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Shopping Centers Today -> May 2004
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CAP PROJECT IN COLUMBUS PUTS RETAIL ON A BRIDGE
BY IAN RITTER
In an interesting subscription to the notion that the pleasure of a journey lies not in the arrival but in the trip itself, Continental Real Estate Cos. has brought retail to a bridge over an interstate in Columbus, Ohio.
The project is called the Cap at Union Station. Named after a now demolished railway station, its 26,000 square feet include local stores as well as cafés and restaurants, all designed to encourage people to linger while crossing the highway.
“There was just a highway bridge there, and who wants to be a pedestrian over a freeway? It is important for us to better tie our neighborhoods together,” said Bill Burns, vice president of marketing at the Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce. “The project is great for the community in lots of different ways.”
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Though the bridge is modern, the idea is not. The inspiration came from the elegant 18th-century Pulteney Bridge over the River Avon, in Bath, England, which also contains stores, explains Jack Lucks, Continental’s chairman. Pulteney Bridge was one of only four bridges in the world that have shops on them, according to the book, Pulteney Bridge. If that is true, then the Cap brings it to five.
For Continental, which has invested $7.2 million in the venture, the Cap is a “gift without losing our shirt” to the community, as Lucks puts it. Continental normally builds open-air shopping centers, and this was an unusual challenge, he says.
First of all, Continental had to secure air rights from the state to build on the structure. Then it had to work quickly, during a period between February 2002 and last September, while the Ohio Department of Transportation was widening I-670.
“You wouldn’t do this normally as a developer because it’s too much trouble,” Lucks said. “But you’d do it in your hometown.”
The company got some help from the city. Continental has a 10-year real estate tax abatement on the property, and the municipality paid for the utility improvements. The company pays the city $1 per year in rent for the space.
“You need the state and the city to go along with you, or you’d never get it done,” Lucks said.
Tenants are mainly local; they include clothiers, a coffee and wine bar and a pasta restaurant. Continental anticipates their openings to start in the fall.
“This area is so artsy; it’s not what you want to see in a regional shopping center,” Lucks said. “What you get is not the ‘same-old same-old.’ ”
Arguably, some highways have destroyed a city by cutting its areas off one from another. But the Cap counters this by reconnecting neighborhoods, proponents say. Furthermore, it makes it easier for residents to walk to the city center to shop, Burns says. “Retail downtown has been suffering,” Burns said. “The Cap is a good place to start to bring momentum.”
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