A whole row of small buildings on East Livingston Avenue between South Ninth Street and South Washington Avenue is now rubble, as crews clear roughly 1.5 acres in Schumacher Place just east of German Village. The strip, once home to a catering business, an Enterprise Rent-A-Car lot and an art studio, is being cleared for a five-story mixed-use building with about 170 apartments stacked over roughly 19,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.
Reporter Brent Warren recently documented the demolition for Columbus Underground, which also noted that Northstar Realty did not respond to requests for comment. The cleared properties had replaced a surface parking lot and were themselves a cluster of long-vacant one- and two-story buildings, including Shane’s Gourmet Catering, an Enterprise Rent-A-Car location, and the Art Outside the Lines studio. According to that reporting, the site has been the subject of talks with city planners and neighbors for several years.
What the city approved
According to the city's Legistar record, the City Council signed off in 2022 on rezoning and a set of variances that clear the way for a mid-rise mixed-use project. The legislation caps the building at 170 apartments and breaks down the ground-floor commercial space into about 6,282 square feet of retail, roughly 10,349 square feet of restaurant space, and a 2,017-square-foot pickup area, totaling about 19,000 square feet of commercial use. The ordinance also grants variances for building height, smaller setbacks and a lower parking requirement, with approvals tied to securing final permits and sticking to the submitted plans.
Developer and neighborhood context
Northstar, which lists offices on East Livingston, has been active in Columbus infill work and built the five-story Home2 Suites on East Main Street, as Columbus Underground previously reported. The new project site sits in Schumacher Place, just east of German Village, a pocket of the South Side that has seen steady development pressure and plenty of debate over design and scale. Neighbors and the South Side Area Commission reviewed earlier versions of the plan in 2018 and 2022, and city records show the board of zoning adjustment signed off on a 2024 change that shifted a planned pickup window into the building’s parking garage.
Next steps and timeline
Even with the buildings gone, the project still has to clear several bureaucratic hurdles. The city's Legistar file notes that building permits and certificates of occupancy are required before construction can begin, and that final permits must be submitted in line with the approved plans. As of publication, there is no publicly posted construction start date, and the developer has not announced a schedule. Residents should expect more paperwork in the form of additional filings and public notices as Northstar moves toward formal permitting and site preparation.
