Summer News Roundup

Tim Fulton 00:00Welcome to the Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week, we are diving into the most-read stories shaping the landscape of the city. These are the top stories that have captured the attention of our community—not necessarily the most important or significant, but the ones that people just couldn't stop reading. We'll be counting down the top 15 stories from the past quarter, ranging from local business closures and new developments to the latest updates in the city's infrastructure. Whether it's a historic building being demolished, new restaurants opening up, or the ever-evolving skyline of downtown Columbus, we have it covered. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Walker Evans, the co-founder and editor of Columbus Underground. How are you? Good.

Walker Evans 01:13Sorry, I jumped on top of you.

Tim Fulton 01:14It's okay, it's fine. I'm not even going to redo it. Okay, cool. Let's go for it. It's one of those.

Walker Evans 01:18All right, freestyle.

Tim Fulton 01:19We are jumping back in. It's been roughly a fiscal quarter since we did a roundup of what the best-read news at Columbus Underground was. You were kind enough to give me the top 15, so we're going to go through it.

Walker Evans 01:32And just to reiterate, these are the most popular stories. They're not the most important or significant or impactful.

Tim Fulton 01:40I mean, there is a story on here from 2022. So we're going to go in reverse order, hoping people stick around. See if this helps our engagement rate.

Walker Evans 01:50Stay tuned for number one.

Tim Fulton 01:53Coming in at number 15, Ohio Village construction.

Walker Evans 01:56So the Ohio Village area, the little place over there by the Ohio History Center, it's been going strong for decades. They decided they want to do sort of a big master plan revisioning of the whole site. So it's shutting down for probably about two years, give or take, for a full reconstruction. So people were engaged with that. I mean, it's pretty significant to close it down, because it's a popular site, especially for field trips and certain events. And we do our coffee festival there, we have every year for the past eight years. This is year nine. So we're moving over to the Franklin County Fairgrounds for the time being, and then we'll evaluate moving back or what our different options are.

Tim Fulton 02:36I'm a bad Columbus site—where are the Franklin County Fairgrounds? Hilliard. Okay. Not a bad Columbus site, then. Bad Franklin County.

Walker Evans 02:45And, well, we also have the state fair here, so that always kind of overrides. And also, I've always kind of thought, how many farms are there in Franklin County proper that would participate? There's certainly 4-H groups, agricultural, but it's small. If you want farmland, usually you go a county out.

Tim Fulton 03:05Fair, yes. Coming in at number 14, bakery building demolished.

Walker Evans 03:11So this historic building on Livingston Avenue, over in the Driving Park area—not in the park, kind of across the street from that area—was just demolished. There were efforts to save it. It's going to become apartments, surprise, surprise. But kind of a cool, some art deco flair to this building. It was a bit of a one-of-a-kind. And the bakery that was in it, I think they made cookies. It was like a cookie company from the '30s and '40s. People tried to save it, but it didn't happen. And so people were sad to read that news, I think.

Tim Fulton 03:46So the engagement there is probably people bemoaning the loss.

Walker Evans 03:50And we had done a couple of pieces on it. This is kind of the final piece, that demolition had started. And so—I mean, we'll link to all these articles—but Brent took a photo of the demolition, like halfway in progress. But there were some preservationists who had written some opinion pieces of, like, why it was significant, should be saved. So kind of sad, because it was a cool building. And it's a little like—you know, if it were on High Street in the Short North, a little more visible, maybe more people would have rallied behind it. But, like, certain parts of the east side, I think a lot of people are like, nah, it's a poor neighborhood, who cares about saving their stuff?

Tim Fulton 04:24Well, and I think the city at large does a poor job of historic preservation in general.

Walker Evans 04:30Well, there's no teeth to any of that, right? There's no real legislative protection to save that sort of stuff. There's the National Register of Historic Places, but there's no local register for historic preservation.

Tim Fulton 04:45Well, now that I say that, I'm thinking, well, if you go too hard in the other direction—I was listening to something about how Hawaii's preservation laws, anything that's over 55 years old is automatically historic. And so you need special dispensation in order to tear down even like an abandoned bowling alley. And it's like, that's not serving the needs of the people of this community anymore.

Walker Evans 05:10A strip mall built in 1972 that's falling apart should probably be replaced with something better.

Tim Fulton 05:17Absolutely. Up next on the list, Homefield Grandview. Which, first of all, shout out Matt—

Walker Evans 05:22Shout out Matt Barnes here, yeah.

Tim Fulton 05:24Friend of the pod. Friend of the pod, Matt Barnes. Tell us about Homefield Grandview.

Walker Evans 05:29So this is the spot that was once Boludo, and then became Round Two, and now it's kind of right across from the Grandview Theater area, the Grandview strip. So it's a new project that Matt Barnes has been sort of an advisor, sort of creative director—I think he did the interior design, basically. And it's got hints of Leisure Club to it. If you've heard Matt Barnes's name, that's probably from Leisure Club. So it kind of feels like a little bit of a dad's garage kind of vibe, sports, but—I mean, I guess, technically, dad—

Tim Fulton 06:04Sorry, I guess we're showing our age. It's like if I collected sports memorabilia. But it's a lot of, like, '90s—

Walker Evans 06:12'80s and '90s sports-nerd kind of stuff. So it's got a cool vibe to it. And so when that was announced it was coming, and then Ashley went and shot some photos over there, those articles have been really well read, because people want to see cool stuff.

Tim Fulton 06:25Cool. Number 12 on the list, Capital Grille.

Walker Evans 06:29Yeah, this one was kind of a surprise to me, because I had never heard of Capital Grille, but I guess it's a chain. There's like one in Cincinnati. They're all over the country, but there's never been one in Columbus. So I think that was part of the appeal. Whenever there's a chain that expands to Columbus, those stories do well for people that know what that chain is. But it also went into the old Champps spot—Champps with two P's—over at the Lennox Town Center area, which not a lot changes over there too often. So it was sort of a, oh, hey, remember Lennox? There's something new happening.

Tim Fulton 07:03You know that it has a second-run movie theater now? Sorry, it's a first-run movie theater, but it's not AMC or one of the big ones.

Walker Evans 07:10I haven't been to the theater yet, but I've heard that it didn't really undergo a major renovation, so it's a little rough around the edges.

Tim Fulton 07:20That is where my daughter and I tend to go if we're going to a movie. But it feels sort of like a second-run movie theater. There is a physical ticket booth, but there is no one manning it, and it is the concession people that give you your ticket that you were encouraged to buy online. And it's in the form of just a receipt.

Walker Evans 07:41Do they still have the extra concessions, like at the ends of the hallway areas?

Tim Fulton 07:46I haven't been to one down there, but I guarantee you the booth for it is still there, but it is not staffed.

Walker Evans 07:53Yeah, I don't think AMC was even staffing those for a while. It was one of those things because it was 24 screens, which was probably the biggest one at the time, before the 30 at Easton opened. But that AMC was a real big deal in like the late '90s, and so they probably had three concession stands, and then eventually abandoned that. There's no need for that. But anyway, Capital Grille. And there's also a lot of new steak stuff, because, like, Butcher and Rose, new Cameron Mitchell, just opened. There's the return of Smith & Wollensky, relocating from Easton and moving downtown. And then it was replaced out at Easton by a new steakhouse that's opening in December. There's just steak on steak on steak everywhere. So that's the trend, I suppose. And now you can get it at Lennox Town Center too, after your movie, after you go watch Deadpool and Wolverine.

Tim Fulton 08:41Wow. Well, I guess we are automatically dating ourselves. I try to make the podcast timely—okay, or timeless, whatever the next Marvel movie is after that. Then, number 11, film production in Dublin.

Walker Evans 08:56Yeah. So there is a pretty big new project from Fallback Studios. I'm pulling up the article right now. I want to say it's like a 200,000-square-foot building in Dublin. It's an existing building, so it's being renovated into a movie production studio. It's going to have sound stages, it's going to have a lot of things that currently don't exist. And from what I've heard through the Columbus Film Commission, their struggle to get more film, both creative and commercial projects, shot in Ohio is that you have to have the resources and the staffing to do this sort of stuff on an ongoing basis. You've got to bring in special teams and special equipment. And this will help to address some of those issues and get more projects shot here.

Tim Fulton 09:39Which is obvious, but it only increases the cost if you have to, like, fly in people. So it's building up basically the back-end infrastructure for, yes, we can do productions here.

Walker Evans 09:52Yeah. And a lot of those folks are in like Cleveland and Cincinnati, where more film projects are being shot. So you don't necessarily have to fly them in, but bring them in from Cleveland. So this is sort of like putting a flag in the ground and saying, we can do this here in Columbus. We're a growing city. And pretty fast turnaround, because it's an existing building. I think it's planned to open next summer, so 2025.

Tim Fulton 10:12Okay, so just got to put in some sound stages, and there you go. Number 10 on the list, updated downtown tower. So this is the North Market tower?

Walker Evans 10:24No, a different one.

Tim Fulton 10:26Okay, tell me more.

Walker Evans 10:27This is a proposed building. It was announced originally last year, kind of behind where 16-Bit is. That whole area, like the South Fourth Street area. So it would demolish a couple buildings behind and then take over a large parking lot. So that's Rich Street and—

Tim Fulton 10:50We're losing our sign. We're losing the Columbus love sign.

Walker Evans 10:53Another block east. Oh, okay. That's on Main Street, this is on Rich Street. Got it. We're not losing that sign. Okay, not yet anyway. But the original proposal was for a 19-story building. It was a pretty significant project. It just came back this summer for a revisal, and it went up to 23 stories. So it's actually gotten taller. It's going to require a few more demolitions of some of the smaller—if you look at the Google view of all those buildings, like, where Little Palace is—Little Palace not being demolished, but the buildings behind them are a collection of hodgepodge, like garages that were added 40 years ago to these buildings that are 100 years old.

Tim Fulton 11:36It's interesting some of that is going to go away. Okay. Number nine, skinny tower in Franklinton.

Walker Evans 11:45Yes. So I think the difference is that the first one we were just talking about is from someone who has built buildings before. The skinny tower in Franklinton is from a young, newer developer that I don't think has any accomplished projects to this point. So I don't know a ton about it, but I've heard from a lot of people that there's a lot of skepticism around the seriousness of this building.

Tim Fulton 12:09Sorry, let's start back just a little bit. What is it?

Walker Evans 12:13What is it? So this spring and summer, this developer went to the West Franklinton Area Commission with a proposal to build an 11-story, thin, sort of almost pencil tower, on a very small lot in the middle of a residential—residential-industrial street, I should say—very far west into Franklinton. So not East Franklinton, where we're talking about—the Bottoms. I'm just saying it's not close to, like, Gravity and 400 West Rich and stuff. It's deeper over into where it's more residential. So this tall building, and immediately there's pushback, like, this is a weird spot, why right here, yada yada. But I think it was rejected because the floor heights weren't up to fire code. There were a lot of mechanical and engineering issues with the blueprints. This is not up to any kind of code.

Tim Fulton 13:13But somebody did it, and you would assume that they're a licensed professional, right?

Walker Evans 13:20Well, I think a lot of times when you reach this point in the process, you've got architects and engineers and certain people, you have a team of people. It sounds like it's just the one developer coming with a plan without a team. And again, this is just what I—

Tim Fulton 13:34Interesting. Okay. I've not attended anything. So that's the skepticism that you were referencing earlier.

Walker Evans 13:38Yeah, the skepticism said, like, this doesn't really feel—like, come back when you have a serious plan, because this doesn't make any sense. Let alone the site is a bit of a strange location.

Tim Fulton 13:51I have to believe that there's a greater story here.

Walker Evans 13:54Probably. And, you know, for me it's all kind of second- and third-hand information. I've not talked to the developer, I've not talked to the area commission. Brent has been watching the meetings and just kind of giving what's said in public. But yeah, it's probably more behind the scenes.

Tim Fulton 14:09Yeah. Number eight on our list, Local Cantina Short North closes.

Walker Evans 14:14Yeah, I think this one really caught people off guard. I know why you're laughing.

Tim Fulton 14:18Okay, yeah, we'll get to why it's funny.

Walker Evans 14:22So this had been in that location, I think, for about a decade, maybe a little less than a decade. This is right on the Cap, the entrance between the Short North and downtown, formerly where Mojo Lounge was back in the day. And there was a burger place in there, Stack City Burgers, for a minute. And the reason I know all this is because I looked all this up when we—you know, when we post these articles on Facebook, for better or worse, tons of comments, many ill-informed. One person said, this place is cursed, there's so much turnover in this place. And I'm like, let's go back and look at the history. Mojo Lounge was there for a decade, and you had that burger place there for like four years, and you've had this almost for another decade. So, like, 25-year history, three things in there. I don't think that's a curse.

Tim Fulton 15:10I will say the south end of the Cap, on that same side, might be cursed, though, because that has gone through quite a few iterations. So, you know, ill-informed, or just didn't know exactly which storefront it was.

Walker Evans 15:24But retail churn is a thing that is natural in a neighborhood or even a mall environment. The Short North, you can't hide it, because it's very visible, and it's all independent operators. But when you have a big institution like Easton that manages, I don't know, 200 stores, restaurants, spots in there, they can do a really good job of masking what closes by announcing what's opening, without mentioning what closed or what moved. And it's kind of shuffling things around. And so they don't get the same level of scrutiny and flak that, like, the University District or the Short North does.

Tim Fulton 15:58Absolutely, or downtown, when there's a closure. And so why is it funny?

Walker Evans 16:01It's funny because of the way we found out about it. Susan, who, you know, no longer is with us—shout out, Susan—she was—sorry—

Tim Fulton 16:09She went to a different publication.

Walker Evans 16:11She's at Business First, yeah.

Tim Fulton 16:13She's still with us. Susan, still friend of the pod.

Walker Evans 16:19Indeed, friend of the cast. She went by—she drove by, or was walking by, but saw a sign on the door, and it was dark, and she got out, or went up and looked at it, and it had some swears. Can we swear? We can swear. We don't swear, but— Yeah. It said something to the effect of, like, this location doesn't fuck anymore. Very clearly written by an employee, a disgruntled employee, most likely. But I think the sign—she took a photo, but the sign was only up for like a day, and then somebody took it down.

Tim Fulton 16:43This place doesn't fuck anymore.

Walker Evans 16:47Yeah. But I think it's just surprising, because there's a ton of Local Cantina locations. There's like 15 of them or so over the region. And so I think people were just surprised that that was the one that closed. It's popular when I go by it. There's always people on the patio.

Tim Fulton 17:02You always got to look at the market economics, right? Like, how much was your rent there? And it's sporadic a little bit because of the convention center there. So, yeah. Number seven on the list—I don't know, is this just coincidence? It is a coincidence. The title, "Seven Big Projects," looking ahead to the completion of big things. You basically did a roundup of things that were in progress, and people loved it.

Walker Evans 17:29Well, shout out to Brent, who did this. But yeah, because we write so much about development and projects, and it's usually in a silo—it's very like, there's this building, there's this project, there's this. We don't always stop to take a look at what all these things mean together. And so when we do that, the series is called Fast Forward. A lot of times it's been about a neighborhood, like Fast Forward Italian Village—when these seven things that are either under construction or in proposal are all built, how many apartment units are they adding collectively? What's the square footage of all the retail space they're adding collectively? What will this neighborhood look like three years from now, when all this stuff is done? So Brent did that, but looking at some of the bigger projects that have been announced over the past year or so, and a little bit longer, because Intel is on the list and that's under construction. So he added up what it would look like for Intel to be done, the airport renovation to be done, the North Market tower to be done, the downtown Amtrak station and return of Amtrak service to be done, the Cap Line, which is the new bike-pedestrian loop in downtown, some of the first phases of LinkUS to be done, and then also the Columbus Symphony Orchestra hall.

Tim Fulton 18:43Okay. And these are all in very disparate phases.

Walker Evans 18:47Yeah. Like Intel and the North Market are under construction, the airport hasn't even started, Amtrak is still awaiting a lot of boxes to be checked. But just to kind of think about, in the next five to 10 years, what these seven things could do on a pretty transformative scale—adding jobs and new transit opportunities and entertainment and housing, and just what they all mean together. And it was very well read, which is great, because Brent put a lot of time into this.

Tim Fulton 19:18Yeah, good. Number six on the list, dispensaries prep for recreational marijuana use.

Walker Evans 19:25So this was an Ohio Capital Journal article—shout out to them, friend of the pod. But it came out—it was interesting because it came out back in May, and so this is when the dispensaries were kind of getting ready. But things kept getting delayed, delayed, delayed. Surprise, surprise. And it feels kind of interesting and timely because, again, not to date the podcast, but two days ago, sales actually began in the state of Ohio. So I think a lot of people were kind of crying foul that our state, run mostly by Republicans, was kind of dragging its feet because they didn't want this to begin with, right? The legislation was approved by voters last November, and it's taken them nearly a full year, like nine, 10 months, to go from passage to implementation.

Tim Fulton 20:10Where we already had medical marijuana, right? I think almost all the ones that are online now are former medical-only.

Walker Evans 20:18Like a dual ability to run it. But when I looked at the list the other day, because there was another Ohio Capital Journal article that went up this week, there were only like 10 that had been approved by the state. There's a giant backlog of people asking for their permits, and then here's the first 10. So there's only like two locations in central Ohio where you can go get it. So, foul again. It feels like, yeah, we'll do it, but we'll do the bare minimum. Which is weird, because it's kind of against the will of the voters.

Tim Fulton 20:47Yeah. Well, and also, I think part of the—I don't know if angst is the right word, but the tax dollars are set aside for very specific usage, right? And so it's not just like, oh, all our coffers are getting so big, so we should do this quickly, like with alcohol. Next on the list, we're at number five now, a throwback, giant trolls. It was a repost.

Walker Evans 21:23Yeah, so this was a piece that you guys had done. Where's the park? Just north of Dayton. It's the Aullwood Audubon nature center. And they have these giant trolls. This Danish artist, Thomas Dambo, I think that's how you pronounce it, has built these giant trolls out of wood in places all over the country, all over the world, really. They're everywhere. But these were put into place a couple of years ago just outside of Dayton, and I don't think anyone had really written about it locally, and we did sort of a family trip over there. And they're out there too—it's not like you can drive up in your car and there's the thing and then drive away. Like, you have to go on a mile hike to get to it. It's out in the woods. So it gets people out in natural spaces. So we went and took photos, and Anne published a really nice article in 2022 saying, drive an hour that way and go see these trolls. It blew up. It was like one of the best articles of the year. And so, kind of on a whim this summer, she reposted it just on social media, like, hey, if you didn't see this two years ago, go see it now. And again, it just blew up. It went back up to number five. And it's kind of fun too, because we just did a family trip to the Pacific Northwest, and we went and found another one of the trolls by the same artist, in a little park right outside of Seattle. And again, you had to park your car in the lot and then hike about three quarters of a mile to go find it, right on the beach, and then hike back. So it was fun.

Tim Fulton 22:44Number four on the list, another roundup, top 10 brewery patios.

Walker Evans 22:49Yeah. So Megan Mason, who is our beer critic now, she's been writing articles, and wanted to do something to kind of kick off the summer, back in May, to highlight her favorite patios, exclusively breweries. So not just any old patios, but brewery patios. And she did a really great job, kind of scouring all over central Ohio and trying to highlight some that you don't always think about, because, you know, everyone knows Seventh Son has a cool patio. But, like, what are some of the other ones? And it was really well read.

Tim Fulton 23:22Good. And also sort of evergreen for the summer, right?

Walker Evans 23:26Yeah. I'm pretty sure every single place in here is still open and going strong. There's been a couple of closures recently. Pretentious Barrel House, that's right. I think they're still in the process of closing. This might be their final week or a couple weeks, because they want to sell off some of their sours. I don't think they really had much of a patio. I only ever went there once, because I'm not a huge beer guy, but it was more of a production space.

Tim Fulton 23:55Coming up at number three on the list, Easton and Polaris property sold.

Walker Evans 23:59Yeah, so I think this got a lot of people's attention, because it makes it sound like the malls were sold, but these are properties that are a part of the development, but not the main part. So if you go out to Easton, if you've ever been over to like where the Target is—yeah, what else is over there? There's Kohl's, there's—

Tim Fulton 24:19There's a Target, there's a Lowe's, and then just south of it is where DSW and a Marshalls are.

Walker Evans 24:28So those kinds of properties. There were two very large ones, but they were bought by the same company. I thought it was kind of interesting—Brent Warren's piece again. So a Chicago-based company bought each of them. The Easton one is a 50-acre parcel, and the Polaris area was a 60-acre parcel. So pretty big acquisitions. I don't think a whole lot's going to change. It was just more of an interesting acquisition.

Tim Fulton 24:55Well, and interesting that it's so high up on the list, too, right? Number two, high ramp closure, slash highway work.

Walker Evans 25:04So this was the closure of one of the exits from 315 to 670. And these are kind of articles I feel like people get really worked up about, because they're like, that's the way I get home, and I'm going to have to go a minute out of my way. And it's like, yeah, but these kinds of closures also last years, because this thing has been going on forever. I was a little surprised it was so well read, because it's really almost a PSA. But I decided to go back and look at—do you know how long the whole split fix, the whole 70/71, has been going? Do you want to make a guess when construction started? I'm talking about the whole thing, not just the current phase.

Tim Fulton 25:5322 years ago.

Walker Evans 25:55That's probably when the planning started. Construction started in 2010. So it's been going on for 14 years. The current end date is TBD. But the planning probably started another five or six years before that. So this is something that's been talked about for two decades now.

Tim Fulton 26:13You know the meme, right? Like, hey, you should be just like the 70/71 split. Always keep working on yourself.

Walker Evans 26:21Yeah, that's good. I thought you were going to say something about orange barrels being, like, our official state mascot. I mean, the crazy thing about it too, is that this is a $1.4 billion project altogether. And you think about what that could mean in terms of other infrastructure spending.

Tim Fulton 26:40What's the—because this doesn't add capacity?

Walker Evans 26:47It doesn't add capacity. It just makes it smoother. Because before, like, 70 and 71 came together, and then you had to cross over each other to stay on what you're going, and then split again. And that was a very short lane, and there were a lot of entry and exit points. Like, every other street had ramps. And they're making it more so it's like, you get off once, and then you have access to all the exits. So it's basically less merging.

Tim Fulton 27:11And less congestion, theoretically, right? But it's not—

Walker Evans 27:15It's not like it's going from a two-lane highway to a four-lane highway.

Tim Fulton 27:18There's no real estate for it to go other places.

Walker Evans 27:23They are converting a lot of the grass slopes to wall, so they're adding a little bit of room that way. But this is really—I mean, they've called it a fix since the beginning. I don't know if that's really a good term to use for this.

Tim Fulton 27:39Well, like, I was going to the art festival from the south the other day, and I parked on High. But I was like, I don't want to walk on High all the way up there, past the courthouse on a weekend. And so I go back to Front, and I get all the way up, and I'm like, where'd the road go? Like, the bridge is just gone. And I was like, I guess I'm going back up to High Street now.

Walker Evans 28:01It's been like that for a couple of months. But if you don't normally go that way—we go to that brewery district Kroger quite a bit, so Front Street would be a normal path home. And it's gone. It's been pretty messy. And I think now that some of those big flyover ramps are coming on the south end, around like Mirror Lake and stuff, people are really visually seeing the skyline change with new highway ramps, and getting a little more upset that, like, this is what we're dumping billions into. I mean, by the time this is done, it's probably going to be $2 billion. Make a wild guess, I would assume. And we're getting no transit, no trains.

Tim Fulton 28:38Number one on our list, Roll Bikes closure.

Walker Evans 28:42This is a bit of a surprise. I think it caught people by surprise. They announced that they were closing and liquidating, because it's been a pretty beloved local shop.

Tim Fulton 28:52This is a bicycle chain. Well, I mean, they have like three stores.

Walker Evans 28:57Sure. What's—how many do you need to be a chain?

Tim Fulton 28:59I mean, it had multiple locations, but it is local.

Walker Evans 29:02Yeah. I think they had filed for Chapter 11, like, late last year, so they were restructuring. So I don't think it should have caught people by too much surprise—usually that means a lot. But I think the pandemic really kind of put them in a pinch, and they had expanded into bike production, so they were making Roll-branded bikes, manufacturing and selling their own line of bikes. And I think that might have gotten them into a financial situation that they couldn't bounce back from.

Tim Fulton 29:33Possibly overextended. There's a lot of investment there, depending on how you're sourcing it.

Walker Evans 29:39But personally, I was bummed. I would take my bike to get tuned up at the Bexley location. Super nice people, super knowledgeable. So that's a bit of a bummer, because we need more bike stores, not less.

Tim Fulton 29:51Well, and interesting that it's the top-read thing, right? Like, people care.

Walker Evans 29:57And sometimes it really boils down to, like, did we get this story up first, before the Dispatch or Business First or anyone else? So sometimes that dictates how popular something ends up being.

Tim Fulton 30:10Because that's the thing people start sharing, bemoaning.

Walker Evans 30:15Just getting out there first. But yeah, so those are the summer trends, I guess.

Tim Fulton 30:19Those are the top 15. All right. Well, Walker, thanks for your time. Yeah. Thanks, Tim. Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, and share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite developer. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.