New Albany, Ohio / My Home Town

FROM OUTSIDE LOOKING IN TO INSIDE LOOKING OUT

Will anyone ever attempt to write the history or story of New Albany, Ohio? Perhaps it’s because many in NA are more interested in looking towards the future. But there seems some story worthy to describe this wonderful town we’ve in. The activities of it. Of course the city puts our PR releases over the Internet and the town is pretty connected through Internet connectors like NextDoor Neighbor and other service like this.

A recent farm town of just a few thousand is now becoming one of the nation’s greatest data centers and business parks. The town that we’ve lived in for ten years since our move from California. The town is about five miles east of the NE section of the Loop 270 around Columbus, Ohio. The off-ramp to 161 east towards Newark. And then five miles down 161. The lanes have been expanded a lot since the Intel announcement they wore moving to the New Albany Business Park. Ohio. The area created and envisioned by the Disney of architectural design of consumer areas, Les Wexner. As well as the billionaire founder of the Limited and the many large brand names known to all. As well as creator of the outdoor shopping mall concept – that friendly little fake village we’ve all come to know by these outdoor malls. Wexner’s creation of Easton in Colombus was the blueprint original for these. Having moved between California and Ohio almost all my life, I’ve seen a lot of malls. But no concept like Easton. It was an amazing event when it opened. almost like seeing the first day in the old Disneyland when it first opened in Anaheim. Now, outdoor shopping and indoor malls being repositioned as various other types of real estate and sold.

While many of Lex Werner’s competitors died within the confines of Americas’ shopping malls, Wexner’s revival of the small town of New Albany continues to grow. Many forget that architecture was a love of Wexner the brand genius. After ten years back here, we decide to keep our home here and begin to spend time at our home in Colorado. Our kids are there and the people are great.

A few miles beyond Wexner and his wife’s estate on the eastern part of New Albany is Beech Road with the great AI farms and databases gathered along it. Crowding into this Ohio farmland a few years ago. The big data firms offering them so much for their farms they couldn’t refuse: Google, META, Amazon all coming in just a few years ago.

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It was a warm Wednesday. The second day of September. I headed out to get an update on what has been happening on Beech Road. There was much information on ai these days and much news on data farms. It has become a topic of conversation. The one in New Albany is arguably the leading one in the nation.

I was thinking of making a film on this and footage driving down Beech Road with the GoPro 12 attached to my car would make good footage for the film. Drove out to the databases and data centers on Beech Road. Though the two lane traffic east of New Albany on Worthington Road that parallels 161. We lived in New Albany when this was all farmland and through the steps of the building process. With period updates by driving out there and what we heard in town and read about things and watched it on the news.

Much was first started by the Intel project in the business park. It’s had its ups downs with the local residents but it is proceeded onward as planned. is raved about locally. Yet it has failed to pan out. The general enthusiasm for Intel and other ai type plants has gone down if anything this past year.

I put the GoPro camera on my roof using its supersede lens. Turned it on a few minutes before to get the country road you go down to get to it.

As I went back to New Albany, I realized that all of this was much bigger than I thought.

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All part of the New Albany Business park. The camera was perfectly placed on the jeep’s roof as I drove down Beech Road today. META on the left with Amazon on the right and then Google on the right was the way I remember it. But things have changed immensely in the year I’ve been out there. It is now its own city spawning a hotels north of 161 as well as some fast food places. The great power lines flowing into Beech Road are caught.

I edit the film on my Mac and

yet balance what current residents envision for their community.

the a growingly influential urban area in America over the past decade.