Whittier Peninsula: Path Planned for Bridge, Work to Start This Year on Development
By: Brent Warren January 23, 2024
Change is coming to the Whittier Peninsula. Work is scheduled to start this year on a long-planned apartment development, and City Council last night approved funding for a $3.4 million project that will add a bike and pedestrian path to the Whittier Street Bridge.
The bridge crosses over two sets of railroads tracks and provides access to the Scioto Audubon Metro Park from the Brewery District. It currently has two lanes for cars and a narrow sidewalk – the new plan would widen the sidewalk into a ten-foot-wide shares use path, which would extend from Front Street to the beginning of the park’s path network and the Scioto Trail.
Work on the bridge could start as soon as February, according to the legislation.
The 780-unit apartment development, from North Carolina-based Zimmer Development Company, was approved by council in 2022. The approved plan calls for constructing three, seven-story buildings on a 17-acre slice of land wedged between park land and the railroad tracks.
An earlier proposal for the land from the same developer called for a much denser project, with a mix of office and residential uses and a tower that renderings showed to be about 30 stories tall.
Landon Zimmer, Managing Partner of Zimmer Development Company, said that the firm is still actively working on the project, completing the necessary environmental and site planning.
“Our goal is to begin construction later this year,” he said.
Zimmer had previously told CU that the project would be completed in phases – one building at a time – with the empty land being converted to greenspace that will be open to the public in the meantime.