A four-story, 69,000-square-foot office building and a neighboring 5,200-square-foot brewery and taproom are coming to Gahanna.
The city’s planning commission April 25 approved a final development plan, design review and related legislation, clearing the path for the $6 million development on 4.3 acres at 485 Science Blvd., a city-owned site in Central Park.
All but the design review were approved unanimously, with Michael Suriano the lone dissenter on it.
Suriano said he’s generally excited about the project but said the office building’s facade is lacking with detail treatment and scale.
“There isn’t a lot distinguishing from top to bottom,” he said.
Remaining members are Bobbie Burba, John Hicks, Joe Keehner, Jennifer Price, Donald Shepherd and Thomas Wester.
The developer, Franklin Peak LLC, is a venture of Wil Schulze, founder and president of two Gahanna-based companies – IJUS LLC and SpidaWeb Software.
The new office space will allow both IJUS and SPIDAWeb to merge their offices into one building on the second and third floors. IJUS is at 690 Taylor Road; SPIDAWeb is at 560 Officenter Place.
“Relocating my two companies into a culture-driven office space has been a dream for many years,” Schulze said in a press release. “The creation of this destination office space will reflect our innovation while keeping up with our changing workforce.”
Hicks said a brewery is a generic term with craft and home brewing, and he questioned the proposed brewery operation.
“There will be no kitchen,” said Advanced Civil Design owner Tom Warner, who represented the developer. “It will have stainless-steel containers for beer on site.”
He said a food truck could be brought on site, and beer would be sold there.
Burba said it’s a fabulous project for the city.
Construction is expected to begin in June, with an anticipated completion date of summer 2019.
The project received a 100 percent property-tax abatement for 15 years and is expected to retain 131 jobs and create 27 new ones over five years at the office building alone.
Read the full story in the May 3 edition of ThisWeek Rocky Fork Enterprise.
mkuhlman@thisweeknews.com
@ThisWeekMarla