Students in IU’s J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program devised ideas meant to spark conversation for what may become of the Irwin Block site at Fifth and Franklin streets, informed by Columbus Downtown 2030, the city’s new strategic plan for downtown.

Christopher Reinhart, a lecturer for the J. Irwin Miller program, said that five students who took his design studio course put together some hypothetical proposals for the Irwin Block, which was identified as a “catalytic site” in the 2030 plan, meaning priority areas within the downtown core that present the “greatest near-term potential for transformation.”

The former Sears Building and parking lot, as well at the U.S. Post Office at 450 Jackson St. are three others.

“At the end of the day, they’re trying to make something beautiful, something artistic that people are going to love and care about for a long time, while meeting regulatory requirements and trying to service the community in which the project is going to live,” Reinhart said of the work his students did. “By engaging with the community the way we did for this project, it gives the students a taste of that process.”

“The students loved it: they loved getting to engage with so many different perspectives and hear how different people think about the site,” he said.

The Irwin Block site is made up of two parcels totaling a combined half-acre northwest of the intersection of Fifth Street and Franklin Street. The 1892 Queen Anne-style building on the western side of the site was demolished after a fire in 2022, while the shorter 1925 building — at one time home to The Republic — on the eastern site remains, damaged and vacant. The Columbus Capital Foundation owns the Irwin Block.

Reinhart strolled the catalytic sites to determine which one may be a good fit for his course after the J. Irwin program’s director, Daniel Martinez, mentioned Downtown 2030 officials’ openness to students helping out by generating some possibilities, ultimately choosing the Irwin Block.

The site was just about the right size, and complex enough that students would need to consider things like vertical circulation and relationships to other sites, Reinhart said.

Students had to develop ideas for an adaptive reuse of the 1925 Republic Building, where the downtown plan calls for some type of housing of about 30 units.

Considerations of the larger area was also appealing, Reinhart said. The site sits on the Avenue of the Architects, along Fifth Street between Eliel Saarinen’s First Christian Church and I. M. Pei’s Bartholomew County Public Library, an area that Reinhart described as “architecturally significant wonders coexisting with humble, yet proud historic buildings” like city hall and the visitor’s center.

The site also presented a formidable challenge in that it involved creating something new that could also be in conversation with historic structures.

Students had to balance that challenge with criteria across five different categories like site requirements, accessibility and measurable environmental impacts.

“They have to consider all those things while still trying to make art, still trying to make something that’s beautiful and compelling,” Reinhart said.

The students began with some fact-finding: combing through Columbus Downtown 2030, reading the city’s 2024 housing study and a needs assessment compiled by Bartholomew County Public Library, a close neighbor.

They also did stakeholder interviews. They met with Bonnie Boatwright, project manager for Columbus Downtown 2030, Jacob Sipe, the city’s director of community development, Cindy Frey, president of the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce and Bartholomew County Public Library Director Jason Hatton.

Then came about four iterations of idea boards where students are “essentially taking this mountain of data, and working their way through turning data into something that actually has meaning,” Reinhart said.

“This is where their voice really got to come into it is in looking at all those things,” Reinhart went on. “How do they put those pieces together into a meaningful narrative that can ultimately become part of a compelling design solution?

Architecture is a form of story-telling, and the best architecture is able to communicate a story about people and place and the relationship between the two, according to Reinhart.

For the housing portion, students proposed everything from micro-apartments to co-housing to the typical mix of studio and two-bedroom apartments.

They were also able to propose additional components to form the area into a mixed-use development. Co-working spaces, a retail incubator space and a seed to table operation — with rooftop gardens that a startup kitchen could use — were some ideas.

Another student, after looking through the library needs assessment, thought the relocation of the architectural archives from the library to the 1925 Republic building would make a lot of sense.

During the final review for the course, a dozen different stakeholders came to hear the ideas, including Mayor Mary Ferdon and the variety of people involved in Columbus Downtown 2030.

While what will end up becoming of the site remains to be seen, Reinhart said students were able to gain valuable insights that are crucial in being an architect: being able to navigate complexity, develop relationships with multiple stakeholders and balancing a variety of interests and needs.

“I will be gratified if, even in the tiniest of ways, the work of the students brings up conversation pieces and allows people to consider options that maybe hadn’t been considered,” Reinhart said.

He added that he hopes to be able to do a similar project for one of the other catalytic sites with another group of students in a later semester.
© 2026 The Republic