June 27, 2025 • 11 mins
Mark Somerson of Columbus Business First gives us the low-down on local business news
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know what, let's just get into Let's just get
into Somerson. Right, I got nothing else. I need Mark
to bail me out. On the Legacy Retirement Group dot
com phone line from Columbus Business First, It's our friend,
our pal, Mark Summerson. Good morning, good morning. How are
you are you staying hydrated? Are you are you beating
the heat? Mark?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Oh man, I put in sod last weekend A hundreds?
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Did you really? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'm still suffering. I'm way too old to do that
kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Well, we were talking, when's the last time you had
a popsicle? We were talking about that earlier this week.
Is you know my kids got got a real like
a Popsicle brand popsicle. I couldn't tell you the last time.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I had kids. Yeah, I'm probably twenty some years ago,
but I do. I've lived on those as a kid, Right, weirder,
the weirder colors, the better.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah. I like the the bomb pops the red, white,
and blue shaped as a rocket. You know what you
don't see, Mark, You don't see the uh, the ice
cream trucks as much anymore. You know, they're playing the
little Turkey in the straw song going up and down
the streets.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
And my brother drove one for a short time when
he was a senior in high school, and he left
the keys. He would park it in our my parents' driveway.
He left the keys in the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Every night.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I would sneak in there after everyone went to bed
and just help myself everything that was in there.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
So that's funny.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
To make a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
That's that is my dream job, and maybe that's our
retirement plan. Mark. Let's you and I go in on
an ice cream truck and we'll drive it. We'll be
millionaires in the next fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
It's perfect because I'm lactose and tolerance now, so I
can't eat anything and I will not eat the pros.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, that's not creepy at all. Me and you driving
around an ice cream truck in the middle of summer
talking to little kids. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, as long as it's not a plain white panel van,
we should be okay.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
As long as we can both clear six figures. I
think we got we got a business plan. It's been
on it. Speaking of six figures, and beyond, the Buxton
Inn in Grandville is on the market. What is it
five point eight million?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, this is an incredible property. It was actually Grenville's
first post office in Lincoln County, opened in eighteen twelve.
It was also a stagecoach stuff between Columbus and Newark,
so it has you know, it has a bit of history.
Apparently Lincoln looked in the windows once, so there's a
(02:33):
Lincoln room. President William Henry Harrison stayed there. But it's
pretty cool. It was last purchase in twenty fourteen by
a family. They paid one point eight million dollars for it.
It's five buildings, it's old, and it's super cool. They
wanted to restore it to its original glory. Twenty four
thousand square foot property on one acre, twenty five individual
(02:55):
styled guest rooms inside of five buildings. There's a huge
commercial restaurant in there, and the former restaurant had had
a kitchen fire in twenty twenty two. They said, it's
been renovated. So it's going to take somebody with some
imagination to purchase this and put it back out there
for the public to use. But it's just an interesting
(03:16):
piece of history in a very historical little town in
Lickoln County. And if you've never been to Granville, super
cool it's well known there. They also have the Grandville In,
so there's some really cool places there. But this one's
on the market for somebody with a little bit of
imagination and probably a lot of money to keep things
running because it is getting kind of old.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
And if I am not mistaken, there are claims that
the Buckston In is haunted too. Have you heard, You've hoped?
So you've heard that hope.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
So if it's that old, and you know Lincoln was
there once, I don't know it should be haunted. I
think anything that's over the one hundred years old should
have a little bit of spirits running around in there.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So it's not operational now that you can't stay there,
there's no the restaurant's not functional, the tavern does not open,
or any of that. You gotta okay, No.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
It's time for somebody to step up, buy this place
and do something with it.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
We can take our ice cream truck money and parlay
it into buying the bucks that in. There's our there's
our retirement. That's the plan right there, Mark, And.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
You're looking forward pretty far.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
I like that. The other story, and we mentioned this
a little bit earlier this week on the show, is
the kind of the modernization of Nationwide Arena. Those plans
are kind of out there now. It's it's I can't
believe Nationwide Arena is twenty five years old this year.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I know that makes us what thirty. I mean, I
was fine when it opened. I remember being there distinctly
for Disney on ice or something. But yeah, these things age.
And it's funny because I worked in the arena district
for a long time and you keep walking by it
every day and you just don't notice. But things have.
And I've been a Blue Jackets fan since they opened
(04:57):
the arena, so I've been at games. You know. You know,
things age, things get a little old, and the folks
who run it, this is Ken Paul, the executive director
of the Franklin County Convention Facylvites Authority, told us we're
gonna pop four hundred million dollars into this thing over
four to five years and really start making some changes.
Big changes. You'll notice right away. They're going to move
(05:18):
the Blue Line shop to the back of the arena.
They're going to open that entrance up. If you've ever
gone through those front doors at Nationwide, you know, things
get backed up a little bit. They're going to stretch
it across. They're going to put a terrace above it.
They're going to connect Index Building to it, and they'll
be offices in there, but they'll also be a bar,
(05:40):
and it's going to be really cool with a skylight.
It's it's they've got some really ambitious plans. They're also
going to put a skybridge over there, connecting the parking
garage to the ice house, which connects right into the arena. Then,
so they've got some massive plans, and they said, if
you want your fans to be happy, if you want
the team to be happy, you've got to put some
(06:01):
money into this thing and start modernizing it. So as
you see across the nation arenas, when they turn a
certain age, people either want to tear them down or
at least start to fix them up. And it's time
for Columbus to We're gonna do the latter here instead
of tearing down, because it is such a fixture in
the arena district. I mean, there is no arena district
without the arena.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
It's funny because I still I still imagine, I still
feel like Nationwide Arena is relatively young compared to other arenas,
around the country. But it's not I mean twenty five years,
as you say, it starts to show it's where. And
now I'm a hockey fan too, I know nationwide arena. Well,
I'm a partial, partial Blue Jacket season ticket holder. So
it'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.
(06:44):
I guess the question is is where does the four
hundred million come from?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, where does the four under million dollars? Well, yeah, no,
they've they've got stuff they're working on over there. They
put money all over the place. They also run different facilities,
they have parking income is of course all of the uh,
the conventions that come into the convention center, all of
that raises revenue. You're gonna probably see some sort of
(07:09):
issue to come up with more money. But yeah, we're
gonna have to see what happens with this. But it
does need some changes, and they've got some really grand
plans for making this thing even bigger and better.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
And with the NHL Draft tonight, hopefully the Blue Jackets
make some grand plans to get some players and let's
get some that ever happened before. Let's get Let's get
some Let's get some wins on the ice, Let's get it.
Let's get into the playoffs. Mark Sommerson, Columbus Business First
dot Com And I see Mayor ginther Is UH wants
to change and modernize the city's city's zoning code. What
(07:41):
does that mean?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
This is phase two of zoning. If you remember the
first phase, they picked out some corridors that they needed
to have a modernization of the city zoning code to
allow for taller, denser, more mixed usee properties to go in.
That helps solve some of the housing issues in town.
It kicks starts the economy, It gets more retail, it
gets more restaurants, and it gets certainly more people living
(08:05):
in different areas. That was the first part, and it
was only something like four percent of parcels within the
city Plan two stretches forty three percent of parcels in Columbus.
So it is a big second step, and this is
they're going to start reforming some of their zoning codes.
They're again going to create different zoning codes for different
(08:27):
areas and say it's time to start building. You'll notice
that in many parts of Columbus, if anybody wants to
build a tall, dense tower, they immediately run into problems
with a lot of the commissions and sometimes the city.
Now they're saying the code is going to let them
go ahead and do that. And you've noticed the fight
over by campus at Lane and Iye, where that Texas
(08:48):
company wants to build that huge tower that's been going
back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Even
though the code can change. Sometimes the commissions are like, yeah,
this doesn't really fit in. This is going to help
those things start to fit in as long as they
meet esthetically proper criteria and all of that. They want
to make this code change enough so developers will come
(09:11):
in and start putting on mixed use development, industrial warehouse operations, business,
institutional campuses, all of that stuff which does need zoning
changes to allow it to happen. So Columbus is very
serious about updating its codes, and this is that big,
big second step in it.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Architects and builders all across the city are licking their
shops right now because of this, I imagine.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
So yeah, I mean, these are going to open up
some really really big projects. And I would hope that
developers are starting to look at some of the areas
within this city zoning and say, okay, this is now covered,
I can go in and put something big in there
that's going to open things up and kick start the economy,
which is a good thing. And I think it took
the city an awful long time to update their zoning.
(09:55):
It's been years and years. So they now see this.
They have heard enough from developers and they want to
make things a bit easier for getting these things going.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Mark one little piece of restaurant news. The boat House
downtown at Confluence Park is open again, full service.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Let's go yeah, out of sight, out of mind. For
so long five years it's been closed as a regular restaurant.
I've been over there so many times for the Columbus
Metropolitan Club used to have it Wednesday lunches there every week.
They moved out of there because there were problems with
leaks and catering and all sorts of stuff. Now it's
(10:33):
going to reopen. It's it's been yeah, five years, it's
been closed. The California Company owns the boat House. They
say they want to open their doors. They've made renovations.
It is such a nice spot. It's the confluence of
the Saida and Olan Tangi rivers downtown from their patio
and from inside looking out their windows, you get to
(10:53):
see the sprawling downtown, you get to see the rivers.
It's just a beautiful spot and it's a really good
place to see the fireworks. So we'll see when this
thing opens up. They are gonna Yeah, the exact day
has not been opened so via renovations are still underway,
but they will be hosting the annual Redwighton Boom event
on July third, so there will be some stuff opening
(11:17):
up next week. I can't wait to see what they
do with it. Hopefully things will be modernized and it'll
be a little easier to get in and out, and
we'll have to see what happens.
You know what, let's just get into Let's just get
into Somerson. Right, I got nothing else. I need Mark
to bail me out. On the Legacy Retirement Group dot
com phone line from Columbus Business First, It's our friend,
our pal, Mark Summerson. Good morning, good morning. How are
you are you staying hydrated? Are you are you beating
the heat? Mark?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Oh man, I put in sod last weekend A hundreds?
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Did you really? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'm still suffering. I'm way too old to do that
kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Well, we were talking, when's the last time you had
a popsicle? We were talking about that earlier this week.
Is you know my kids got got a real like
a Popsicle brand popsicle. I couldn't tell you the last time.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I had kids. Yeah, I'm probably twenty some years ago,
but I do. I've lived on those as a kid, Right, weirder,
the weirder colors, the better.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah. I like the the bomb pops the red, white,
and blue shaped as a rocket. You know what you
don't see, Mark, You don't see the uh, the ice
cream trucks as much anymore. You know, they're playing the
little Turkey in the straw song going up and down
the streets.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
And my brother drove one for a short time when
he was a senior in high school, and he left
the keys. He would park it in our my parents' driveway.
He left the keys in the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Every night.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I would sneak in there after everyone went to bed
and just help myself everything that was in there.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
So that's funny.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
To make a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
That's that is my dream job, and maybe that's our
retirement plan. Mark. Let's you and I go in on
an ice cream truck and we'll drive it. We'll be
millionaires in the next fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
It's perfect because I'm lactose and tolerance now, so I
can't eat anything and I will not eat the pros.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, that's not creepy at all. Me and you driving
around an ice cream truck in the middle of summer
talking to little kids. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, as long as it's not a plain white panel van,
we should be okay.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
As long as we can both clear six figures. I
think we got we got a business plan. It's been
on it. Speaking of six figures, and beyond, the Buxton
Inn in Grandville is on the market. What is it
five point eight million?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, this is an incredible property. It was actually Grenville's
first post office in Lincoln County, opened in eighteen twelve.
It was also a stagecoach stuff between Columbus and Newark,
so it has you know, it has a bit of history.
Apparently Lincoln looked in the windows once, so there's a
(02:33):
Lincoln room. President William Henry Harrison stayed there. But it's
pretty cool. It was last purchase in twenty fourteen by
a family. They paid one point eight million dollars for it.
It's five buildings, it's old, and it's super cool. They
wanted to restore it to its original glory. Twenty four
thousand square foot property on one acre, twenty five individual
(02:55):
styled guest rooms inside of five buildings. There's a huge
commercial restaurant in there, and the former restaurant had had
a kitchen fire in twenty twenty two. They said, it's
been renovated. So it's going to take somebody with some
imagination to purchase this and put it back out there
for the public to use. But it's just an interesting
(03:16):
piece of history in a very historical little town in
Lickoln County. And if you've never been to Granville, super
cool it's well known there. They also have the Grandville In,
so there's some really cool places there. But this one's
on the market for somebody with a little bit of
imagination and probably a lot of money to keep things
running because it is getting kind of old.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
And if I am not mistaken, there are claims that
the Buckston In is haunted too. Have you heard, You've hoped?
So you've heard that hope.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
So if it's that old, and you know Lincoln was
there once, I don't know it should be haunted. I
think anything that's over the one hundred years old should
have a little bit of spirits running around in there.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So it's not operational now that you can't stay there,
there's no the restaurant's not functional, the tavern does not open,
or any of that. You gotta okay, No.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
It's time for somebody to step up, buy this place
and do something with it.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
We can take our ice cream truck money and parlay
it into buying the bucks that in. There's our there's
our retirement. That's the plan right there, Mark, And.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
You're looking forward pretty far.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
I like that. The other story, and we mentioned this
a little bit earlier this week on the show, is
the kind of the modernization of Nationwide Arena. Those plans
are kind of out there now. It's it's I can't
believe Nationwide Arena is twenty five years old this year.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I know that makes us what thirty. I mean, I
was fine when it opened. I remember being there distinctly
for Disney on ice or something. But yeah, these things age.
And it's funny because I worked in the arena district
for a long time and you keep walking by it
every day and you just don't notice. But things have.
And I've been a Blue Jackets fan since they opened
(04:57):
the arena, so I've been at games. You know. You know,
things age, things get a little old, and the folks
who run it, this is Ken Paul, the executive director
of the Franklin County Convention Facylvites Authority, told us we're
gonna pop four hundred million dollars into this thing over
four to five years and really start making some changes.
Big changes. You'll notice right away. They're going to move
(05:18):
the Blue Line shop to the back of the arena.
They're going to open that entrance up. If you've ever
gone through those front doors at Nationwide, you know, things
get backed up a little bit. They're going to stretch
it across. They're going to put a terrace above it.
They're going to connect Index Building to it, and they'll
be offices in there, but they'll also be a bar,
(05:40):
and it's going to be really cool with a skylight.
It's it's they've got some really ambitious plans. They're also
going to put a skybridge over there, connecting the parking
garage to the ice house, which connects right into the arena. Then,
so they've got some massive plans, and they said, if
you want your fans to be happy, if you want
the team to be happy, you've got to put some
(06:01):
money into this thing and start modernizing it. So as
you see across the nation arenas, when they turn a
certain age, people either want to tear them down or
at least start to fix them up. And it's time
for Columbus to We're gonna do the latter here instead
of tearing down, because it is such a fixture in
the arena district. I mean, there is no arena district
without the arena.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
It's funny because I still I still imagine, I still
feel like Nationwide Arena is relatively young compared to other arenas,
around the country. But it's not I mean twenty five years,
as you say, it starts to show it's where. And
now I'm a hockey fan too, I know nationwide arena. Well,
I'm a partial, partial Blue Jacket season ticket holder. So
it'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.
(06:44):
I guess the question is is where does the four
hundred million come from?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, where does the four under million dollars? Well, yeah, no,
they've they've got stuff they're working on over there. They
put money all over the place. They also run different facilities,
they have parking income is of course all of the uh,
the conventions that come into the convention center, all of
that raises revenue. You're gonna probably see some sort of
(07:09):
issue to come up with more money. But yeah, we're
gonna have to see what happens with this. But it
does need some changes, and they've got some really grand
plans for making this thing even bigger and better.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
And with the NHL Draft tonight, hopefully the Blue Jackets
make some grand plans to get some players and let's
get some that ever happened before. Let's get Let's get
some Let's get some wins on the ice, Let's get it.
Let's get into the playoffs. Mark Sommerson, Columbus Business First
dot Com And I see Mayor ginther Is UH wants
to change and modernize the city's city's zoning code. What
(07:41):
does that mean?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
This is phase two of zoning. If you remember the
first phase, they picked out some corridors that they needed
to have a modernization of the city zoning code to
allow for taller, denser, more mixed usee properties to go in.
That helps solve some of the housing issues in town.
It kicks starts the economy, It gets more retail, it
gets more restaurants, and it gets certainly more people living
(08:05):
in different areas. That was the first part, and it
was only something like four percent of parcels within the
city Plan two stretches forty three percent of parcels in Columbus.
So it is a big second step, and this is
they're going to start reforming some of their zoning codes.
They're again going to create different zoning codes for different
(08:27):
areas and say it's time to start building. You'll notice
that in many parts of Columbus, if anybody wants to
build a tall, dense tower, they immediately run into problems
with a lot of the commissions and sometimes the city.
Now they're saying the code is going to let them
go ahead and do that. And you've noticed the fight
over by campus at Lane and Iye, where that Texas
(08:48):
company wants to build that huge tower that's been going
back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Even
though the code can change. Sometimes the commissions are like, yeah,
this doesn't really fit in. This is going to help
those things start to fit in as long as they
meet esthetically proper criteria and all of that. They want
to make this code change enough so developers will come
(09:11):
in and start putting on mixed use development, industrial warehouse operations, business,
institutional campuses, all of that stuff which does need zoning
changes to allow it to happen. So Columbus is very
serious about updating its codes, and this is that big,
big second step in it.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Architects and builders all across the city are licking their
shops right now because of this, I imagine.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
So yeah, I mean, these are going to open up
some really really big projects. And I would hope that
developers are starting to look at some of the areas
within this city zoning and say, okay, this is now covered,
I can go in and put something big in there
that's going to open things up and kick start the economy,
which is a good thing. And I think it took
the city an awful long time to update their zoning.
(09:55):
It's been years and years. So they now see this.
They have heard enough from developers and they want to
make things a bit easier for getting these things going.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Mark one little piece of restaurant news. The boat House
downtown at Confluence Park is open again, full service.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Let's go yeah, out of sight, out of mind. For
so long five years it's been closed as a regular restaurant.
I've been over there so many times for the Columbus
Metropolitan Club used to have it Wednesday lunches there every week.
They moved out of there because there were problems with
leaks and catering and all sorts of stuff. Now it's
(10:33):
going to reopen. It's it's been yeah, five years, it's
been closed. The California Company owns the boat House. They
say they want to open their doors. They've made renovations.
It is such a nice spot. It's the confluence of
the Saida and Olan Tangi rivers downtown from their patio
and from inside looking out their windows, you get to
(10:53):
see the sprawling downtown, you get to see the rivers.
It's just a beautiful spot and it's a really good
place to see the fireworks. So we'll see when this
thing opens up. They are gonna Yeah, the exact day
has not been opened so via renovations are still underway,
but they will be hosting the annual Redwighton Boom event
on July third, so there will be some stuff opening
(11:17):
up next week. I can't wait to see what they
do with it. Hopefully things will be modernized and it'll
be a little easier to get in and out, and
we'll have to see what happens.
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