A seven-story mixed-use development planned for the corner of Woodruff Avenue and High Street near Ohio State has grown to swallow the building that once housed PJ's Sandwiches, the beloved late-night sandwich shop that abruptly shut its doors last month. Texas-based developer RPM Living now wants to fold the two-story building at 15 Frambes Ave. into its footprint, adding it to a project that already calls for demolishing the Ohio Stater apartment complex and a century-old building at Frambes and Tuller streets.
The expanded plans, submitted to the City of Columbus on Friday, were first detailed by Columbus Underground, which reported that the development would include a 228-unit apartment building with 866 beds, about 4,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, and a 235-space parking garage. The outlet's reporting indicates the project's retail lineup could include a coffee shop and juice bar, though a Donatos location at the two-story building on the corner of High and Frambes is not included in the redevelopment footprint, per that same report.
PJ's Sandwiches had operated at 15 Frambes Ave. for more than two decades, earning a devoted following among students for its oversized, high-calorie creations known as fat sandwiches, according to 614NOW. The shop closed abruptly in September, and is now listed as closed on delivery platforms, with its listed phone number no longer in service, the Columbus Underground report notes.
A Two-Acre Footprint Spanning Four Parcels
RPM Living's Certificate of Appropriateness application to the University Impact District Review Board covers a roughly two-acre footprint spanning four Franklin County parcels bounded by North High Street, East Woodruff Avenue, Tuller Street, and Frambes Avenue, according to Pique. The project was designed by architectural firm Niles Bolton Associates, with civil engineering site plans produced by Columbus-based E.P. Ferris & Associates, Pique reports — a design team also credited with the project rendering, per the Columbus Underground report.
The plan requires demolition of the Ohio Stater apartment complex as well as a three-story building at the corner of Frambes and Tuller streets that was constructed in 1915, according to the Columbus Underground report. The Ohio Stater building itself has a long history on the site: it originally opened in the 1960s as the Ohio Stater Inn, a 130-room hotel featuring the Pavilion Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge, a swimming pool, and an internal parking garage, according to the Columbus Metropolitan Library's digital archive. Columbus Underground's reporting states the hotel was built in 1950 and converted into apartments in 1988, with a parking garage and additional apartment buildings added behind the original structure during that redevelopment.
The Ohio Stater apartment complex announced earlier this year that it would end residential operations this month to prepare for the site's redevelopment, according to The Lantern.
What the October 22 Hearing Will and Won't Decide
The University Impact District Review Board is scheduled to take up the project on October 22, and its approval is needed for the building design to move forward, per the Columbus Underground report. But city officials have been clear about the limits of that review: the filing is confined to preliminary exterior design and scale evaluation, and does not authorize demolition or construction, Pique reports.
The review board itself is a seven-member, mayor-appointed body established in 1992 and updated in 2017, holding design approval authority over 2,310 tax parcels across the OSU campus area under City Code Chapter 3325, according to the City of Columbus. Separate municipal zoning clearances and demolition permits will still be required before any work can begin on the parcels.
Part of a Broader Push Along High Street
The proposal lands amid the city's Zone In Columbus initiative, which passed major updates in July 2024 aimed at modernizing 70-year-old zoning rules along corridors like High Street to allow greater residential height and density, according to The Lantern. Columbus housing strategy officials have noted that the University District is the densest geographic area in Ohio, with persistent student demand pressuring local rental prices, per WOSU Public Media.
RPM Living brings significant scale to the project: the Austin-based firm ranked as the fourth-largest apartment manager in the country in the National Multifamily Housing Council's 2026 rankings, overseeing 241,479 units nationwide. For a neighborhood watching both a historic hotel-turned-apartment complex and a campus sandwich institution disappear within the same footprint, the coming months will test how much of that density push the University District absorbs — and how much of its old character goes with it.
