The 36 acres of land alongside Dublin Road has seen quite the transformation over the last century. In the 1900s, it was used as farm lands until it transitioned to a quarry, and as time passed, it became a construction waste landfill.
Wagenbrenner Property Management Development, now Thrive Companies, bought the land and began to clean it up and prep for a new project to bring more accessibility and business to the area. It was then that the seed of Grandview Crossing was planted.
“This land has never fully been online. We are a landlocked community of 1.4 miles with very limited land to work with,” Grandview Heights Mayor Greta Kearns says. “Wagenbrenner came in and you saw several years of compacting earth with large cranes. We’ve been watching this with a lot of interest and the project is exceeding our expectations in terms of what this could be.”
What started as a project to bring both large and medium sized retailers to Grandview has become an opportunity to build roads and offer a mixed-use space to the community. The project will feature six retail and restaurant buildings, three senior center buildings, residential apartments, office space, and more.
“The mixed-use concept is something that works well for us and is more in line with our vision for our land use,” Kearns says. “It’s a great corner, not only for Ohio State, but for the larger Columbus community with it being on the intersection of three large highways and so close to downtown.”
Kearns is encouraged and excited to see how this project will continue to tie the community together and offer new experiences to residents and visitors.
“From a tax-based prospective, we think this is much better than a strip mall,” Kearns says. “From the flavor and culture of the community, it’s a vibrancy that brings all the things that we love.”
A delayed start
While the land has been in development for years, last March, Thrive and Grandview Heights were ready to kick off construction, specifically with a Marriott Hotel.
“We had a kick-off meeting the beginning of March, and then two weeks later it was all completely shut down,” Joel Lilly, principal and chief financial officer of Thrive, says.
While it has put a delay on certain milestones and changed original deadlines, Thrive and the Grandview community push forward.
Underground utility work began in January 2020 and was completed in March. The first office building began construction in February, but that was when construction began to see delays due to the pandemic.
“If we didn’t have COVID, we would have 250,000 square feet of office leased up currently,” Lilly says.
As 2021 begins, Grandview Crossing sets out to accomplish a few major milestones by summer. They include getting an office building leased and people working there, traffic lights installed and hopefully residents moving into apartments.
To say the excitement surrounding the new year is big would be an understatement.
Tying it all together
The addition of the Grandview Crossing development will provide jobs, recreation spots and additional living options to the community. On top of the retail and food-related plans, Thrive plans on introducing a Grandview Market similar to the North Market at Bridge Park, but on a smaller scale. Though it won’t fully open until 2022, the excitement grows.
There will be 10-12 vendor spots and a restaurant to anchor the new market. It will also tie in to a park featuring three different sectors: one for small events and overflow seating of the restaurant, a traditional play area and a dog park, too.
“It’ll be great to have that type of restaurants and prepared food for our office users and residents that don’t want to go and spend $20 every time they go out to eat,” Lilly says. “They can spend a little less and have it close to the park and spend the weekends and evenings there and we are hoping that it will bring a lot of the Grandview community who isn’t working there.”
The vision for the park area expands well beyond brick and mortar. It is all part of the Grandview experience and continues its tradition of being a tight-knit community.
“We are a heavy amenity community and have great connectivity to the region,” Kearns says. “We are very walkable and intersect with the bike paths and this development was planned to fit right into that concept.”
A promising future
Grandview Crossing has been a long time coming and Thrive – as well as the community at large – is excited to see it come to fruition after unexpected delays.
The team at Thrive has worked to ensure this project fits the space and Grandview’s culture.
“We’ve done multiple sites similar in size and one of the keys to that is you have to create a sense of place,” Eric Wagenbrenner, principal and executive vice president of development at Thrive Companies, says. “People don’t want to feel like they are on an island and feel like you are all by yourself.”
“These 60-plus-acre sites are not easy but it becomes much easier when you are in proximity to such a great community and working with an administration like Mayor Kearns’,” Lilly adds.
While Grandview may be a smaller community compared to some of the neighboring suburbs, one thing remains consistent – its devotion to connecting and strengthening the ties of the community through development.
“This is exceeding our expectations; it is all about the experience and it being a destination,” Bob Dvoraczky, director of finance for Grandview Heights, says. “We are very blessed with this location.”
Grandview Crossing by the numbers
- 55 acres of mixed-use development land
- More than 1,000 luxury apartments offering unique living options close to downtown
- 250,000 sq. ft. of office space
- 108,000 sq. ft. of retail space
Rocco Falleti is the editor. Feedback welcome at rfalleti@cityscenecolumbus.com.
