Market, restaurants possible in trolley barns
The long-dormant trolleybarn complex on the Near East Side could be turned into the home of a market, taproom and restaurants, with a 78-residence building next door.
Developer Brad DeHays of Connect Realty wants to help finance the development at 1610 Oak St. with state historic tax credits.
DeHays’ vision is of a marketplace that would include shops and restaurants, with plazas and patios. Next door, he envisions a $10 million, 78-unit residential complex — either apartments or condominiums — with a pocket park.
The market, DeHays said, would sell “green and healthy” food.
He’s in discussions with possible tenants. Columbus Brewing is interested in opening a taproom there, DeHays said.
The owner of Ray Ray’s Hog Pit in Westerville has signed a letter of intent to open a restaurant there.
“We don’t know what we’re going to do,” Ray Ray’s owner James Anderson said. “It might be a barbecue concept.”
But DeHays said in an interview that the trolleybarn proposal remains “extremely fragile.”
Although the investigation covers only Duke — a utility that provides natural gas and electricity in the Cincinnati area — its results could change the way regulators approach disconnections for people who are behind on payment, and thus have implications for utilities across the state.
“As in any other PUCO audit, Duke Energy Ohio will fully cooperate with commission staff,” Duke spokeswoman Sally Thelen said in a statement. “We believe our disconnect policies and procedures adhere to commission regulations.”
This is the latest step in a long-running dispute in which consumer advocates have said that Duke’s high number of disconnections might indicate that the utility is not following rules. The conflict escalated late last month when the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel asked the Ohio Supreme Court to intervene and force the PUCO to end delays in making procedural decisions in a complaint case. Wednesday’s action would seem to answer some of the concerns raised with the court. In addition to ordering the investigation, the PUCO, in a separate vote, dismissed the Consumers’ Counsel’s complaint, saying that the issues in the complaint are being resolved, or have been resolved, in other cases.
One of the related rulings was in August when the commission found that Duke had not followed state rules prior to a 2011 incident in which two Cincinnati residents whose service had been turned off died of hypothermia. That case is still subject to appeal, and Duke has said it disagrees with the decision.
The next step is that prospective auditors can apply to work with PUCO staff members on the probe. The commission’s goal is to have a final report made public by February. The case number is 17-2089.