the urban news for the week ending Sunday, July 13, 2008
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 Fithch Inc. is moving its North American headquarters to the Brewery District in a bid to help the product brand and design firm catch a bit of inspiration from the urban Columbus setting.
While Columbus bides its time waiting for the right market conditions and anchor tenant for its next high-rise, Cincinnati is about to build its tallest tower at 41 stories and Cleveland is preparing to add two 20-story buildings. All three are planned to open in 2011.
An auto-parts company that three years ago accepted incentives to bring its headquarters to Columbus is moving to Indiana, lured by similar tax breaks there.
Columbus City Council will consider ordinance 1090-2008 to authorize the release of $503,670 of bond proceeds currently held in the RiverSouth Area Redevelopment Project Fund in support of Columbus Downtown Development Corporation's plan to repair the two alleys adjoining the northwest portion of The Lazarus Building to complete a plan to demolish the sky bridge connecting the Lazarus Building to City Center and repair the Lazarus facade, preparing it for street-level retail.
For the next 30 years, property taxes from every new building Downtown will stay Downtown to pay for parking garages, roads, parks and other improvements.
The building boom that created the Columbus skyline in the 1970s and '80s is long past. The city has not added a downtown office skyscraper in 10 years, though it picked up housing bookends with Miranova and the Condominiums at North Bank Park.
The oldest and newest skyscrapers in Columbus stand apart in time, in the skyline, in form and in function. Yet the bookends in the city's high-rise history share a few common elements.
Look at any Columbus postcard with the favored skyline view, looking east from across the Scioto River, and it's impossible not to see the imprint of the Galbreath Co.
Columbus City Council has approved a 30-year tax shift that will redirect city property taxes to projects in downtown.
Redevelop Our Area Responsibly (ROAR), a group composed of organizations surrounding Copper Stadium, last Thursday held an open meeting to inform residents on why its members believe a racetrack would be detrimental.
The company's primary role will be to review and analyze any financial proposals presented by Nationwide Realty, the developer of Grandview Yard, and report on the financial impact a proposal will have on the city, Conley said.
To prevent a repeat of the current mortgage mess, Bernanke said the Fed will adopt rules cracking down on a range of shady lending practices that has burned many of the nation's riskiest "subprime" borrowers - those with spotty credit or low incomes - who were hardest hit by the housing and credit debacles.
The Federal Reserve will issue new rules next week aimed at protecting future home buyers from dubious lending practices, its most sweeping response to a housing crisis that has propelled foreclosures to record highs.
Industrial conglomerate Siemens AG, which has operations in Ohio, said yesterday it will cut 16,750 jobs, or 4.2 percent of its global work force, to streamline operations and slice nearly $2 billion in costs in the face of a slowing economy.
Cardinal Health will eliminate 600 jobs, 90 of them in central Ohio, and take a $63 million charge against earnings as it consolidates operations.
The first question school officials face is why a district that is significantly smaller than the one that successfully sought a 6.95-mill levy in 2004 now seeks a far larger tax increase.
The Columbus school district needs special consent from two state agencies to put a bond issue on the November ballot because its debt would exceed a statutory threshold.
Ohio ranked 47th in the U.S. in entrepreneurial activity in 2007, according to a recent study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The nonprofit organization based in Kansas City supports entrepreneurs.
Gasoline prices have eased a little in Ohio, while fuel costs have risen to another new all-time high nationwide.
Gahanna's government will end up paying $16.5 million for its share of the Creekside development, $6 million more than originally planned.
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