of our downtown and another 3 on the periphery (that’s not counting many of the employer sponsored services that many companies offer in their HQ’s). I know that Swan and Dale both do alterations as well.

So now you all can join me in my mission to make people feel dumb politely correct people when they make uneducated statements like that.

Ever been to an auction where someone dropped over $1 mil? Neither have I, until today that is.

A friend and I were eating at Cafe Brioso when we noticed the commotion across the street at the Modern Finance Building. There was actually an auction for the building set for noon so we decided to stroll over and check it out. Absolutely the most fun I’ve had during lunch in awhile. Here’s a shot of what the scene looked like…

Total wuss move by me to watch from the other side of the glass walls in the atrium, but I was completely petrified that the auctioneer (center) was going to interpret my camera phone snapshot for a million dollar bid.

Anyway, the room was fairly full, but things just kept bouncing back and forth between two bidders. One of them dropped off at around $1.3 million appearing to let the other have it. In an exciting finish, a group of indian men from Atlanta (pictured in the blue shirt - far left) ended up joining the fun at the end for a cool $1.375 million.

Now we just need to keep our fingers crossed and hope they turn around and develop it quickly.   That corner (High and Gay) is too valuable an address to let things sit idle.  The ground floor is perfect for retail, and I’m thinking a few more stories can probably be stacked on top.

I apologize for the lack of postings lately…things have been a little busy here at CCS-central.

To make up for it, I went ahead and added a little Widget from Flickr in the sidebar. It’s feeding on the latest pictures that people add to the Columbus, Ohio pool on the site. Tons of talented local photographers (and me) all add photos to the pool frequently, so the content automatically updates.

Nothing to get too excited over, but cool nonetheless.

As of the inaugural event last year, one of my favorite festivals has officially become the Columbus Microbrew Festival. It’s all going down in the North Market this Saturday, Sept. 15th. For only $12 ($10 if you grab a coupon at one of the participating breweries beforehand), you get a fancy pint glass like the one below and eight tasting tickets.

Something looked a little off about that shot, so I decided to fill it up. See what I do for you readers?

That’s better.

With glass in hand, you can hang out with a bunch of happy drunk people in the middle of the day and talk beer. They’re even expanding the event this year to include cooking demonstrations from chefs from The Elevator and The Bexley Monk. Seriously, what’s not to love?

The tastings are done upstairs at the Market, and even though it’s part of the fun, things can get really crowded up there. Last year, the tip was to get there early, but with the Buckeyes game a little later this year at 3:30, I’d just go whenever you want.

Looking for Wi-Fi hotspots around your pad? It turns out that The Dispatch has you covered.

I just stumbled across their Wi-Fi directory and thought I’d pass it along…

http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch/content/wifi/index.html

And now that you know where to find hotspots…please don’t be like Corey.

We try to create our own content here on the site, but sometimes another blog does such a solid job that we feel compelled to link to it. Joe Peffer at Columbus Homes Blog definitely produces some of that “linkable” content in the form of his downtown real estate roundups…

• 11 different downtown Columbus condo locations had sales in August

• 6 of them sold for under $220,000 in case you’re thinking you’d never be able to afford one.

• They averaged almost 1400 sq feet in case you thought Columbus condos are always too small.

• 13 of the 15 Downtown Columbus condos that sold offered at least one parking space in case you thought there’s never any parking and 4 of them had 2 spots included in the price.

Read the rest HERE

Now who’s clamoring for “affordable” housing again?

Really folks…let the market work before we demand that the mayor step in and subsidize housing to deliver those unicorns $100k 2-bedroom condos in premium locations.

-Eric

Time to play a little SimCity.

Not sure if y’all picked up on this, but a hometown corporation just won a bidding war to buy out one of their prime competitors. When the two companies merge, they’ll make the 5th largest North American corporation in their sector. The resultant company should fall somewhere in the Fortune 200. Exciting stuff right?

While this company only has 200 resident employees Downtown in the Borden Building right now, the new, merged company will have more than 21,000 employees worldwide. To put that into perspective, Nationwide has about 35,000 employees.

It’d be impossible to bring all 21,000 employees here to Central Ohio, but a good chunk of the target corporation’s front office employees are located in Houston and Salt Lake City. A few thousand of those employees could easily populate an shiny new skyscraper downtown.

Continue reading ‘I Want a Tower!’

Breaking news from The Onion News Network’s Seattle Division…

Loft Apartments Converted To Mayonnaise Factory

November 3, 2004
The Onion
Loft Apartments Converted To Mayonnaise Factory

SEATTLE—A building housing 10 adjoining lofts near Pike Place was purchased to be converted from airy studio apartments into a mayonnaise factory, Best Foods, Inc. CEO Peter Slater reported Monday. “I took one look at those great wood-plank floors and two-story ceilings, and I knew that all it would take was a little elbow grease to turn the building into an awesome industrial workspace,” Slater said. “There’s this one sunlit spot over by the windows that’ll be perfect for a two-ton industrial mixer. All we have to do is get rid of the leather couch.” Current residents were told to vacate the building by Dec. 1, but were offered first crack at the 80 $9-an-hour jobs about to be created, pending their acceptance into the building’s workers’ union.

Proof, that if you can’t make fun of yourself…somebody else will!

So…Walker from Columbus Underground and I have started up a little side project/experiment called X-ing Columbus. It’s a local transportation blog that gives me another outlet for all of those transit issues that are difficult to discuss within the context of an “urban living” blog.

Transit issues and urban living really go hand in hand, but I’d like to keep the “transit policy” stuff away from the “why it’s great to live downtown” stuff. Partially because some people might not be interested, and partially because I don’t think we don’t have a lot to be proud of when it comes to transit in Columbus.

We’re always looking to add contributors to the mix who have a little knowledge or fresh viewpoints to share about the transit scene in town. Come to think of it, if you’d like to be a contributor to Cap City Savvy, use the Contact Page drop me a line on that one too. We’re always looking for condo/apartment reviewers and more eyes on the street to analyze what’s going on around town.

Check it out and leave a little feedback… http://xingcolumbus.wordpress.com/

I’ve got a pu pu platter of construction updates leftover that I’m not sure warrant thier own posts, so I’ll just dump ‘em in this one.

I almost got hit by a car taking this one of the North Bank Condos. See what I do for you guys.

Continue reading ‘Construction Update: The Leftovers’