12-story apartment tower with elevated courtyard proposed on Downtown parking lot

The Columbus development firm The Edwards Companies is proposing to build a 12-story residential tower on what is now a parking lot on South 4th Street Downtown.

The building would include 221 apartments and be adjacent to the company's newly opened Preston Centre, formerly called the PNC Tower.

Dubbed The Dispatch Tower, the new building would sit at 33 S. 4th St., on a parking lot owned by Capitol Square, an arm of the Dispatch Printing Company, the former publisher of The Columbus Dispatch.

Plans submitted to the city call for one level of underground parking topped by two above-ground levels of parking, three "live-work" spaces and one retail space. Above those floors would be eight levels of apartments and a top floor featuring a clubhouse and pool.

A few units in the top residential floor would be two stories, allowing penthouses akin to those at One at the Peninsula, which rent for up to $8,000 a month.

Above the two lower levels, the building would be U-shaped, surrounding a "greenspace" courtyard on the roof of the parking levels.

The tower would add to the cluster of new apartments in the area built by The Edwards Companies, which declined to comment on the project, citing its early status. The company has just opened the 105 apartments in Preston Centre, and expects to open a new apartment building at 195 E. Broad St. that includes 164 apartments.

As part of the complex, Edwards is rebuilding the skywalk over South 4th Street and adding three bars and restaurants to the former Galleria building on South 3rd Street, which is attached to Preston Centre.

This is not the first proposal to develop the South 4th Street parking lot. In 2019, Capitol Square announced an ambitious plan to develop the parking lot along with other parking lots around the former Dispatch building at 34 S. 3rd St. Those plans were scuttled by COVID.

jweiker@dispatch.com

@JimWeiker