05/20/2026
The City of Westerville has moved their Planning and Development, Utility Billing, and Income Tax offices out of the building at 64 E Walnut Street (immediately south of Cellar Lumber just on the other side of East Park Street from us). They are planning to sell the 5.2 acre property which includes part of the parking lot used by the Westerville Public Library and Hanby Park. Currently the portion of the Bike Path that goes from East Walnut Street north to East Park Street is part of this parcel, but the city has stated the bike path would be split off and become part of Hanby Park. The city is far enough along that they are proposing a sale of the property for $2.5M (below the valuation of $3.418 M, which itself is likely well below market value) to Continental Development Ventures, with a proposed plan to build a huge 5-story building containing 247 apartments, an 81 room "Boutique" Marriott-branded hotel, a 3500 Square foot restaurant, along with a separate 400 spot 4 to 5 story parking garage, in place of the existing building and parking lots. They had an open house about it last Thursday and the first of 3 planned / required readings before Westerville City Council last night. Although there was very little public engagement before last week, word got out quickly and several hundred people attended the open house last week, and hundreds attended the city council meeting last night. Cellar Lumber has been located on East College Avenue since 1908. When the lumber yard was first opened, this was primarily sparsely populated farmland and was considered the outskirts of uptown Westerville- literally on the "wrong side of the railroad tracks" from Uptown Westerville. The primarily residential neighborhood that now surrounds us did not exist back then (save for a few sporadic farm houses). Over the past 118 years, some additional small businesses, as well as schools and housing have filled in around us. The one thing that has remained largely the same since the days we first delivered lumber and coal by horse and wagon is the layout of the surrounding streets. It is both a blessing and a curse that there simply is not space available to add additional lanes to State Street, East Walnut Street, College Avenue, Vine Street, or Summit Street. A blessing because it does require most surrounding streets to be limited to 25 MPH, helping to keep a quaint, walkable neighborhood feel- "A city within a park" as Westerville loves to proclaim. It is a curse though in that real traffic problems and gridlock plague several intersections all over the uptown area at certain times of the day. We've been selling building materials for over a century and are certainly not opposed to well-planned and carefully thought-out building and development projects, and additional parking near uptown is definitely needed, but it's very difficult to figure out who could have thought a development of this scale could possibly be appropriate for the proposed residential neighborhood location when the traffic of 247 apartment units, 81 hotel rooms, a large restaurant and a 400 spot parking garage (not to imagine constant rideshare and food delivery traffic) would all dump out on to East Walnut Street, which is already a very busy street right across from Westerville's school bus garage, close to 5 public schools, right behind the library, and immediately next to Hanby Park, the Splash Pad, and the Bike Path. Thankfully after strong public backlash, Westerville City Council voted unanimously last night to at least delay the second reading of the sale to Continental Development Ventures until September 15th, and add two additional open houses (at larger venues since wait times were near an hour just to get inside the open house last week), but make no mistake, Westerville does still fully intend to sell this property to be developed. It was great to see a packed house of people from the community at the City Council meeting last night who obviously care about maintaining the character and feel of Uptown Westerville, and want there to be more public input on the future use of this property. If you have an opinion on what you'd like to see at this location, I would urge you to contact Westerville's key officials and City Council members directly at:
Key Westerville city staff members:
Monica Dupee, City Manager: [email protected]
City Manager’s Office: [email protected]
Hillary Bates, Community Affairs Director: [email protected]
David Efland, Planning & Development Director: [email protected]
Rachel Ray, Economic Development Director: [email protected]
Your elected members of the Westerville City Council:
David Grimes - Mayor: [email protected]
Kelley Stocker - Vice-Mayor: [email protected]
Megan Czako - Chair: [email protected].
Aaron Glasgow - Vice Chair: [email protected]
Kenneth L. Wright: [email protected]
Jeff Washburn: [email protected]
Daniela Beckett: [email protected]
Finally, I'll add that photojournalist Gary Gardiner of The Westerville News has been on this from the start and has helped inform thousands of people in the community who might otherwise have had no idea about this proposed project. A synopsis of the meeting last night is linked below, and there are several additional relevant articles I'll link in separate comments below.
Westerville council delays 64 E.
