Walk Score – How walkable is your house? (Take Two)

I just realized that I never plugged the new home into WalkScore.com. Our old apartment in German Village is pulling up with a score of 80 (slightly up from the score of 78 when I last tested it). I felt that our new neighborhood isn’t quite as walkable, as there’s not a whole lot of development over here yet, but we’ve got some options close by in downtown within walking distance…

Anyway… the score ended up being 74. I’m actually a bit surprised it’s that high. Here’s some of the results:

Grocery Stores:
0.21 Mi – Silver Mini Mart

There’s several beer/cigarette/lottery corner shops over here, but I haven’t been into any of them yet. I doubt any of them carry much more than junk food. Maybe bread? The real closest grocery option is the North Market at 1.18 Mi. But there are also several other Kroger and Giant Eagles within another mile or two in every direction. I noticed that Arena Produce was left off the list too for some reason. And of course the seasonal farmers markets aren’t listed. There’s two of those on the Near East Side within a mile of us.

Restaurants
0.21 Mi – Canabar
0.28 Mi – Dragon One Chinese
0.36 Mi – Black Creek Bistro
0.51 Mi – Creole Kitchen
0.53 Mi – Wendy’s

I haven’t been to Canabar yet, but some good options otherwise. There’s also food at both of the new coffee shops and Carabar has food as well. Oh, and there’s always the Tip Top, Due Amici, Latitude 41, Mitchell’s, Brioso, Subway cluster about a mile away.

Coffee Shops
0.25 Mi – Urban Spirit Coffee

Got an even closer option with the new Zanzibar having just opened about 500 feet away. Too bad I still don’t drink coffee. The other drinks and food are nice options though.
Bars
0.21 Mi – Canabar

Here’s where we’re lacking. Outside of the Carabar, I don’t have a strong desire to go to any of the other local places that seem to mostly be local dives. Not really my scene. I’m hoping the lounge at Zanzibar will be a better option. Otherwise, I’ll make the trek to Tip Top.

Movie Theaters
1.32 Mi – Arena Grand Theatre

Quite a long walk for a movie, but a very short drive here or several other theaters (Landmark, Lennox, Drexel East). I assume our score will change pretty drastically when the Lincoln opens next year, as they will be showing movies on occasion and will probably show up in this category just as the Ohio Theater does.

Schools
0.09 Mi – Mother’s Helper Child Care

I don’t think this is much of a school. Mostly daycare. Very close. Nice to hear kids playing there. There’s some other schools not very far away though.

Parks
0.09 Mi – Mayme Moore Park

Nice park over there. Wish they had swings though. For some reason the Topiary Park didn’t show up on the list, which is very close by and one of the best parks in the entire city. And the Franklin Park Conservatory is about two miles from us.

Libraries
0.6 Mi – Columbus Metropolitan Library

Hooray for the Metro Library! The Art Museum was actually listed as a closer “library” for some reason. Perhaps because there’s no “museum” category on this thing?

Bookstores
0.25 Mi – Thurber House

The new Book Suite on Long Street will be a little closer than the Thurber House, which I wasn’t aware of being a bookstore. I assume they have a small collection of Thurber books for sale? If we need text books though, we’re in luck being so close to CSCC, CCAD, and Franklin. I haven’t been in the new and improved CSCC Bookstore yet, but it looks like they probably carry some magazines and other non-textbook options as well.

Fitness
0.74 Mi – V Power Yoga

Several downtown gyms and fitness centers, plus the YMCA and YWCA. I’ll probably never go to any of them. Isn’t that the point of walking around everywhere?

Drug Stores
0.44 Mi – Phillip’s Pharmacy

I’d probably opt to walk to City Pharmacy in the Market Exchange District. Not very far away.

Hardware Stores
0.55 Mi – Ici Paint

Zettler is just over a mile away. Not a bad walk unless you’re buying something heavy. We buy as much as we can over there to support one of the oldest and longest running independent businesses in Columbus.

Clothing & Music
0.81 Mi – Astor & Black

Bwa? An Astor & Black on East Main? Anyway, everyone knows that retail downtown sucks outside of a few specific examples (CJ Daniels comes to mind). There’s some potential for things to bounce back, both on Gay Street, as well as with a potentially revamped City Center. Guess we’ll have to be patient with that category.

All things considered, I’d say we fared pretty well. With those few adjustments being made sometime soon as the new businesses get added to Google and then to WalkScore.com we’ll probably have a score of over 80. The King Lincoln District still has a long way to go, but it’s encouraging to see tools like WalkScore help paint an overall picture and put a lot of small details into a bigger perspective.

So anyway… What’s your WalkScore?