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Tim Fulton 00:00
Tim, welcome 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 the confluencecast.com enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Walker, Evans, the co founder and editor of Columbus underground. How are you good?
Walker Evans 01:13
Sorry, I jumped on top of you.
Tim Fulton 01:14
It’s okay. It’s fine. I’m not even gonna redo it. Okay, cool. Let’s go for it. It’s one of those,
Walker Evans 01:18
all right, freestyle.
Tim Fulton 01:19
We are jumping back in. It’s been roughly a fiscal quarter since we did a basically roundup of what the best read news at Columbus underground was. You were kind enough to give me the top 15, so we’re gonna go through it. Yeah,
Walker Evans 01:32
and just to reiterate, these are the most popular stories. They’re not the most important or significant or impactful.
Tim Fulton 01:40
I mean, there is a story on here from 2022 so yeah. So we’re gonna go in reverse order, hoping people stick around. Okay, see if this helps our
Walker Evans 01:50
engagement rate. Stay tuned for number one
Tim Fulton 01:53
coming in at number 15, Ohio Village Construction, yes.
Walker Evans 01:56
So 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 like a big Master Plan revisioning of the whole site. So it’s shutting down for probably about two years, give or take of a full like reconstruction. So people were engaged, engaged with that, yeah. I mean, it’s pretty significant to close it down because it’s a popular site, especially for like field trips and certain events, and we do our coffee festival there we have every every year for the past eight years. This is year nine. So we’re moving over to the Franklin County Fairgrounds, okay, for the time being, and then we’ll evaluate moving back or what our different options are. And
Tim Fulton 02:36
I’m a bad Columbus site. Where are the Franklin County Fairgrounds? Hilliard, okay, yeah, not a bad Columbus site. Then, yeah, bad Franklin County. And, well, we
Walker Evans 02:45
also have the state fair here, so that always kind of overrides. And also, I’ve always kind of thought like, how many farms are there in Franklin County proper that would participate in the you know, there’s certainly 4h groups agricultural, right? Yeah, but it’s small, yes, if you want farmland, usually you go a county out
Tim Fulton 03:05
fair, yeah, yes, coming in at number 14, bakery building demolished, yeah.
Walker Evans 03:11
So this historic building on Livingston Avenue, over on driving park, or, I’m sorry, 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, like some art deco flair to this building. Was a little 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 like, you know, the 30s and 40s. Okay, people tried to save it, but it didn’t happen. And so people were sad to read that news. I think so the
Tim Fulton 03:46
engagement there is probably people bemoaning the loss, and yeah, and we
Walker Evans 03:50
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 got it kind of sad, because it was a cool building, yeah, and it’s a little like, you know, if it were on High Street in the short north a little more visible, like, 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, who cares about saving their stuff? Yeah?
Tim Fulton 04:24
Well, and I think the city at large does a poor job of sort of, like historic preservation in general. Well,
Walker Evans 04:30
there’s no, there’s no like teeth to any of that, right? There’s no like real, like legislative protection to save that sort of stuff. There’s the National Register, Register of Historic Places, but there’s no, like, local register for historic preservation.
Tim Fulton 04:45
Well, now that I say that, I’m thinking like, well, if you go too hard in the other direction, it ends up being I was listening to something about like, how Hawaii’s preservation laws and like, anything that’s over 55 years old is automatic. Historic Yeah. 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, yeah, the people of this community anymore. A strip
Walker Evans 05:10
mall built in 1972 Yeah, that’s falling apart, yeah, should probably be replaced with something better, absolutely. Yeah.
Tim Fulton 05:17
Up next on the list, home field, Grandview, which, first of all, shout out Matt Barnes. Shout
Walker Evans 05:22
out Matt Barnes here, yeah. But
Tim Fulton 05:24
friend of the pod, friend of the pod, Matt Barnes, tell us about home field Grandview. Yeah. So
Walker Evans 05:29
this is the spot that was once Balboa, and then became round two, and now it’s kind of like right across from the Grandview theater area, the Grandview strip, yeah. So it’s a new project that Matt Barnes has been sort of like an advisor, sort of creative director, I think I’m sharing. He did the interior design, yeah, basically. And it’s got hints of leisure club to it. If you’ve heard Matt Barnes name, that’s probably wise from leisure club, yeah. So it kind of feels like a little bit of Dad’s, you know, garage kind of vibe, you know, sports. But, like, not, I mean, I guess, technically, Dad,
Tim Fulton 06:04
sorry, I guess we’re showing our age. It’s like, if I collected sports member, but it’s a lot of, like, 90s, yeah,
Walker Evans 06:12
80s and 90s, yeah, sports nerd kind of stuff. So it’s got, like, a cool vibe to it. And so when, 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, yeah, cool stuff. How
Tim Fulton 06:25
cool does that look? Yeah, 12 on the list, Capitol grill.
Walker Evans 06:29
Yeah, this one was kind of a surprise to me, because I had never heard of Capital Grill, but I guess it’s a chain. There’s like one in Cincinnati. They’re like, all over the country, but there’s never been one in Columbus. So I think that was part of the appeal. Whenever there’s like a chain that expands to Columbus, those stories do well for people that know what that chain is, yeah. But it also went into the old champs spot champs with two piece Okay, over at the Linux 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. Great. Yeah,
Tim Fulton 07:03
you know that it has a second run movie theater. Now, sorry, it’s a first run movie theater, but it’s like, not AMC or, yeah, one of the big ones.
Walker Evans 07:10
I 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. That is
Tim Fulton 07:20
where my daughter and I tend to go if we’re going to a movie, but it feels sort of like like a second run movie theater. It feels like a second run movie theater, like there is no there. There’s 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. Yeah, and it’s in the form of just a receipt.
Walker Evans 07:41
Do they still have the extra concessions, like at the ends of the hallway areas?
Tim Fulton 07:46
I haven’t been to one down there, but I I guarantee you the sort of booth for it is still there, but it is not staff.
Walker Evans 07:53
Yeah, I don’t think AMC was even staffing those for a while, like it was one of those things that had because it was 24 screens, which was probably the biggest one at the time, before the 30 at Easton opened, right? But that AMC was, like, a real big deal in like, the late 90s, yeah, and so they probably had three concession stands, and then eventually, yeah, abandoned that. There’s, yeah, there’s no need for that, yeah. But anyway, Capital Grill, and it’s also, there’s a lot of new steak stuff, yeah, yeah, because, like, butcher and Rose new Cameron Mitchell just opened, right? There’s the return of Smith and Wolinski, oh, relocating from Easton and moving downtown, okay? And then it was replaced out at Easton by a new steakhouse that’s opening in December. Okay, there’s just Yeah, steak on steak on steak everywhere. So that’s the trend, I suppose, yep. And now you can get it Linux Town Center too, after your movie, after you go watch Deadpool and Wolverine number
Tim Fulton 08:41
Wow. 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 question number or sorry, number 11 film production in Dublin,
Walker Evans 08:56
yeah. So there is a pretty big new project from fallback studios. I want to say, I’m pulling up the article right now. I want to say it’s like a 200,000 square foot building in Dublin, its 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 is that their struggle to get more film, both creative and commercial projects, shot in Ohio, is that you’ll 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, right? And this will help to address some of those issues and get more projects shot
Tim Fulton 09:39
here, which is obvious, but it only increased the cost if you have to, like, fly in people, yeah, and yeah. So it’s building up basically the back end infrastructure for yes, we can do productions here, yeah,
Walker Evans 09:52
yeah. And a lot of those folks you know are in like Cleveland and Cincinnati, where more film projects are being shot. So you don’t have to necessarily fly the member, but. Bring them in from Cleveland. So this is sort of like putting putting a flag in the ground and saying, We can do this here in Columbus. We’re a growing city so, and pretty fast turnaround, because it’s an existing building. I think it’s planned open next summer. So 2025,
Tim Fulton 10:12
okay, so yeah, just got it put in some sound stages, and there you go. Yeah, number 10 on the list, updated downtown tower. Yeah. So this is the North Market tower.
Walker Evans 10:24
No different one, okay,
Tim Fulton 10:26
yeah, tell me more. This
Walker Evans 10:27
is a proposed building. It was announced originally last year, kind of behind where 16 bit, yeah. Okay, that whole area, like South Fourth Street area. So it would demolish a couple buildings behind and then take over like a large parking lot. So that’s rich Street and Fourth Street.
Tim Fulton 10:50
We’re losing our sign. We’re losing the Columbus love sign. No
Walker Evans 10:53
another, another. Like block east. Oh, okay, that’s it. Like main close between third I forget that’s on Main Street. This on red 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. Okay, so it’s, it’s actually gotten gotten taller. It’s going to require a few more demolitions of some of the smaller if you, if you look at the Google view of all those buildings, like, where little Palace, little Palace not being demolished, but the buildings behind them are a collection of like, hodgepodge, like garages that were added 40 years ago to these buildings that are 100 years old. So
Tim Fulton 11:36
it’s interesting some of that is going to go away. Okay, okay, yeah, if this is built in line with that one number nine skinny tower in Franklinton,
Walker Evans 11:45
yes. So I think the difference is that the first one we were just talking about is from someone who has built buildings before. Okay, 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, okay, like a lot
Tim Fulton 12:09
of the sorry. Let’s start back just a little bit. Yeah. What is it?
Walker Evans 12:13
What is it? So this spring and summer, this developer went to the west Franklinton area commission with a proposal, okay, to build an 11 story, like thin, sort of like almost pencil tower, okay, on a very small lot on the middle of a residential, like residential industrial street, I should say, okay, very far, like West into Franklinton. Okay, so not, not East Franklinton, where we’re talking about the bottoms, yeah, yeah, yeah. 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, tall building, and immediately, you know, there’s pushback, like, this is a weird spot. Why? You know? Why? Right here, yada yada. But I think it was rejected because, like, the floor heights weren’t up to fire code. Like, there were a lot of mechanical and, like, engineering issues with, like, it just, what blueprints. Okay, this is not up to any kind of code, like, but
Tim Fulton 13:13
somebody did it, and some, and you would assume that they’re a licensed professional, yeah, right.
Walker Evans 13:20
Well, I think a lot of times when you reach this point in the process, you’ve got architects and engineers and, like, certain people, like, you have a team of people, yeah, it sounds like it’s just the one developer coming with a plan without a team. And again, this is just what I’m interesting,
Tim Fulton 13:34
okay, I’ve not attended anything. So that’s the skepticism that you were referencing
Walker Evans 13:38
earlier. Yeah, the skepticism said, like, this doesn’t really feel like, like, Come back when you’re have a serious plan, because this doesn’t make any sense. Yeah, okay, let alone the site is a bit of a strange I location.
Tim Fulton 13:51
Have to believe that there’s a greater story here,
Walker Evans 13:54
probably, and, you know, and it, for me, it’s all kind of second and third hand information. Yeah, I’ve not talked to the developer. I’ve not talked to, you know, the area commission, yeah, you know, Brent has been, you know, watching the meetings and just kind of giving what’s said in public. But yeah, it’s probably more behind the scenes Interesting.
Tim Fulton 14:09
Yeah, number eight on our list, local cantina Short North closes. Yeah, I
Walker Evans 14:14
think this one really caught people off guard. I know why you’re laughing.
Tim Fulton 14:18
Okay, yeah, we’ll get to why it’s funny, yeah.
Walker Evans 14:22
So, yeah, this had been in that location, I think, for about a decade, maybe a little less than a decade. This is the cab, right on the cab, yeah, the entrance between the Short North and downtown, formerly of where Mojo lounge was back in the day, and there was a burger place in there, stack city burgers. Yep, for a minute, wow. And the reason I know all this 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. Okay, 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 you got tenants. Were you. Got Mojo lounge was there for a decade, yeah. And you had that burger place was there for like, four years, and you’ve had this almost for another decade, so like, 25 year history, three things in there, like, yeah, I don’t think that’s a curse. I
Tim Fulton 15:10
will say the south end of the cap, on that same side might be cursed, though, because that has been, it’s gone through quite a few iterations than that. Yeah. So, you know, ill informed or just didn’t know exactly which storefront it was, but,
Walker Evans 15:24
but retail churn is a thing that is like natural in like 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, yeah, 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 flack that like the university district of the shore North
Tim Fulton 15:58
does absolutely downtown when there’s a closure. And so why is it funny?
Walker Evans 16:01
It’s funny because the way we found out about it. Susan, who you know no longer, is with us. Yeah, shout out. Susan, she was sorry. She
Tim Fulton 16:09
went to a different publication. Yeah, she’s
Walker Evans 16:11
a business first, yeah, yeah, she’s
Tim Fulton 16:13
still with us. Susan, still friend of the pod, Yeah, indeed, friend of the cast.
Walker Evans 16:19
She went by camera, she drove by, or was walking by, but saw a sign on the door, and it was dark, and she, like, got out, or, like, went up and looked at it, yeah, and it was had some swears. Can we swear? We can swear, yeah, we don’t swear. Yeah. It said something to the effect of, like, this location doesn’t fuck anymore. Very clearly written by, like, an employee, a disgruntled employee, most likely, yeah. But I think the sign, she took a photo, but the sign was only up for like a day, and then somebody took it
Tim Fulton 16:43
down. This place doesn’t fuck anymore, yeah, but I
Walker Evans 16:47
think it’s just surprising, because there’s a ton of local cantina locations. There’s like 15 of them or so, yeah, over the region. And so I think people were just surprised that that was the one that closed. Yeah, popular when I go buy it, yeah, there’s always people on the patio. You always got to look
Tim Fulton 17:02
at the market. I market economics, right? Like, how much was your rent there was probably, yeah, and it’s, it’s sporadic a little bit because of the convention center there, sure. So yeah, number seven on the list, I don’t know if you is this just coincidence? It is a coincidence the title seven big projects, yeah, looking ahead to the completion of big things, you basically did a roundup of like, things that were in progress, yeah, and people loved it, yeah? Well,
Walker Evans 17:29
shout out to Brent, who did this. But yeah, we like because we write so much about development and projects, and it’s, 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, like, 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, like, seven things that are either under construction or in proposal, all built. What? How many apartment units are they adding collectively? How many? You know, what’s the square footage of all the retail space they’re adding collectively? Like, 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 Amtrak downtown, Amtrak station and return of Amtrak service to be done, the capital line, which is the new kind of bike pedestrian loop in downtown. Some of the link us, the first phases of link us to be done, and then also the Columbus Symphony Orchestra Hall,
Tim Fulton 18:43
okay? And these are all in very disparate phases, yeah, yeah.
Walker Evans 18:47
Like in town and the North Park are under construction, right? Airport hasn’t even started, yeah. Amtrak is still awaiting a lot of, you know, boxes to be checked, yeah, but just to kind of think about, like, you know, in the next five to 10 years, what these seven things could do, you know, on a pretty transformative scale, adding jobs and new transit opportunities and, you know, entertainment and housing and just what they all kind of mean together. And it was very well read, which is great, because Brent put a lot of time into this.
Tim Fulton 19:18
Yeah, good. Yeah. Number six on the list, dispensaries prep for recreational marijuana use, yeah.
Walker Evans 19:25
So this was an Ohio capital journal article. Shout out to them, friend of the pop. 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. Yeah, surprise, surprise. And it feels kind of interesting and timely, because, again, not to date the podcast. But yeah, two days ago. Yeah, sales actually began in the state of Ohio. So I think a lot of people were kind of crying foul that, you know, our state, run mostly by Republicans, were kind of dragging their 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 910, months to go from passage to implementation, where
Tim Fulton 20:10
we already had medical marijuana, right? Almost. I think all the ones that are online now are former medical only, like
Walker Evans 20:18
a dual ability to 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. They’re like, there’s all there’s a giant backlog of people asking for their permits, hmm. And then here’s like the first 10. So there’s only like two locations in central Ohio where you can go get it. So foul again, it’s a little it feels like, yeah, yeah, we’ll do it, but we’ll do the bare minimum. Yeah, sort of a thing, which is like, it’s weird because it’s like, kind of against the will of the voters, but
Tim Fulton 20:47
yeah, well. And also, I think part of the, I don’t know if angst is the right word, but the 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, and so we should do this quickly, yeah? Like with alcohol right next on the list. We’re at number five now. Yeah, a throwback, yes, giant trolls. It was a repost, yeah? So this was a piece that you guys have done. Where’s the park? It’s
Walker Evans 21:23
just north of Dayton. It’s the allwood Audubon Nature Center. And they have these giant trolls. Yeah, this Danish artist, Thomas dombo, I think that’s how you pronounce this, okay, has built these giant trolls out of like, wood in places like all over the country, all over the world, really, okay? You know, 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 like, 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, okay? 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. Yeah, it blew up. It was, like one of the best articles of the year. Okay? And so, kind of on a whim this summer, she reposted it just kind of 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. Yeah, yeah. 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, okay, and a little park, like, right outside of Seattle. So, and again, you know, you had to park your car in the lot and then hike about, you know, three quarters of a mile to go find it right on the beach and then hike back. And so it was fun. Okay, yeah,
Tim Fulton 22:44
number four on list, another Roundup, top 10 brewery patios. Yeah,
Walker Evans 22:49
yeah. 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 kind of highlight her favorite patios, exclusively to like breweries. Okay, yeah, 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, like, everyone knows seven son has a cool patio, yeah, you know. But like, what are, what are some of the other ones? And it was, it was really well read, good,
Tim Fulton 23:22
and also sort of evergreen for the summer, right? Yeah, yeah. I’m
Walker Evans 23:26
pretty sure every single place in here is, is still open and going strong. There’s been a couple of like, closures recently, pretentious barrel house, that’s right, yeah. I think they’re still in the process of closing. This might be their final week. It’s a couple weeks. Week. It’s a couple weeks, yeah, because I 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. Yeah,
Tim Fulton 23:55
coming up at number three on the list, Easton and Polaris property sold.
Walker Evans 23:59
Yeah, so I think this got a lot of people’s attention, because it makes it sound like the it sound like the malls were sold, but these are properties that are a part of the development, but not the main part. So okay, if you go out to Easton, if you’ve ever been over to like, where the you know the target and, yeah, there’s what else is over there. There are Kohl’s, there’s
Tim Fulton 24:19
a target, there’s a Lowe’s, there’s and then just south of it is, like, where? Like, there’s DSW, DSW and a Marshalls, yeah.
Walker Evans 24:28
So those, those kinds of properties, there were two very large ones, but they were bought by the same company. Okay, I thought it was, it was kind of interesting Brent, Brent Ruth’s piece again. So there’s a Chicago based company bought each of them. The the Easton is a 50 acre parcel, and the Polaris area was a 60 acre parcel, okay, so pretty big acquisitions. I don’t think a whole lot’s gonna change. Yeah, it was just more of like an interesting, interesting acquisition, well, and interesting
Tim Fulton 24:55
that it’s so high up on the list, too, right? Yeah, yeah. Uh. Number two high ramp closure, slash highway work. Yeah.
Walker Evans 25:04
So this was the closure of one of the exits from 315 315 to six to 70. And these, these are kind of articles I sort of feel like people get really worked up about because they’re like, that’s the way I That’s my to get home, and I’m gonna have to go a minute out of my way. And it’s Yeah, but these kinds of closures also last years, yeah, because this thing has been going on forever, I was a little surprised it was so well read, because it’s really just, it’s almost a PSA, yeah, there. But I decided to go back and look at, do you know how long the whole split fix, the whole 7071 has been going and going, No, do you want to make a guess when construction started? I’m talking about the whole thing. The whole thing, not just the current phase.
Tim Fulton 25:53
22 years ago.
Walker Evans 25:55
That’s probably when, like the planning started. Construction started in 2010 Okay, so it’s been going on for 14 years. Okay, the current end date is TBD, okay, but the planning for probably started another five or six years before that. So this, this is something that’s been talked about for two decades now, yeah,
Tim Fulton 26:13
when you know the meme right, like, Hey, you should be just like the 7071 split. Always keep working on
Walker Evans 26:21
yourself. Yeah, that’s good. I thought you’re gonna say something about orange barrels being, like, our official state mascot. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the crazy thing about it too, is that this is a $1.4 billion project, like, altogether, and you think about, like, what that could mean in terms of other infrastructure, you know, spending?
Tim Fulton 26:40
What am I like? What’s the because this doesn’t add capacity. It doesn’t add capacity. Just makes it smoother. It
Walker Evans 26:47
makes the because before, like, 70 and 71 came together, and then you had to, like, cross over each other, yeah, to stay on what you’re going and then split again, yeah? And that was a very short lane, and there’s a lot of like, entry and exit points, like every other street had ramps, right? And they’re making it more so it’s like, you get off once, and then you have access to all the exits, yeah? So there’s less, it’s basically less merging
Tim Fulton 27:11
and less congestion, theoretically, right? Yeah. But it’s not
Walker Evans 27:15
like it’s going from a two lane highway to a four lane highway, right?
Tim Fulton 27:18
It’s just, well, there’s no late there’s no real estate for it to go, not other places.
Walker Evans 27:23
They are converting a lot of the like grass slopes to wall, so they’re adding, okay, 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 yeah, term to use for this, but Well, like
Tim Fulton 27:39
I was on front. I was going to the art festival from like, 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, like past the courthouse on a weekend. And so I like, go back back to front, and I get all the way up, and I’m like, Where’d the road go? Yeah? Like, the bridge is just gone, yeah? And I was like, I guess I’m going back up to high street. Now, it’s been like
Walker Evans 28:01
that for a couple of months. But if you don’t normally go that way, yeah, we go to that the brewery district, Kroger, quite a bit. So Front Street would be a normal path home. And it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s gone. Yeah, it’s, it’s been pretty messy. And I think now that some of those big flyover ramps are coming, like on the south end, around like maranova and stuff, people really kind of visually, seeing the skyline change with new highway ramps and, yeah, getting a little more upset that, like this is what we’re dumping billions. I mean, by the time this is done, it’s probably gonna be 2 billion. Yeah, make a wild, wild guess, I would assume, and we’re getting no transit, no trains, yeah, yeah.
Tim Fulton 28:38
Number one on our list, roll bikes closure, yeah,
Walker Evans 28:42
this 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 28:52
This is a bicycle chain. Well, I mean, they have like, three stores, sure, yeah, what’s
Walker Evans 28:57
with? How many do you need is to a chain?
Tim Fulton 28:59
I mean, it had multiple locations, but it is local,
Walker Evans 29:02
yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they had filed for chapter 11, like late last year, so they were restructuring. So it was, I don’t think it should have caught people by too much surprise, like usually that that that means a lot, but I think the the pandemic really kind of put them in a pinch, and they had expanded into bike production, so they were making role branded bikes, like manufacturing and selling their own line of bikes, okay? And I think that kind of might have gotten them into a financial situation that they couldn’t bounce back,
Tim Fulton 29:33
possibly overextend it, or there’s a lot of investment there, depending on how you’re sourcing it, and yeah,
Walker Evans 29:39
but I’m, personally, I was bummed I would take my bike to get, you know, tuned up at the Bexley location. Yeah? Super nice people, super knowledgeable. Okay, so that a bit bit of a bummer, because we need more bike stores, not less, yeah,
Tim Fulton 29:51
well, and interesting that it’s the top red thing, right? Like people see, people care, yeah?
Walker Evans 29:57
And sometimes, you know, it really boil. Down to, like, did we get this story up first? Hmm, before the dispatch or business first, or anyone else? Yeah, you know. So sometimes that dictates how popular something ends up being,
Tim Fulton 30:10
because that’s the thing people share, start sharing, bemoan, yeah, yeah, just
Walker Evans 30:15
getting out there first. But yeah, so that that’s the those are the summer trends, I guess. Yeah,
Tim Fulton 30:19
those are the top 15. Yeah. 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 the confluence cast.com, please rate, subscribe, 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 at the confluencecast.com our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I’m your host. Tim Fulton, have a great week. You.
