In a meeting with members of Grandview Heights City Council on Monday evening, Nationwide Realty Investors (NRI) unveiled its latest development plans for Grandview Yard, including a new 500,000-square-foot Nationwide campus, 135-room hotel and 13,000-square-foot conference center. NRI President and COO Brian J. Ellis made the announcement.
“We’re pleased to have had the opportunity to present our plans to City Council and Grandview Heights,” said Ellis. “This is a great community and the proposed projects represent a tremendous opportunity for Nationwide and its associates, Grandview Heights and Grandview Yard.”
The new Nationwide campus, which would be located along Yard Street between Goodale Boulevard and Third Avenue, would include three, four-story interconnected office buildings with three adjacent four-level parking structures. The first building would include 320,000 square feet of space and open in 2016. The 160,000-square-foot second building would follow in 2017. The third building would open in 2019. Upon completion, the new campus is designed to support more than 3,000 Nationwide associates.
“This proposal represents a great win for our entire community, both the City of Grandview Heights and the overall Grandview area,” said Council President Anthony Panzera. “We are thrilled that Nationwide is willing to make this commitment and we look forward to working closely with NRI to finalize the details.”
The hotel and conference center would also open in 2016 and be located at the intersection of Goodale Boulevard and Yard Street. The hotel would be owned by NRI and operated by Columbus Hospitality, which also operates the Hyatt Place hotel at Grandview Yard. Also included in the plans is a new 2.5-acre public park that was presented as a neighborhood gathering place for both the project and the Grandview Heights community, featuring gently sloping topography, natural stone retaining walls and extensive landscaping.
“It is an important day in the history of Grandview Heights,” said Grandview Heights Mayor Ray E. DeGraw. “This development proposal is an outstanding catalyst for our community and for the future of Grandview Yard. Nationwide’s new campus project fulfills our city’s community planning vision that called for a vibrant mixed-use district offering professional jobs, an enticing residential lifestyle, vital businesses and an expanded tax base. It’s very exciting.”
NRI’s development plan and construction schedule would coincide with pending lease expirations in the Dublin and Westerville offices. Nationwide announced last week that approximately 3,600 associates currently located in these offices would transition to either the new Grandview Yard campus or Nationwide’s downtown offices in the Arena District over the next five years. Approximately 3,000 associates will transition to Grandview Yard and 600 associates will transition to offices downtown.
Combined with the 1,800 associates that have moved downtown over the past two years, including those who moved to the 10 West Nationwide Blvd. building, Nationwide will have more than 10,000 associates located in downtown Columbus.
