If you drove down Mill Street this year, you watched five buildings disappear. Fencing went up in January, and by midsummer the block between Carpenter Road and Walnut Street sat open and empty, a gap where a row of storefronts used to be. It looks like the kind of change that should have disrupted everything about how Creekside works.
It didn't. The Gahanna Market still ran on schedule. The Blues & Jazz Festival still filled the plaza in June. Two new restaurants opened their doors blocks away without missing a beat. The teardown and the neighborhood's actual weekly rhythm turned out to be two different stories happening a few hundred feet apart, and knowing which is which is the useful part.
What Came Down, And What's Still Standing
The buildings the Gahanna Community Improvement Corporation demolished sat at 152 Mill Street, 153-155 Mill Street, 161-169 Mill Street, and 170 Mill Street, three parcels on the west side and two across the road on the east side. The city had been assembling these long-vacant, dilapidated parcels for years before fencing went up in January 2026, and by the time Hoodline reported on it in late July, the lots were cleared and ready for construction.
That address block is not the same address block where you shop the market or grab dinner before a show. Creekside Plaza sits at 117 Mill Street, a short walk south, and it's the part of the district the city has been careful to keep functioning through all of this. The Creekside Reimagined project FAQ specifically notes that the parking garage stays open even while flood mitigation work happens around it, and that only smaller sections inside the garage will see any disruption at all.
| Torn down (Mill St, north of Walnut) | Still open and running |
|---|---|
| 152, 153-155, 161-169, 170 Mill St | Creekside Plaza, 117 Mill St |
| Long-vacant storefronts | Fountain, market pavilion, restaurants, parking garage |
Two blocks, two different stories. One is a demolition site waiting on permits. The other is where you've been meeting friends for dinner all summer.
What's Supposed to Replace the Empty Lots, and When
Gahanna City Council approved the development agreement behind all of this on November 17, 2025, by a 6-1 vote. Councilmember Nancy McGregor cast the lone no, citing concerns about the parking spaces the project would eliminate, and other councilmembers acknowledged residents had voiced worries of their own at public meetings, including about traffic, according to WCMH's coverage of the vote.
The plan, led by Columbus-based developers Connect Real Estate and Benson Capital, calls for two buildings on the cleared Mill Street parcels: a seven-story structure on the west side and a six-story building on the east, connected by a pedestrian bridge over the street. Together they're set to hold 263 apartments, a hotel with 55 to 70 rooms, and two restaurants, one of them on a rooftop. A second phase would add 24 townhomes on parcels at Town and North High streets.
Gahanna's Economic Development Director Jeff Gottke told council the project continues what he called the legacy of the plaza:
"Creekside is the crown jewel of Gahanna. This proposal continues that legacy by bringing new energy, new residents, businesses, visitors and new activity to the district."
None of that construction has actually started yet. Hoodline's reporting notes that traffic studies, utility reviews, and permitting are still pending, and city staff have said no ground will break until those steps clear. The empty lots you're seeing right now are the setup, not the disruption. The years of visible construction, cranes, lane closures, the parts that actually change your commute through the district, are still ahead of the block, tied to a timeline that runs roughly three years from final approvals to substantial completion of the first phase.
The city is running its own smaller project in parallel. Flood mitigation work on the plaza and garage, required by FEMA, is expected to begin in fall 2026, funded out of existing city resources rather than a new tax levy.
The Restaurants That Opened While the Dust Was Still Settling
While Mill Street sat behind fencing, two new restaurants opened on entirely different streets in Gahanna, which is worth noticing on its own. Gold Cudgel, a Chinese hot pot restaurant, began serving customers on April 5 at 97 N. Stygler Road, and Mayor Laurie Jadwin attended the grand opening a few days later. She told the crowd, as WCMH reported, "You can choose anywhere to invest in a business, but we are so grateful that you chose Gahanna."
Soul 2 Go Express opened its third central Ohio location at 134 N. Hamilton Road that same spring, run by brothers Will, Kevin, and Keith Hightower alongside longtime friend Jerome Ross. The brand's other two spots are a carryout kitchen in Milo-Grogan and a standalone location in the Uptown District, according to WCMH's coverage of the opening.
Neither address is anywhere near the construction zone. Stygler Road and Hamilton Road are their own corridors, and both openings happened on their own timeline, independent of whatever is or isn't happening on Mill Street. Gahanna's dining scene grew this year in spite of the teardown, not because of it.
The Calendar That Didn't Skip a Beat
Everything anchored to Creekside Plaza itself ran exactly as planned this year. The Gahanna Market runs four evenings at the plaza this summer, 4 to 7pm, each with a different local performer. Three of the four dates are already behind us, and one is still ahead on September 9:
- June 10: Kismet Notes
- July 8: Tyy Perkins
- August 5: Isabella
- September 9: Jeff McCargish (upcoming)
The Creekside Blues & Jazz Festival took over the plaza June 19 through 21. And back in May, the city ran its annual Herb Day and Herb'n Restaurant Week, tied to Gahanna's identity as the Herb Capital of Ohio, a nickname the city earned in the late 1800s and early 1900s for the quality of herbs its residents grew. The Geroux Herb Garden, the small park where much of that tradition still lives, was established in 1975 and sits within walking distance of the plaza.
Every one of those events happened at 117 Mill Street, the address that never closed.
What to Watch For Next
The gap on Mill Street will eventually fill in with the phase of this project that actually changes daily life around Creekside: active construction, then a seven-story and a six-story building, a pedestrian bridge, and a lot more foot traffic once the apartments and hotel open. That's still years out, tied to permitting timelines that hadn't cleared as of this summer. What's happened so far is closer to stage-setting than disruption, and the part of the district residents actually use kept running the whole time.
If you own property near Creekside and you're wondering how a $100 million redevelopment two blocks away might eventually shape what your home is worth, that's exactly the kind of question worth a real answer instead of a guess. Connie Sadowski tracks changes like this across Gahanna and the surrounding Central Ohio suburbs because they matter long before they show up in a listing price. Reach out for a free home valuation or take a look at the Gahanna neighborhood guide to see what else has changed nearby.
