herr2ck: 3l33t Urb3x0r

March 2026.

While I was over taking pictures of the Municipal Light Plant, I noticed an odd little concrete building on the shore of the Olentangy River. It was abandoned and more modern, unlike most of the buildings I cover, so I figured it was high time to extend my reach a bit and do some urb3x0r sleuthing skills. (Just kidding.)

This…mystery building…is located at 645 West Nationwide Boulevard in the Arena District neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. It is bordered by Neiland Drive to the north, the Olentangy River to the south and west, and Nationwide Boulevard and the Municipal Light Plant to the east.

History

There is literally nothing about this building online except for some bonehead answering on a r/columbus Reddit post asking for “abandon places near Columbus” [sic]. That meant I had to bust out the usual tools for sleuthing, which actually didn’t work out very well this time.

I started with the county auditor’s parcel viewer tool, which marks the building as part of a larger tax parcel with no date of construction. However, the parcel is labeled as “pump station” as one of its legal names.

Next, given the plant’s concrete structure and rectangular windows, I figured it was an Art Moderne design at the earliest (meaning it dates to circa 1930-1940), and moved onto the maps. The 1921-1961 Sanborn map shows an empty site, so that was a bust. A 1933 Fire Underwriters Map shows a water line going through the site. Finally, a 1957 map shows the building existing and nearby the Water Works.

I wasn’t happy with these results and didn’t care to keep digging on such a mundane building, so I’m going to have to speculate on this building’s function and time of construction, unfortunately. I’m guessing that it was built between 1930 and 1960. Its location on the river and nearby the Columbus Water Works plants might point to a role of a pumping station or some kind of mill.

The building is in poor condition and boarded up today, and I’m sure it will soon be demolished for further expansion of the Arena District.

Photos

I did actually consider climbing inside, but there was some moron wandering about and lurking in his car (which was parked directly in front of this building), so all of these shots are peeking through the windows. Here is the building from the bridge over the Olentangy: