NEWS

A Hyatt Place hotel, an Urban Active Fitness Center and Jason’s Deli are among the first tenants expected to open in the Grandview Yard project, to be built on the site of the former Big Bear supermarket warehouse.

“Location is really key to this project and the interest we’re getting in it,” said Brian Ellis, president and chief operating officer of Nationwide Realty Investors, which is developing the 80-acre project. “We think the large fitness facility and the hotel will both be great amenities for the first and future phases of the project.”

Detailed plans for that first phase, with an estimated price tag of $40 million, were presented to Grandview Heights’ planning commission this week. Nationwide expects to invest between $500 million and $600 million in the project over the next five to 10 years.

Dublin-based M+A Architects is the first office tenant to be disclosed for the initial phase of the project, set to open in fall 2010 on the eastern edge of Grandview Heights. The company will design the three-story office building it will occupy and will set up shop in 24,500 square feet on the top floor.

In all, the first phase will include 220,000 square feet of commercial space.

In addition to office, hotel and retail space, Nationwide also plans to build between 500 and 800 condominium and apartment units at Grandview Yard.

The 126-room Hyatt Place will be the third in the Columbus market. Locations in Worthington and Dublin were converted from the Amerisuites brand. Columbus Hospitality, which manages properties including the Downtown Crowne Plaza and Lofts hotels for Nationwide, will manage the Hyatt Place. Nationwide will own the hotel.

Hyatt Place is a “select-service” brand that offers more dining options and upscale touches than a “limited-service” hotel, said Eric Belfrage, who follows the local hotel business for the Columbus office of CB Richard Ellis.

“With Ohio State, Battelle, Chemical Abstracts and the hospitals there, it’s a pretty dynamic area, with demand-generators that are sort of impervious to the economy,” Belfrage said.

The other new tenants are part of chains that are growing. Urban Active has been expanding in central Ohio, with four Columbus-area locations and a fifth set to open in Graceland Shopping Center on the North Side.

Jason’s Deli recently entered the Columbus market with a Dublin restaurant. This will be the Tucson, Ariz., chain’s second Ohio location, operated by the same franchisee as the Dublin restaurant.

Nationwide announced in May that Capitol Square Ltd., the real-estate arm of The Dispatch Printing Company, publisher of The Dispatch, had taken a 20 percent stake in the Grandview Yard project.