Columbus Monthly / March 2012 / Talk about the Main Street dam

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Talk about the Main Street dam

Insider was surprised recently to read in the Dispatch about a Hilliard man who said he bought old pieces of the demolished Ohio Penitentiary to build a sculpture on his property. It turns out so was Nationwide Realty Investors, the owner of the prison remnants. “We weren’t aware that any of the limestone from the penitentiary had been sold,” says Nationwide Realty spokeswoman Tina Guegold. The artist, Tom Herlihy, told the Dispatch he bought the pieces from Colvin Gravel, a Nationwide contractor. Guegold says Nationwide never authorized Colvin to sell the prison stone. Dan Colvin, president of Colvin Gravel, says Herlihy apparently persuaded an employee at the business to either sell or give him the pieces, though Colvin wasn’t sure if the materials actually came from the pen. He described it as “rubble” separated from architecturally valuable Ohio Pen materials that Nationwide was saving. Guegold says Nationwide has kept some slabs of concrete and limestone at Colvin, as well as another undisclosed location. “We typically don’t talk about where because, frankly, we don’t want people driving up with a truck,” she says.

The Longaberger Company is selling off a piece of its Central Ohio holdings. Martin Shrader, an Indianapolis-based developer, told Insider in early February that he and his partners have a contract to purchase The Place Off The Square, the Newark hotel owned by the basket-making business. Once the deal is finalized—the sale was expected to close at the end of February—the new owners plan to spend about $4.5 million on a rehab of the building. “Everything you feel, see and touch is going to be brand new,” Shrader says. Shrader and his partners will close the hotel during the work and plan to reopen in June under a new name, the Newark Metropolitan Hotel. “We plan on marketing the hotel more to the public,” he says. Longaberger spokesman Russell Mack confirms the deal, saying the company decided to unload the hotel to concentrate on its core products. “This transaction is good for our business, it’s good for the hotel and it’s good for the community,” he writes in an e-mail.

Insider has learned that Ohio State and several of Central Ohio’s top business players are exploring ways to strengthen their ties in information technology. The university, Nationwide, Limited Brands, Cardinal Health and Battelle are looking at how they can jointly use their purchasing power as both a smart business strategy and an economic development boost for Columbus. What’s more, the collaboration might result in a consolation prize of sorts from the recent unsuccessful courtship with Sears. The retailing giant, which learned about the effort as it considered moving its headquarters to Ohio, is considering joining the potential Central Ohio alliance even though the company ultimately chose to stay in Illinois.

Momentum appears to be building for the removal of the Main Street dam—a significant piece in the goal of revitalizing the Scioto River in downtown Columbus. Insider hears that Mayor Mike Coleman is making the idea one of his top discussion points for 2012. Nothing is definite, city officials say, but the removal of the dam near Miranova would help the river return to a more natural, flowing state and add green space as the waterway reverts to a narrower width. Whether to move forward, however, will hinge in large part on a $50,000 feasibility study that is expected to be completed in March. “The riverfront is important land, and we’ve made investments with the Scioto Mile; we’ve made investments with COSI,” says Amy Taylor, chief operating officer for Capitol South/Columbus Downtown Development Corp. “Now it’s dealing with the pink elephant in the middle of it, which is this artificially wide river.”