All Episodes

June 13, 2025 8 mins
Doug Buchanan of Columbus Business First has a look at all the local business news happening around the Columbus area
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, let's jump over to the Legacy Retirement Group

(00:02):
dot com phone line Mark Summerson on assignment, we get
to talk to Doug u can An, editor in chief
Columbus Business First dot com. Doug, how are you this morning?
Good to talk to you.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Good. I appreciate you having me on.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yeah, thanks for making time for us. As always, I
feel like we've been heating about hearing about Eastland Mall
for a long time and nothing happens. I mean, the
last I remember of Eastland Mall, it's been declared a
nuisance site by the city. But it seems like maybe
we've got a little progress now.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah. I mean that when they got declared as a nuisance,
that started moving things along and you started to see
some activities there. But now there's another The state is
now giving them two million dollars to remove several more buildings,
remove the decontaminate or decontaminate the place, basically get it
ready for development again, because as we saw with Northland,

(00:54):
you know a number of years ago, kind of like
we're seeing with Westland now. You can't just have a
ed mall in the middle of you, in the middle
of a neighborhood in the middle of a development and expect,
you know, much progress to be made. So yeah, it's
it's diableousness that there's two million dollars should come in
and uh and and get it ready. And like we
saw with Northland, you would certainly hope and expect that

(01:15):
then you would start to see some follow on development,
particularly housing because you know that's needed everywhere. And uh,
you know it's particularly you know, cute right there in
Eathland because you're not going to get businesses uh to
start coming in until there's more people over there.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
So is it you mentioned it's going to be housing,
some multifamily type dwelling there.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, that's the plan. That would be the that that
is the you know, the plan. We'll see if it
if it developed in that way. But you know, we're
starting to see a lot of development, you know all
over the city that the plans of once more office
are now being switched over to multi family. So that's
the that's probably use of that site. So but you
just got to get cleaned up first, and that is
expensive work and that's why you you need to have

(01:57):
this kind of public investment really too.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
But you have to get the ball up well if
you want to talk development, you mean, let's talk about
data centers in central Ohio. And here we go again.
Google is continuing their spending spree. What is it, sixty
three million dollar land purchase in New Albany.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, this has two things that were that we're seeing.
One is data centers and two is New Albany. So
you put a data center site in New Albany and
you're going to get the top dollar and Google has
the money. I mean, we've seen all these big tech
companies coming in and it's been real interesting over the
past year because we saw a real land rush for
several years there a few years there where companies were

(02:34):
coming in and just securing all the land to build
all these future data centers. But you know, you have
the whole issue about whether there's enough power for them,
and so you see a lot of these companies banking land.
Microsoft said last year they were kind of slowing down
their enrollment of all their data centers, so they have
a bunch of land in central Ohio, but they're just
sitting on it for now. So Google, we don't know,

(02:55):
they already have an existing campus there at New Albany,
and this is not that far away, so they very
well could decide that they were going to go ahead
with it. But I also wouldn't be surprised that if
you know, you just see them banking this land and
then waiting to see how they how the industry developed,
so much of this all over the country depends on
how much power these places can find.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
It's interesting in your story, you guys point out that
the previous owner bought that land for one point six
million dollars two years ago and just sold it for
sixty three million dollars. That is a good investment, yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
You're saying, and you're seeing other deals like that. You know,
another company that that we were following had a piece
of land that was actually right next to the Intel
site and they were just kind of waiting and seeing
what they were going to do with it. And the
data center company came in and you know, made them
an offer they couldn't refuse. You know, it was just
too good, and so they sold it and they're going

(03:50):
to go deploy the you know, the development elsewhere. So yeah,
you're you're seeing a lot of these companies. A lot
of these companies have very deep pockets.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Doug Buchannan Columbus Business first dot com. When you have
a moment, give them a look there and maybe treat
yourself for Father's Day to a subscription to Columbus Business
first dot com. I'm not as familiar with Racetracks convenience
stores as I am like a Sheets, but it's a
similar operation, and they have bought some land in central
Ohio to start coming into this market.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, you know, Racetrack, I feel like it's like the
ugly step child instead of because everybody loves.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Sheets, and Sheets is now at the like fifty locations
around central Ohio four or five years. I mean, it's
an incredible expansion. And now Wah Wah, which you know
has legions of fans as well.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
They're in Ohio. Now, they're not quite to Columbus. We
do expect them to eventually get here. So you know,
you've got these big beloved chains, and you know, Racetrack
is fine. It's out of Atlanta. It's a big place.
They bought a half a dozen sites around here, and
so they're you know, getting ready to compete in the
the uh. They told us that they see the potential
for you know, many many more sites. So they're going

(04:59):
to start out with a half dozen and uh and
then well we're going to keep a close eye on
them today. You know, they think they can come in
and compete with all the legency ones we have now
are in particularly sheets which you know the head start
on it.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Well, it'll be breaking news when you come on and
or or Mark Summerson comes on and tells me that
there's a BUCkies coming to central Ohile.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah. Another another one that you know, people absolutely love,
and they are in Ohio now, they are making plans
in Ohio, but both of them are more in the
western Oas Cincinnati area. Yeah and so but but you know, again,
we we do expect them here at some point. So
it's just very interesting to watch all these kind of
older gas stations get turned over into these newer, you know,
much more elaborate and nice convenience. Story.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
All right, Doug, let's get into some restaurant news. Got
the speed round here. We've got a couple of stories
of some restaurant openings and closings and some breweries and
so forth. So let's talk about Donado's there. We had
this story a while ago. The robot kitchen at the
airport is now underway.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yeah, you can, you can go in before you go
into before you go into security there. I mean it's
effectively a big vending machine and it's a robot pizza maker.
You go in there, choose all of your sides, choose
you know, whatever else. I mean, it's obviously they have
a pretty limited menu, but it's all automatic, and uh,
it's just it's interesting because a lot of people are
familiar with atoms. I don't think that people are as

(06:17):
maybe as familiar with the Grody family. How big they
are on the back back of the restaurant side, restaurant technology.
They have a thriving business selling equipment to other pizza
makers and food service providers. So this is gonna be
a good way for them to show off some innovation
because you know, it's robots and it's pizza. It's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
Absolutely, dog distilling in Lewis Center. This is a distilling
in a cocktail bar. That's that's opening up. I think
next week.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, it's yeah, it's yeah, you're right, We've got another
week to go. But this is going to be up
kind of east of Ikea, up in the Polaris Lewis
Center area. So a really really nice location. Uh, they've
they've done they've done it up nice. It's an old schoolhouse,
you know, I believe it's it's kind of a historic building.
So they're going to have a distillery where they're going
to make a few of their own spirit and then

(07:08):
there's going to be a bar there as well, so, uh,
you know, just again adding to that whole players there.
It's a good addition.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, and they're obviously, by the name of Dog Distilling,
going to be very dog friendly.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
I would imagine, Yeah, lots of lots of dog motifs
and and yeah, the owners are very dark ground.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
And then right down the street here in Grandview, Marinos
Seafood and Chips Fifth Avenue have been there at a
time or two. They are retiring, they're shutting the doors,
but it's going to remain a seafood restaurant.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah. The Arthur Treacher's name for those of us who
have been around a while, Yes, Arthur Treachers is making
a comeback. I mean, this was I didn't realize this
is actually a Columbus found a chain, but I mean
it was. It was big there for all hundreds of
location and it's shrunk down to just a handful now

(08:00):
there hasn't been an Arthur Treachers in central Ohio for
bout twenty years. But yeah, this and anybody who has
seen this Marinos, Fish and Chips on Fifth you would
just instantly recognize it as an old Arthur Treachers because
that's what it was. It didn't really change the most
deep very much. And so now the owners after thirty
years are retiring and the people who are now running

(08:21):
Arthur Treachers are going to come back, so they this
will be the first Arthur Treachers in a while. They
do have plans for more, so that's another one that
we're going to keep an eye on.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
24/7 News: The Latest

24/7 News: The Latest

The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.