Mike Wolanin | The Republic A view of the former Clarion Hotel and Conference Center site on Jonathan Moore Pike in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025.
City officials Wednesday pushed back potential approval of initial plans to develop the former site of the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center.
Columbus Plan Commission members continued a request by Midland Atlantic Properties for approval of a major subdivision preliminary plat at 2480 W. Jonathan Moore Pike near Interstate 65, known as the former site of the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center.
The proposed subdivision would create seven lots and one common area totaling 20.73 acres. Four of the commercial lots are proposed to have frontage on both State Road 46 and Jonathan Moore Pike, as well as a proposed internal subdivision street.
The potential development of the former Clarion site marks the latest turn of events after Columbus Regional Health bought the property in 2017 for $4.25 million. The hotel structure was demolished shortly after Columbus Regional Health (CRH) purchased the property. Initially, CRH had plans for a mixed-use development on the site but those plans have since fizzled out. The property has sat vacant since then.
Plan commission members were generally happy to see potential development of the property, but unanimously decided to continue the request for another month to give the applicant more time to address subdivision control ordinance violations, modify street sections to provide better utility placement and refine the design of a relocated People Trail.
The preliminary recommendation from planning staff was continuance. Staff members are also requiring the developer to make a number of minor revisions to drawings as part of the plat approval.
The preliminary plat includes a map with seven lots, ranging in size from 1.12 acres to a larger 8.03-acre lot to the west, which officials indicated would be more of a challenge to develop because of flooding issues.
Three of the eastern six lots are less than 2 acres, while the remaining are 2.02 and 2.79 acres respectively, according to city documents. The property has portions in the 100- and 500-year floodplain.
During an interdepartmental review, Columbus City Utilities staff expressed concern about the placement of the proposed utilities. Parks staff said flooding on the trail will likely continue and possibly get worse after development, saying they would work with the developer to make sure that’s addressed. Part of the trail located in an easement will need to be raised, parks staff said.
Notably, the property is located within the Columbus Front Door Overlay Zoning District, meaning the development of each of the proposed lots will be subject to plan commission discretion later on.
Sam Boyle, development manager at Midland, said they don’t have solidified plans for the property, but indicated that they have proposals where they would retain ownership of the lots after development and others where they would just sell them off.
While Columbus Regional Health System Services LLC is still listed as the property’s owner, CRH spokeswoman Kelsey DeClue previously told The Republic that CRH’s intent is to sell the entire plot to Midland.
Midland Atlantic Properties has offices in Indianapolis and Cincinnati and owns and fully leases Columbus Crossing Shops at 2075 West Jonathon Moore Pike, with tenants including Buffalo Wild Wings, Verizon Wireless, Heartland Dental, among others, according to it website and public real estate records.
However, the company sold the properties now housing McAlister’s Deli and Panda Express on the city’s west side, as well as the properties housing WellNow Urgent Care and Valvoline Instant Oil Change on National Road.
The Clarion, which had 253 guest rooms and a conference center with a 1,000-person capacity, was sold to CRH during a foreclosure sale after the hotel’s owners defaulted on their debt.
For a while after the demolition, the property contained a pile of rubble with debris from the former building and rubble from the Indiana Department of Transportation’s I-65 Expansion Project.
Contractors then broke down and redistributed the rubble on the site and removed trees in a swampy, flood-prone area of the property as part of efforts to raise the lot above the floodplain.
In 2021, CRH reached an agreement with Clearpath Services of Bloomington, in partnership with architecture, engineering and geospatial firm Woolpert in Indianapolis, to turn the former hotel site into a mixed-used development, The Republic reported at the time.
The plan at that time was to sell the site while still retaining a parcel of land within the mixed-used development for hospital programs and services.
An application filed in January 2022 with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management described the site as a “regional gateway” to the city and showed plans for, among other things, a medical facility, some 220 apartments, a 100-room hotel, a grocery store and an “interpretive welcome center, an architectural monument that evokes the proud tradition of Columbus’ iconic, historic church spires.”
But by March 2022, all of that had been put on hold except for the medical facility after the developer was “unable to finalize its plans” and dropped out. At the time, CRH said it was planning to move ahead with plans to build a medical facility on the site.
The hospital system also said at the time that it was still “open” to forming new partnerships to develop the property.
In early 2024, CRH said it had reached a preliminary agreement to sell the property to Midland Atlantic Properties after the company approached the hospital system and expressed interest in the property.
