Olde Towne East

http://www.vimeo.com/2417741 Everything you ever wanted to know about the real estate markets of Olde Towne East, Franklin Park, Woodland Park and Bronzeville. These near East neighborhoods of Columbus continue to be on the rise as they find their way on to the radar of more and more homebuyers looking for quality, character and proximity to Downtown Columbus at exceptionally affordable prices.

Columbus Neighborhood Spotlight on King Lincoln/Bronzeville District

I’ve loved the first two installments of this series focusing on the Short North and German Village. Tonight, we get to see the next Columbus Neighborhood’s history come to life. The third installment in WOSU’s Columbus Neighborhoods series premieres tonight at 9pm on WOSU TV and showcases the King-Lincoln neighborhood. Learn more about the deep history of Columbus and its core neighborhoods during this one-hour documentary produced by WOSU.

King-Lincoln Documentary Premieres April 19 (tonight!) at 9pm.

About the King-Lincoln Documentary:
At its height in the 1930s, hundreds of people filled its bustling streets. The nation’s top musicians played its many theatres and clubs. African Americans of all walks of life lived and shopped there. Its two fabled streets, Mt. Vernon Avenue and Long Street, anchored the neighborhood that became the commercial and cultural heart of Columbus’s African American community.

Columbus Neighborhoods: King-Lincoln shows how this thriving neighborhood developed on land once used by Buffalo Bill when he brought his wild west show to Columbus. Because Columbus was practically—if not officially—segregated, a self-contained and self-reliant African American community developed and flourished on the city’s Near East side. The documentary explores the area’s rich and vibrant music heritage and includes features on Elijah Pierce, Aminah Robinson, Roman Johnson, and other artists. The program also explores the neighborhood’s demise as the interstate separated it from the rest of the city and shows how the renovation of the Lincoln Theatre may be a sign of the community’s rebirth.

For information on purchasing the Columbus Neighborhoods documentaries, click here.

NOBO – North of Broad (affordable new housing on Columbus’ near East side) is Alive and Well

New homes don’t pop up in old neighborhoods every day. It happens, certainly. Builders or would-be homeowners buy vacant lots and put a new house on them. It’s called in-fill housing. At a time when many condo projects in and around Columbus are/have been flailing, North Of Broad has ever so slowly continued selling homes in a neighborhood full of vacant homes that is still struggling to regain an identity while balancing new interest in historic homes with gentrification.

Along the way, Columbus Housing Partnership’s Homeport division has built the City’s first LEED Certified home and buy, develop and market new projects. Here is one new home-owner’s heartfelt appreciation for her new home.

You should also know that, “Homeport Housing Advisory Center services give people the information they need to improve their financial lives and prepare to purchase their own homes. Homebuyer and Housing Counseling Programs also work to address the underlying social and economic needs facing families within Columbus neighborhoods. The Homeport Housing Advisory Center helps people understand that purchasing a home comes with many obligations. The Homeport Housing Advisory Center teaches its clients how to be responsible homeowners and good neighbors.”

The Olde Towne East Real Estate Market Right Now

It’s been a sometimes tough couple of year’s for real estate in and around Olde Towne East.  Let’s take a look at what happened in Olde Towne East, Woodland Park, and Franklin Park Real Estate this Summer from June 1 – Today.

Mt Vernon to Main Street, I-71 to Neslon Road….

This gorgeous 3 bed, 2 bath 2576 sf home on Wilson ave, listed at $249,900 is currently in contract.

As usual, glean what you can from these market statistics. Olde Towne East is still a hit and miss neighborhood so when you start averaging sales together for varying degrees of homes for sale and varying levels of move-in readiness, it begins to mean very little. Your best bet? Come over to Olde Towne East, get out of your car, walk around and marvel at what was once home to Columbus’ richest and most powerful families.

Homes on the market: As of today there are 121 Active Near East Columbus homes for sale.

• Averaging 2,160 sf,
• $136,707  list price
• $59.35 $/sf and
• 149 days on market.

Currently, there are 21 Near East side Homes in Contract

–contingent on financing/inspections as of today: 12 Including the beautiful 39 West Franklin Park last listed at $299,900 as well as three condos a few foreclosures…

• Averaging 2239 sf
• $89,431 list price
• $37.12/sf
• 185  days on market

Olde Towne East Homes Firmly In Contract passed inspection period as of today: 9

• Averaging 1752 sf
• $90,233 list price
• $55.39 $/sf
• 59  days on market

Olde Towne East area Homes Closed from June 1 – Sept 15: 32

• Averaging 2004 sf
• $85,746 avg List but a $82,252 Sale price or 96%
• $31.67 $/sf
• 89 days on market – these numbers would seem to indicate a mere 4 month supply of homes, not really indicative of the true market place.
• 5 New Builds in the North of Broad project on North 20th and 21st sold this summer with two others currently in contract.
  

Olde Towne East area Homes in contract with escape clausesthat a prospective buyer could conceivably swoop in and buy : 0

Interstate 70/71 Split Fix will stress neighborhoods but eventually be good for Columbus Real Estate

Olde Towne East and the King Lincoln District will be eventual winners

If you’re considering a purchase on the Near East side of Columbus or in the German Village, Schumacher place communities, you should know that the Ohio Department of Transportation is going to tear up the highways on the East and South sides of downtown, where Interstates 70 and 71 meet and are the same road for a stretch.

Right now it’s a mess and the most congested, accident prone stretch of highway in the state.  Two generations ago, the highways tore apart neighborhoods and severed the Columbus Community while razing gorgeous and important residential and commercial buildings. Early ODOT renderings showed caps re-connecting downtown Columbus to its neighborhoods similar to the cap over I-670 that connects the Short North to downtown.

Now that construction is inching ever closer, it appears that only one of the bridges will be capped with enough real estate on top of it to actually build something – at Long Street over I-71, a big win for the King Lincoln Bronzeville neighborhood.  In the beginning though, there will only be a grassy field on the cap until a developer with some money decides to build there.

Most of the rest of the bridges be will built with the ability and strength to support a cap with buildings on it but that’d be an entirely new construction project or projects. Many Olde Towne East residents are upset that the project will wipe out a couple historic buildings on Parsons Avenue, including Carabar and ET Paul Tires–the Country’s  first gas station (I know, the irony).

I love the idea of a functional Broad Street bridge over I-71 that is pedestrian friendly with no on or off ramps coming onto Broad. Throw in that treed, park like median we’ve all been hearing about for years, extend it to Franklin Park and we’ll be in business.

It’s going to be a pain for residents of KLD and OTE for the next 4-6 years and there will be inconveniences. I don’t think property values will be adversely affected in the short term. I do think that, in the end, with a solution in place that looks better, feels better and will be more connected than what is currently there, property values and interest in these areas will increase–with an obvious bump up for OTE and KLD which have so much more pricing room than German Village.

Here is the latest from THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Coveted highway caps still in Downtown plan
But budget will limit final number
Monday, July 19, 2010 02:51 AM
By Robert Vitale
Bridges over a rebuilt I-70/71 will be better than the standard concrete and chain-link of today.

But only one of the six spans to be replaced during the project’s first half will include a Short North-style cap that near-Downtown neighborhoods have coveted throughout the planning process.

Ohio Department of Transportation officials say earlier drawings and descriptions were conceptual and now are outdated, even though they’re still posted on the agency’s website. The “visioning exercises” included cost estimates but weren’t subjected to the budget realities applied as the state moves toward a 2011 construction kickoff.

“We’re down to the nuts-and-bolts decisions now,”  more here

Inside the Walls of an Historic Columbus home with Character

Working primarily in first ring suburbs like Bexley and Grandview and along the High Street corridor running from Merion Village to German Village to the Short North, Campus, Clintonville and Worthington, I see many old homes.  I happen to have a passion for older homes and I love nothing more than uniting homes with character with people of great character.

When it comes to fixer uppers, I love seeing them post-rehab but I love seeing them in the raw even more. I love to see behind the scenes, I love to see the during and I love to see the ‘after’ – especially after someone has lovingly restored an historic Columbus home and called it home for some time–as opposed to a quick flip.

Rarely do you get to see inside the walls of an historic Columbus home, behind the plaster and lathe to see what lurks there and how its made. In just such a home in Olde Towne East recently, I had an opportunity to shoot a quick look at what lurks behind the walls of a serious fixer upper.