Introducing Astor Park

Read the article in the Columbus Dispatch

We are excited to announce that Blackletter has partnered with the Pizzuti Companies and Haslam Sports Group to name the Columbus neighborhood encompassing the Crew’s new downtown stadium Astor Park. After many conversations, much research, and hundreds of names, we found ourselves most inspired by the story of soccer’s beginnings. Astor Park is a name that draws together the legacy and future of the game in America and in Columbus. 

The Park takes its name from the birthplace of American Soccer. The game was officially made a national sport in New York City in what was the time’s most luxurious hotel: Astor House, where, in April of 1913, Thomas Cahill founded the United States Football Association, which later became the United States Soccer Federation. 

The beautiful game, as it’s known around the world, is arguably the most popular sport in the world and is phenomenally important to our city. The new Crew stadium will be the best soccer stadium in the country; its perfect pitch will be home to the exciting professional matches of the black and gold in addition to diverse events—performances, local sports matches, professional gatherings—that raise the bar for sport and fun in Columbus. 

But Astor Park isn’t just about soccer or the stadium. The neighborhood is located centrally and privately in a quiet nook of downtown, just west of the Arena District. Widely accessible, the neighborhood will be home to Class A office space and luxury multi-family living. It will include a two-acre park that provides access to both the city’s best trail system and to the confluence where the Scioto meets the Olentangy River. In these ways, Astor Park is for those who seek an active, refined, urban lifestyle. 

As with all Pizzuti development projects, art and design are of utmost importance at Astor Park. Fine art will be curated throughout the neighborhood, elevating the experience of people who work there, live there, or visit to kayak on the river, watch a match, or enjoy a picnic on the lawn. Every element of the neighborhood, from street layout to building architecture to art installation on the garage wall, feels cohesive, thoughtful, and approachable. 

Embodying the themes of urban connection, cultural significance, and an ideal, balanced lifestyle imbued with fine art, Astor Park has proved itself to be one more example of the kind of substance and sensitivity with which leadership at both Blackletter and Pizzuti approach work.