February 2026.
The Trolley District is an example of adaptive reuse in architecture, where a building is remodeled to serve a different function than it was built for. Here, a former streetcar barn and maintenance shop were converted into a revived “East Market,” bringing back Columbus’s directional market system. However, this project is a pretty overt attempt at gentrification in the area (instead of the more equitable “revitalization”).
The Trolley District complex is located at the northeast corner of Kelton Avenue and Oak Street in the Franklin Park neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. It is bordered by the historic houses on Franklin Park South to the north, Oak Street and the crappy 5-over-1 “The Station” apartments to the south, Abbott Terrace to the east, and Kelton Avenue to the west.
History
I found a great resource online while researching some other transit-related building, which is columbusrailroads.com. A good deal of its information is more railfan-y, but there’s also a lot of helpful information regarding the actual architectural remnants of Columbus’s streetcars and railroads. Therefore, I’m relying on it for some of the more detailed information on this building (along with my own typical research and inferences, of course).
Snippet of the 1891 Sanborn map depicting the complex. (Library of Congress)
Anyways, what is now the Trolley District was built as the Rose Avenue Barns. (Kelton Avenue was known as Rose Avenue before 1921 or so.) The line that the barns served on Oak Street was built by the State & Oak Street Railroad Company in 1872. Apparently, it was consistently in poor repair until its purchase by the Columbus Consolidated Street Railway Company in 1882. (The “Consolidated” portion refers to its merger with other early streetcar companies and was dropped in 1892.) They went on to rebuild the track and extend it, and at that point it ran westward from Rose/Kelton to High Street and then northward to Union Station. Remember, at this point Franklin Park was then the state fairgrounds, so there was demand to travel to what was the extreme eastern end of Columbus at the time.
Streetcars inside the Kelton Avenue Barn. (Columbus Railroads)
The Rose Avenue Barns were built in 1883 in a Victorian industrial style, and they first appear on the 1891 Sanborn map, since the 1887 map doesn’t cover the east side very well. At that time, the complex consisted of a car house building to the south (which stands today) and a demolished stables building to the north with an attached feed house. Before 1888, Columbus’s streetcars were pulled by horses, and the Oak Street line was the last to be electrified, which occurred in 1892.
1904 photo showing the modifications to the original feed house completed before 1901. (Wikimedia)
The 1901 Sanborn map shows that several modifications occurred to the carhouse, which was labeled as “Columbus Street Railway Co. Repair Shop & Car Barn.” The stables were converted to store the streetcars instead, and the southern building was used as a paint shop. The former feed house was used for several shop functions, namely, woodwork and a motor and machine shop in its basement. It was connected to the stables/car house via a room used as a brass foundry, and another new wing extended southward from the feed house, which was the complex’s dedicated repair shop. Between 1895 and 1902, the buildings were used to build custom streetcar bodies by Columbus Street Railway Co.
The site in 1909 at its greatest extent.
I found the above image like third-hand, and it looks like a Sanborn map based on the font and colors, but I haven’t seen such a detailed drawing on any of the ones I’m familiar with. Also, Columbus doesn’t have a 1909 Sanborn map. It seems to be a special edition, given that the buildings are labeled with the subscript “Individual Report No. 2.” The map goes into a lot more detail than the normal Sanborns do, and it also includes section drawings, which I’ve never seen on a Sanborn map before.
Anyways, by 1909, the carhouse had expanded to its largest footprint, and the Columbus Street Railway Company became known as the Columbus Railway, Power, & Light Company in 1913. Rose Avenue was also renamed to Kelton Avenue in the 1920s. The brass foundry addition had been demolished and relocated to a separate small building, but an office wing was added to the car barn, which now had a 32-car capacity. The existing office building to the southeast of the shops building was then newly built, as well as the additional car storage building on the eastern end of the site.
A streetcar in front of the paint shop, circa 1930-1940. (Columbus Railroads)
Changes to the traditional streetcar system began again in the 1930s. Beginning in 1933, the city of Columbus transitioned to conventional buses and trolley coaches (buses that used the electric streetcar lines). This process was delayed by World War II but was ultimately completed in 1948, with the final streetcars to ever use the tracks headed to the Kelton Avenue Barns. Columbus Railway, Power, & Light also renamed itself to Columbus & Southern Ohio Electric Company in 1937 to highlight its change in scope. (It has eventually merged with AEP, which took place in 1980.) As of 1961, the former carhouse was being used to store buses instead. Columbus Railroads writes that the buildings were used for this purpose until 1965, though other sources assert this was its use until the 1980s.
The buildings in 1976. (NRHP listing)
The large car barn/stables was demolished at some point after 1976, leaving a large hole in the site. The buildings were abandoned entirely in the 1980s and deteriorated further, though they were listed as part of the Near East Side Historic District in 1980.
In 2003, the site was sold in a sheriff’s sale for $231,000, and a possible adaptive reuse was being planned as early as 2007 (the “Trolley Market”). However, these fell through, and the property continued to decline under the delinquent owner. A cleanup was ordered in 2013 due to falling brick and shingle, and the unmonitored, abandoned property attracted drug dealers and prostitutes. In September 2013, the owner was ordered to either sell the buildings or pay $30,000 in fines.
Exterior of the storage building before renovation. (Ohio Redevelopment Projects)
Brad DeHays purchased the property in 2014, and his company announced plans for its reuse in 2017. The large paint shop would become a revived East Market (replacing the one in Mt. Vernon that closed in 1947) , the former machine shops were converted to a Columbus Brewing Company location, and the additional storage buildings on the east side became restaurant space. DeHays made an effort to preserve every remaining building on the site, and the project received funding help through historic tax credits and subsidies for the food markets inside (which are free for Columbus City Schools culinary classes). A goal of the East Market concept was to help alleviate the divestment in the Near East Side and combat its status as a food desert. These tax breaks were very controversial, however, raising questions of the city’s priorities. Most of the spaces inside opened between 2021 and 2023.
Photos
This view looks south at the former paint shop from the parking lot, which itself was the location of the original car barn:
Stupid tangent, but what’s with all cars today being some shade of gray, black, or white? They match the pitch of the sky. The orange SUV slightly left of middle sticks out like a sore thumb.
The entrance here:
East facade:
Note the limestone foundation--the sloping site meant that this area was built with a basement originally.
Oblique view from this area:
It looks like there was once a door here as well, given the remaining hinges, but the opening has been infilled:
Southwest corner, with the restored west facade:
Off-center view of that facade (the car was right in my way):
Inside the market, the interior has been filled with modern structure and equipment, as well as a rail pattern in the floors:
There’s a large plaque by the entrance that documents the site’s history (which doesn’t have any information that wasn’t included in my earlier summary):
The formerly open attic has had catwalks and seating added:
Unfortunately, the view down the center is blocked by metal ties:
The original roof framing is intact and in pretty good condition:
Looking down the aisle to the other end:
It was smoky inside due to all the restaurants below, which gave these skylights a nice haze:
This area was originally the carpenter’s shop, but now it houses brewery equipment:
Wow, this facade is one hodgepodge of different shades of brick:
The modern entrance is slightly off-center from the vaulted portion, which was certainly the original entrance. It seems like several other windows have been bricked up. Finally, it seems like the roof was not pitched at that angle originally and has been truncated more recently.
My guess is that the vaulted portion was altered with a sliding door of some kind sometime after construction, and the modern entrance just aligns with the sliding door’s track.
It’s pretty much identical to the east end, too:
I noticed these old masonry blocks in the parking lot. I have no clue what Columbus building they’re from, and none of the streetcar-related buildings would have had such fancy stonework:
The southern portion of the shop buildings here, the “Pit Room” (where mechanics worked in pits under the streetcars to repair them), is now in ruins. They’ve been cleaned up and stabilized, of course, but it seems like this addition was mostly demolished and just left as is for a while. The wood framing and roof was still there until around 2015, when they either collapsed or were removed, and all that remains today is standing walls.
An oblique view from East Market’s balcony:
The windows still have frames (but no glass):
Edison bulbs, picturesque ruins with exposed brickwork, wicker chairs and firepits…hey Derek, turn on the Lumineers! This is the millennial microbrewery wet dream.
Just two guys with a crazy idea. (The crazy idea is $30 for overcooked “handhelds” with punny names and Sysco fries covered in truffle oil for an extra $8.)
The walls have obviously been stabilized with this black steel structure, which matches the framing of the large windows by the new entrance:
You can see the remnants of the triangular roof and the filled-in slots where the rafters used to be:
Obviously this is sanitized, family-friendly urban decay for white-collar workers to ogle at while drinking their $12 IPAs on a Saturday night, but I still enjoyed the hell out of it regardless. If I do enough mental gymnastics, I can stop thinking about the gentrification.
The other side:
The original tracks remaining here were torn up when the site was redeveloped, but a mock pattern (which ironically isn’t historically accurate to the building) has been installed, with salvaged brick in the space between the rails:
It is pretty interesting with the various shades of brick used:
It was common historically for brickmakers to emblazon their name and “BLOCK” on the brick pavers that they made. Hallwood Block was made in Columbus by Henry Hallwood’s Hallwood Paving Block Factory, though I’m unsure of the others’ provenance. I will say that none of the Athens County-area bricks that I’m aware of are here.
I wonder if the “Lane Block” was the same person who Lane Avenue is named after.
West side of the office wing and boiler house:
These share a similar vernacular, industrial brick construction with the rest of the complex. This collection of buildings in particular has wider segmentally arched openings and a square chimney on the boiler house.
The south facade has a more regular and slightly ornamented appearance:
This might actually be a brick bearing-wall structure due to its small size, but usually the piers separating windows also express the wood or steel frame of these early industrial buildings. Aside from that detail, there is a subtle brick string course and an ever-so-slight stone coping.
The east end has had several window openings modified:
Oblique view from the parking lot, with the godawful 5-over-1 in the background:
Beautiful, sturdy brick construction versus shoddy apartments designed to be built as cheaply as possible. They didn’t even bother to clad the exterior in a brick veneer to match its context.
Another view from the street:
The large storage building at the east end, which is now a Local Cantina:
One of the things that confuses me about some of the tenants in this complex is their genericism. For the most part, North Market is filled with unique restaurants that can be only found there. That seems to be the case for the actual East Market part of this project, but in other areas there are chain restaurants like Local Cantina (which actually makes their name quite ironic). I feel like the appeal of developments like the Trolley District is reduced if they’re stocked with forgettable places that can be visited in the safety (/s) of Upper Arlington.
Modified garage doors:
The steel framing here is original, though it has been painted black:
Leftover mechanical equipment:
Another outdoor terrace with rustic fireplaces and a graffiti piece that wasn’t removed:
I used to be really into graffiti as a teenager, though I never really got further than the blackbook throwups/tags stage. Anyways, one thing a lot of artists hate is the sterilized “street art” or really elaborate pieces that some artists are commissioned by businesses/cities to paint. A necessary part of authentic graffiti art is its illegal nature and the haste in which it generally must be done--when these aspects are removed, there is a sense of sterility to the artwork, no matter how elaborate it is. I guess this isn’t quite the case here, since it was an authentic piece that was left in situ, but the end result is a reappropriation of the artwork to add a sense of edginess to a chain taco restaurant.
The former brass foundry has been converted to a barbershop:
More architectural remnants from long-demolished buildings litter the alley behind this building. I’m having trouble identifying what building this massive datestone belonged to:
It uses a quatrefoil, which is a Gothic motif, but my first two guesses (Columbus State Hospital and the Ohio Institution for Feeble-Minded Youth) were both built at different times and lack an obvious datestone on historic photos. It seems like part of the stone has been power-washed to remove the soot.
A very heavily weathered cornerstone:
One J. C. Johnson was the architect of whatever building this belonged to, but the other writing is practically unrecognizable.
Now THIS ONE rings a bell--it’s the datestone of the Ohio Penitentiary after its 1870s renovation:
An odd painted sign nearby, which is probably modern:
I’m kind of torn about the Trolley District overall. It seems to be used by locals, despite the parking lot being filled with soccer mom SUVs, which is important. It is also a great preservation work that restored abandoned buildings and did not involve demolition. However, a big hangup for me is the market’s tenants and their intended clients. It seems like a lot of them are geared more towards middle- and upper-class customers, as they have the kind of artisanal/organic stuff that Whole Foods would sell. This is especially concerning considering its noble aspirations of combating the Near East Side’s food desert--even though it’s gentrifying, its working-class residents cannot afford fancy organic groceries. Feel free to correct me if this isn’t actually the case, but it was the impression that I got.
Sources:
https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4084cm.g4084cm_g066561891/?sp=3
https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn06656_005/
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71988465
https://www.columbusrailroads.com/new/?menu=03Streetcars
https://columbusunderground.com/history-lesson-a-tale-of-two-trolley-barns/
https://columbusunderground.com/hard-hat-tour-trolley-district-taking-shape-near-franklin-park-bw1/
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