Columbus College of Art & Design has opened the Center for Creative Collaboration, a $15 million renovation of historic Battelle Hall on its downtown campus that's designed to pull students, faculty, businesses and community partners into the same workspaces. The Center is open, with students using equipment and partner organizations holding project meetings there.
CCAD describes the facility as a 27,000-square-foot hub, according to CCAD, though other accounts of the project describe different dimensions. NBC4 had earlier reported the center was planned as a 30,000-square-foot facility, as detailed by nbc4i.com, while AIA Columbus has characterized the completed building as 31,000 square feet in its own description of the project. The discrepancy aside, the scope of the transformation is clear: the college's own account notes the project included a complete renovation of Battelle Hall plus an 8,000-square-foot addition.
From Chrysler Showroom to Fabrication Lab
Battelle Hall sits at 101 N. Washington Ave. and has a long history of reinvention — it was converted from a former Chrysler dealership into art and design studio space in the 1970s. Now it houses the Center's new Fabrication Lab, Metal Shop, Woodworking Lab and other collaborative spaces, where the school says students across majors are already taking classes and working with equipment like laser cutters, 3D printers and CNC machines. One of those spaces is the Jeffrey FabLab, where Fabrication Studio Manager Aaron Theesfeld has been working on a laser cutter as part of the building's daily operations, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
CCAD President Melanie Corn described the Center as an investment in students and Columbus. The renovation also introduced safer pedestrian pathways and what the college calls a welcoming public presence meant to reconnect the campus with surrounding downtown neighborhoods. The campus is adjacent to the Columbus Museum of Art.
Partners Already Working Inside the Building
It's not just students using the space. The college says organizations partnering with CCAD are already using the building for research sessions, project meetings and collaborative work with students and faculty. The Center is also hosting select Saturday Art Classes for kids, teens and adults this fall, opening its labs beyond the college's own enrollment.
That kind of outside engagement is part of a broader pattern for CCAD. Since expanding its focus on experiential learning in 2019, the college says it has facilitated more than 300 partnerships with local and regional organizations, with students and faculty contributing nearly 300,000 hours of work to central Ohio's creative economy.
How the $15 Million Came Together
The project was backed in part by CCAD's Here for Change campaign, which the college says raised $25.6 million and became the most successful comprehensive fundraising campaign in its history. A separate CCAD announcement put the final campaign total at $25,581,895, surpassing its original $20 million goal. Public dollars played a role too: the project received $1.4 million from the City of Columbus and $1 million in federal funding secured through U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty.
CCAD had broken ground on the renovation in 2025 and had anticipated an opening in fall 2026. The Center is designed as an interdisciplinary hub for project-based learning, making and connection, with fabrication labs, studios and meeting spaces.
