Pizzuti tweaks Schumacher proposal
The Columbus developer Pizzuti has modified its plans for an apartment building in Schumacher Place, after the original proposal was widely criticized.
The company’s new designs show the complex with houselike gables and more dramatic variations in building depths instead of the blockier plan in the first version.
“Pizzuti and our design team have reevaluated several elements of the proposed development at 280 East Whittier Street including the overall programming, building height, and traffic patter,” the company said when releasing the images on Saturday.
“We remain committed to developing a project that thoughtfully repositions this site within the context of the surrounding neighborhood.”
Pizzuti shrunk the size of the project, from 330 apartments to 279, and added 17 street-side parking spaces, in addition to the 228 spaces in the project. About half the apartments would be one-bedroom, 35% studio and 15% twobedroom, said Pizzuti Vice President of Development Jon Riewald.
In addition, Pizzuti shortened the north side of the project, along E. Kossuth Street, from four and five stories to 31⁄ stories. Other changes include more
2 elaborate landscaping, in the front of the set-back buildings and in the project’s two internal courtyards.
Pizzuti is proposing the apartment building, with 9,462-square-feet of ground-floor retail, on the site of the Giant Eagle on the northeast corner of Whittier and Jaeger streets. The grocery store is planning to close at the end of the year. “We are repositioning this site and trying to put it back to really fit the urban scale of this neighborhood,” Riewald told the South Side Area Commission in a presentation over the weekend.
Pizzuti’s plan for the building has been criticized by nearby residents as being too dense and out of place in the neighborhood of mostly small homes. At four and five stories high, the plan was also criticized for being too tall.
Residents were also concerned about South Grant Avenue being the main access for parking for the complex. jweiker@dispatch.com @Jimweiker