What’s next on 11th Avenue?

This weeks burning Weinland Park question is whether to finish the mural on 11th Avenue and Grant located on the side of the Rice Paddy. The mural was started in 1997 but never finished and has since then has just kind of languished. Apparently, it needs a history of Weinland Park and some other minor touches and it’s a fait accompli.

But, since,somehow, the bee was planted in someones bonnet to finish it the mural has become a hot topic of neighborhood conversation. And nothing there’s like art to get the conversation started. The mural shows a thriving urban neighborhood with the National Register Felix Jacobs House on Hamlet. But, in a bit of historical revisionism, all the people in the mural are African American whereas Weinland Park has always been an integrated neighborhood. The mural, if your local blogger understands it correctly, seems to have been driven by the Schoenbaum Center. So, is the mural actually how outsiders see the neighborhood or is it the part that is most advantageous for a social service entity to see? And this is pretty common that the entire neighborhood, which doesn’t fit into a nice category, gets broken down into a subset and pigeonholed. If that’s the case, then we have a bit of history here, although the attitude continues to this day.

As always there are way more questions than answers. So, does it represent Weinland Park? Is this the iconography of a diverse, inclusive neighborhood? Should a mural represent Weinland Park? And is it neighborhood political suicide to have an opinion about it while the neighborhood is being revitalized and not everyone is happy about said revitalization? After all, if you vote against the mural because you don’t like Cerulean blue and you’re white it’s going to be pretty easy to be colored a racist or at least a gentrifier. And that’s not going to help bring everyone together. It’s mural as minefield. And there is the aesthetic/art quality debate.* The mural is the gateway to Weinland Park (part of the Short North) and The Ohio State University so is there some quality standard to uphold?**  After all, someone who lived in Weinland Park was in the Venice Biennale. We have an artistic tradition to uphold here folks.

It’s always so complicated in Weinland Park. Consequently, the debate about what to do with it.

If you live in Weinland Park and have an opinion feel free to express it at the:

ART TABLE (formerly Artists Roundtable) meeting re: WP murals (and other potential community-base art projects) this coming Tuesday April 24th at Godman Guild 6:30-7:30PM in prep for the WPCCA meeting April 25th where Jean will be presenting and gathering more community input on whether this mural should be finished (or not). Please join us and share your thoughts!

 

And therefore it’s time for another Weinland Park blog kind- of-not-so tongue-in-cheek poll. Vote and leave a comment!

*Your cynical but art-loving local blogger cringes at its child-like rendering but realizes that everyone can’t like everything and that your local blogger (like art critic Jerry Saltz) thinks that 99% of public art is pure shit and therefore may never be happy.

**There will be no OSU football/Brutus Buckeye mural. No way.

Weinland Park at the Carnegie International

Whilst biking around the neighborhood the other day your local blogger noticed a sign that said, attention investors for sale” surrounded by child-like drawings of flowers. Some cursory research showed the house was owned by someone in Dayton, and had been since 1955. A little talking with some neighbors revealed that they had received some type of real estate offer, in crayon, from the same address on 5th Street. So, the whole thing sounded like one  of scams where the person sells the house before they own it. Which is now illegal although it didn’t use to be until recently.

Cometas by Adolfo Halty-Dube

However, that’s not the interesting part. The owner before the current owner was Uruguayan artist, Adolfo Halty-Dube, who now qualifies as Weinland Park’s most famous resident artist  until someone else in the neighborhood gets in the Carnegie International as Halty did in 1952 while he was  a resident on Fifth Street. Or represents their country at the Venice Biennale  as he did for Uruguay in 1960. Halty lived in Weinland Park from 1950-1955 while he worked at Ohio State.

This is pretty high on the “who would have thought” scale – that someone who lived in the WP was in the Venice Biennale not to mention beating current Columbus Biennale alumna Ann Hamilton by 47 years. Yet another WP first!

Arson 14 – WP 0

Apparently this house on Summit between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue is on fire right now.

Photo Credit: Beersie

It was a very nice house with the original slate roof.

The southwest corner proposal

Elevation

Elevation

Site Plan

The proposed AHF Out of the Closet Thrift Store and Pharmacy at Fifth and High Street. Not the most exciting architecturally or the highest and best use for that corner. Having four stories or so of apartments over retail would be more exciting. A best case scenario would be for them to work with Kohr, Royer, Griffith for an anchor at the proposed 7th and High building  instead of Walgreen but that’s wishful thinking. Although to look on the bright side perhaps the fact that it looks like it was plucked from a Florida strip mall will brighten a dreary February Ohio day.

Proposed

This is the NRP* Low Income Housing Tax Credit Senior Housing  in Franklinton but one similar to this has been proposed for 5th Avenue next to the railroad tracks. It would be the same builder, roughly the same shape and the long axis would parallel the railroad tracks. The parking area would be between the tracks and the building. In short, the tracks would be located where the parking garage is pictured above. Three or four stories high and approximately 60-70 units. Thus far the plan is for the remainder of the site to be market rate housing.

The comments are open for this one.

*NRP is based in Cleveland and Wagenbrenner has occasionally worked with other developers on their sites to get a complete product mix that will appeal to a wide variety of market conditions and consumers.

What happens if they would have won?

Looks like this didn’t turn out as planned…or did it? Part of the riot debris field on 15th Avenue Sunday morning

Listening to the police scanner after a big Buckeye game is always fairly eye-opening and last night did not disappoint. Beginning around midnight when an officer called in that his patrol car had been hit with a bottle at Indianola and 19th. This quickly escalated into a call for officers in Zone 4 to get their riot gear and head to campus.  Another call steered the police to 15th Avenue where there were a couple dumpster fires, a couch fire and large crowds of people tearing things up. And when large groups of youngsters tear things up no one in Zone 4, which includes Clintonville, have any police presence. Wouldn’t that be a good time to commit a crime?

Fun on 15th Avenue with fire

Proudly Weinland Park – The new campus Gateway on 11th Avenue

Since most of the action was on 15th Avenue there doesn’t seem to be much to worry about for the WP resident. Right? Well, it is creeping closer to the core of Weinland Park. Part of Weinland Park has been campus housing for years although this does not make it good planning. Chittenden and 11th Avenues east of 4th Street have essentially have long been converted in people-packing houses with the conversion of attics and basements into bedrooms. The whole affair leads to some interesting questions. Since 11th Avenue is the gateway to Ohio State how much will the university do to protect their image versus the perceived right to put 15 undergraduates in house and letting them run wild.  And since the historic district on 11th Avenue is on track to be restored the student housing portion from Kelley’s Carryout to campus is slated to be the newest university area eyesore.

Ann Arbor and East Lansing currently have laws in campus areas that limit occupancy to three unrelated people. It was not popular with landlords but does radically help make a neighborhood more liveable. An even more interesting question is what do you do with a house like that after all the sophomores move to campus?

New investment at 11th Avenue and Summit with ample room to park 14 cars.

A new people packer being made on 11th Avenue

The major question is whether the University Area Commission, who must notice that history is repeating itself, will have the political will to try and stop it. The general consensus is not hopeful especially since the UAC has a fairly attentive absentee landlord representation and a number of other commissioners who don’t actually reside in the University area. But it does set up an interesting situation as far as the gateway to Ohio State, currently paved with broken glass, and with  organizations that are fostering revitalization in Weinland Park.

It’s an age old question in Weinland Park that concerns investment and power. What responsibility does the neighborhood have for an individual’s investment? Especially one who will never live here? The person who owns the above house could cry hardship if not allowed to use it to pack in students as the return on their investment will be sharply lowered. This is countered by revitalization and making a healthy, liveable neighborhood for all residents. Consequently, will the powers that be view this as a bad investment on someones part or something that needs to be protected for the individual’s profit at the expense of those who live around it?

This latter train of thought is what got Weinland Park into it’s current predicament. Zoning favored individual owners and their bottom line over the health of the neighborhood and granted variances for people-packing, car lots and gas stations that eroded the residential quality of the neighborhood. And it wasn’t a big deal because the vast majority of property owners did not live here and profit consistently won over people and neighborhood liveability in zoning battles. And  “if someone else did it then why can’t I” was the winning argument. This is combined with the practice that if I own the land and want to make an apartment but there’s a house there it’s cheaper to convert the house than to buy another parcel. And this made even more variances even more attractive for individuals even as it made the neighborhood less attractive to live in.*

A former single family home on Chittenden near the gateway - at a price not assured to build neighborhood diversity

Already some are writing off the northwest corner of Weinland Park as being too “campusy” but your local blogger feels that’s somewhat premature. And there is a wild card – another phase to the South Campus Gateway. The student conversion process is barely underway and looking around one doesn’t actually see that many students – yet. So, why take a chance when the problem can be nipped in the bud now. After all, is the University District such great urban planning that it needs to be repeated today with the  albeit, unwitting, assistance of federal tax dollars and the help of the City of Columbus. So there’s going to be a political choice that has to made soon concerning absentee individual investment versus the quality of residential life in Weinland Park. Who’s going to win?

*This entire zoning argument is laid out in convincing detail in Patricia Burgess’ Planning for the Private Interest. It’s a fascinating history of zoning in Columbus except there’s no happy ending.

The gold rush is on… aka..It’s getting more complicated again

A common scene from 2008

According to The Other Paper the Weinland Park gold rush is on, or about to start anyway. Unfortunately, The Thirdhand Bicycle Co-op has lost its lease at Fifth and Hamlet. More unfortunately, they are unable to find a new space in the neighborhood due to gentrification.*

http://www.theotherpaper.com/news/article_ab16909e-6954-11e1-bfd3-0019bb2963f4.html

Gentrification is a pretty easy and undefinable word to throw around but usually conjures up images of the urban poor getting taken advantage of by outsiders. But let’s look at the numbers. Third Hand rented 2000 square feet of retail and warehouse for $450 a month. In real estate parlance that’s $2.70 a square foot. According to Colliers the average rate in the Columbus metropolitan area is around $12.00 a square foot for retail. And retail with warehouse space goes for around 8.00 a square foot on Craigslist. “Well” you might say, “you’d have to kill someone to get a square footage rate that low”. And you’d be exactly right. One factor in the increase in rental rates in Weinland Park is that the neighborhood is getting safer. In some ways it’s a semantics and a cost benefit analysis issue.

Rent Control?

The Other Paper calls it gentrification but your local blogger contends that there were fewer crimes last year. But who benefits and who pays from low commercial rent? Is the rent cheap because the location is bad? No. It’s cheap because the neighborhood is perceived as bad. And occasionally someone gets shot which only reinforces the stereotype which keeps the rent low. But higher crime increases car and home insurance costs for home owners and renters who live in the neighborhood. So there’s a trade-off. Low commercial rents are, in a way, subsidized by neighborhood residents in either blood, higher costs for insurance, security, theft, mental well-being, quality of life etc., or often all of these. Is it gentrification to expect not to be robbed, assaulted, or generally live in fear because in reality all of these issues go together. And who is being taken advantage of when commercial rent increases because the neighborhood quality of life improves? And who really pays when commercial rent is low and should it be kept low? After all, low commercial rent does provide some of the neighborhood diversity. But many of the commercial space renters in Weinland Park live outside the neighborhood and therefore reap the benefits but don’t have to pay all the costs.  In many ways Weinland Park has been and continues to be the land of subsidies but who wins and who loses?

*The Other Paper’s term. The other problem is there is simply not that much commercial space, especially warehouse, in Weinland Park. It’s a residential neighborhood but hopefully Thirdhand can round something up.

Corners

So what’s happening in the four corners of Weinland Park lately. Lot’s of planning might equal lots of action.

Southeast

Possible site of a farmers’ market or a recreation center. You decide.

The southeast corner the subject of the MORPC agrarian overlay to enable Weinland Park to sever itself from the world food supply. Or be a recreation center. Or a jobs center, or something. There are multitude of ideas ranging from those supplied by the Knowlton School to anyone who attended one of the community planning meeting. One thing is known for certain. You can have a lot of meetings with $865,000 which was the amount of the planning grant. It also gets you a lot of plans and a ton of class projects. But what is going to be built there? And the answer seems to be whatever the community raises the money for to build there. Estimates for the aforementioned projects range from the couple of million dollars to a couple times a couple million dollars. With that much money the entire neighborhood could move to Cancun which is one of the few ideas that have not been mentioned. But what happens if the Weinland Park, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city does not raise millions?

Come up with $4,000,000 or else.

The original plan was apartments over retail. Only time will tell what happens here. If you see someone from Weinland Park, give them some money.

Northeast

Hey kids*, too scared to spray paint something in Lewis Center because your mom will catch you?

11th Ave between Grant and North Fourth looks like it might be finally ready to be restored. Weinland Park’s own National Register Historic District and gateway to Ohio State is up for an Ohio State Historic Tax Credit in June. Keep your fingers crossed. The other choice – some type of mall advocated by Andres Duany and the co-authors of the Smart Growth Manual because he didn’t know it was a historic district, nor did he really care. But the details of actual planning can be messy.

Northwest

Something by Campus Partners although no one really knows yet. Now a lot of trees and a lone house on 9th Avenue. It might not be too late to mention a Frisbee golf course to Campus Partners or a par three real golf course. The number is in the phone book. Think about it Weinland Park and golf.

Southwest

A thrift store at 5th and High although no news about that lately. Most recently the site of the Halloween Highball although that was in the Short North.

*As the neighborhood becomes safer there seems to be less gang graffiti and more suburban kid graffiti. Back in the day some Arlington kid spray painting in the Short would have been pistol-whipped. But now, with no one around and the no-snitching rule still in effect in some areas it’s become easier. So, my challenge to the young graffiti artist. Do it in Upper Arlington or Powell where someone actually needs to be jolted out of their suburban complacency-like your soccer loving mom.

Food Alert

Woody and Jo’s House of Ribs have recently changed their hours.* They are now open:

Woody &Jo’s NEW HOURS
THURSDAY 2PM TO 10PM
FRIDAY & SATURDAY 12 NOON TO 12 MIDNIGHT
SUNDAY 1PM TO 7PM
EFFECTIVE DEC 1ST

Get out and support our local favorites before  the neighborhood gets turned into a quinoa lover’s paradise**. Help revitalize the neighborhood by having Woody and Jo’s for your next lunch event.

They get great reviews for the food on Yelp but your local blogger found the reviews in general to be fairly depressing in their stereotyping of the neighborhood and the other customers. Is this what we’re up against when we’re trying to sell houses in the neighborhood too? Having been to Woody and Jo’s at all hours of the night your local blogger has always had pleasant conversations with all the other customers regardless of appearance or what they were driving. Maybe some of the reviewers ought to get out more often. And as for the guy that said it was horrible; his other reviews indicate that he’s a Cracker Barrel Old Country Store enthusiast.

*The real food desert: where you can no longer get BBQ ribs and chicken at 3:45 A.M.

**Maybe quinoa and bacon?

Arson 13- WP 0

Tonight on Hamlet between 7th and 8th Avenues arson 13 took place. The duplex, while in pretty poor condition with foundation issues, having caught on fire once before, etc. was one of the last to not have been altered in virtually any fashion. And it was one of the larger houses on the block with a nice second story sun porch on each side. It also had the original siding, trim, windows and such too. Although this house was probably going to be demolished anyway it would still be nice to take them apart for their constituent parts. A nice labor intensive task in a neighborhood that could use some jobs.

It seemed to be touch and go as to whether the houses on either side would go up too. The people in both houses were evacuated and the was great excitement when the firemen produced a little white dog for some kids.

http://youtu.be/i6P9SWVE-PI

A video of fireman evacuating the houses adjacent

Your local blogger and others were thankful the whole block didn’t go up. One can see how a fire could quickly spread without the quick response of the Columbus Fire Department.

The morning after

The houses are a little too close together for this type of thing.

The vacant lot in the foreground is the result of a previous arson this year. The apartment on the right goes through various stages of being secured. The white house is the only thing holding off a half a block of new development. And while your local blogger doesn’t believe in conspiracy theories at times it does make you scratch your head for a minute. And even stranger all the buildings pictured by this theater group have been torched. House/Divided. Coincidence?! Plus the New York connection and the involvement of the  Ohio State Knowlton School of Architecture makes a complicated web.

Please vote for your favorite 2011 Weinland Park conspiracy theory. 2012 will bring a new one.

As neighbors gather at events such as this talk quickly turns to who might be responsible. There seems to be a fairly narrow range of possibilities voiced, for instance, intelligent life from outer space is never fingered as the culprit. As one might expect the usual suspects include those a little higher in the power structure and the more marginalized among us. But since everyone enjoys a good conspiracy theory and it takes a special sense of humor to live in Weinland Park here is your chance to chime in with yours.

And don’t forget to call 311 if you see something that ought to be boarded up that isn’t!