Touring German Village during the holidays at night has become a tradition for many, and just in time for this weekend’s German Village Lights the new mixed-used monstrosity “Jaeger Square” has opened for business – or at least started offering leases for its $1,000-a-month 350-square feet studios replete with Murphy beds.

Those German Village homeowners who spent years, a lot of money, and sweat equity building the character of Central Ohio’s most unique neighborhood have begun to speak out online. The five-story 261-unit apartment building (pictured above on left) with retail space is at the corner of Whittier and Jaeger Streets, a short walk to Schiller Park, and built by The Pizzuti Companies. And while Jaeger Square is actually in Schumacher Place and not German Village – a neighborhood that has stricter zoning codes and a historical commission that would have put up a tougher fight and more resistance – what’s done is done.

“It’s the cheapest design there is. Ask any architect. There’s beautiful new construction downtown, the designs of which would have fit nicely in this space. But no, greedy Pizzuti built an ugly box and even covered it with cheap and out of character brick,” stated one recent Facebook post.

“They couldn’t even pick a brick color [red brick] that fit the neighborhood,” said another post.

“Just took an architectural historian from Athens (Greece not Ohio) around and she couldn’t believe how tone deaf and already dated the design was,” stated another.

And on and on:

“We hate it and never wanted it!”

“Looks like a poorly designed hospital.”

“Where Old World charm meets Maximum Income Potential.”

True, Jaeger Square replaced an aging Giant Eagle and its parking lot. But once again, local high-end developers and their sold-out contemporaries at City Hall, who approved the project, are desperate for rent checks from young professionals and trustafarians. So, expect more density and traffic if this same duo can find what space is left in Columbus’s coolest neighborhoods.

“German Village is a victim of its own cache,” stated another Facebook post. “There are many young professionals who want to live there and developers who want to accommodate that market demand.”

Also upsetting in some respects, especially to Ohio State football fanatics, is not only how preserving architectural history was discarded like rubbage, but the new trash was tossed onto sacred ground. Jaeger Square was built on top of the field where the very first OSU home football game was played in 1890. The Pizzuti Company is believed to have the historical marker which once stood outside the Giant Eagle.

German Villagers and Shumacher residents did mobilize some opposition in 2020 after the project was proposed, but not enough to fend off Pizzuti.

“German Village and Schumacher residents joined together and rallied to negotiate with the developer. [But] he had no desire to hear our concerns. We then raised money for an attorney, but we weren’t able to garner enough money to match the likes of that of the developers. I blame the German Village residents who, for the most part, left it to a few to battle against this monster. It’s shameful,” stated a Facebook post.

Some good news for German Village this year was how the German Village Society sought to opt out of “Zone In” – a modernization of zoning codes to create more density in most of Columbus’s most popular and busiest areas. The German Village Society is the grassroots non-profit started in 1960 and “dedicated to retaining the character and distinction of the past.” And while not entirely successful, the City responded by adding an additional code to the Zone In overhaul, called the “Planning and Historic Preservation Code.”

“While the section of Livington Avenue located within the German Village Historic District was not removed from the Zone In code, there has been a win for historic preservation in Columbus,” said Crystal Coon, Historic Preservation Manager for the German Village Society, to the Free Press.

This preservation code only applies to the German Village Commission, Historic Resources Commission, Italian Village Commission, and Victorian Village Commission. All neighborhood commissions, by the way, are completely staffed by mayoral appointees.

“Specific verbiage within the first couple pages of the document were added to protect the sanctity of the Historic District Review Commissions, including the German Village Commission. These Historic District Review Commissions maintain the top authority on what can be altered within the boundaries of the historic districts. It is reassuring to know that the zoning document explicitly states that these commissions retain their authority to protect the history that these districts contain,” said Coon.