Have you noticed it yet? Walk two blocks of Main Street in Old Hilliard this month and you will pass the same name three times without meaning to. It is on the sign in front of the old Chase Bank building. It is on the lease for the space that used to sell rare books. And it belongs to the landlord of the boutique that just changed hands. That is not a coincidence, and once you see the pattern, the fall lineup of new restaurants and storefronts stops looking random and starts looking like a plan.
The name is The Westwood Collective, and its founder, Andy Warnock, has quietly become the person shaping what the next year of Downtown Hilliard tastes like, literally.
Follow the Signatures
In June, the Hilliard Development Corporation announced a development agreement with The Westwood Collective to redevelop the former Chase Bank property at 4056 E. Main Street. That is one property. A few doors down, the boutique Urban Market operates out of a building that Westwood Collective owns, and the boutique's own former owner said the reason she decided to sell in an April interview was partly because her day job at Westwood Collective was about to get a lot busier thanks to, in her words, the company's recent win of the Chase site directly across the street. That is two properties connected by one employee's own account.
The third is the building that will soon house Harvest Pizzeria, in the space most residents still call Legacy Smokehouse. That building has quietly changed identities more than once over the decades, moving from a private residence to a longtime rare bookstore before its recent run as a smokehouse, and Warnock and his wife own it as well.
Three storefronts, one Main Street, one owner. That is the thread worth pulling on before you look at any single opening in isolation.
What Actually Changes on the Ground
Strip away the press-release language and here is what is physically happening at 4056 E. Main:
- The original bank building stays standing and becomes a sit-down Italian restaurant.
- The adjoining parking lot gets a new mixed-use building with dining and retail on the ground floor and a limited number of luxury apartments above.
- When it is finished, the site will have more parking than it does today, according to the city's own announcement.
Down the block, Harvest Pizzeria takes over the former Legacy Smokehouse footprint, bringing the wood-fired, seasonal-ingredient style the brand is known for elsewhere in Central Ohio into a building that has already lived several lives on that same lot.
And Urban Market itself did not close. It changed hands in July to Juli Willbarger, who already owns New Grounds Coffee House locations in Hilliard, West Jefferson, and Plain City, and her longtime friend Lynn Johnson, according to 614NOW's coverage of the sale. The shop stays at 4055 Main Street, right where it has been.
Why Now, Specifically
None of this happened by accident, and the person who explains it best is not Warnock but Steven Wathen, the CEO of Equity, the company behind the TruePointe development on Trueman Boulevard. In comments to the Columbus-Franklin County Finance Authority, Wathen made the underlying math plain:
"If you look at the strength of our demographic and average household income, it's remarkable that there's a three-mile radius here with virtually no restaurants, very few options."
That is the mechanism behind everything on this list. Hilliard has had the household income to support more dining options for years. What it has not had, until this fall, is the built space to put them in. Two separate developers, working two separate corridors of the same city, arrived at the same conclusion at roughly the same time. Read the full Finance Authority writeup if you want the rest of Wathen's case for why TruePointe exists at all.
Down Trueman Boulevard, the Other Half of the Story
TruePointe is not Main Street, but it is finishing its first wave of tenants on the same timeline, and it is worth knowing the names before they show up on your delivery app. Confirmed so far:
- Old Scratch Pizza, founded in Dayton in 2016 and already running four locations across southwest Ohio including Troy, Beavercreek, and Centerville, marking its first arrival in the Columbus area.
- Medley Kitchen, the debut brick-and-mortar from Culinary Collectives, a communal dining concept from owner Derek Bush spanning tapas, dim sum, and mezze-style plates. Bush previously worked in leadership roles with Cameron Mitchell Restaurants and Ohio State's hospitality management program.
- Qahwah House, a fast-growing coffee concept, and Drunch, a breakfast-and-lunch spot.
- Kenneth's Hair Salons, Central Ohio's largest salon operator, relocating from its longtime Fishinger Boulevard address to open a new high-end spa concept.
- Home2 by Hilton, named as the development's hotel.
That is a genuinely different tenant mix than Main Street's, aimed more at the office and hotel crowd that ADS, Hilliard's largest private employer, brings to the Trueman corridor. But it is the same underlying bet: Hilliard residents have had money to spend on a night out for a while, and until this year there was nowhere close by to spend it.
The Buildings Aren't Disappearing
Here is the detail that separates this round of investment from a typical strip-mall teardown. The bank building on Main Street keeps its shell. The Legacy Smokehouse building keeps its bones, the same ones that held a rare bookstore for decades before that. Urban Market keeps its address. If you have lived in Old Hilliard long enough to have opinions about what the block should look like, the actual answer this fall is: mostly the same, with new signs.
That matters more than it sounds like it should. A lot of downtown redevelopment in fast-growing Columbus suburbs means demolition first and character second. What is happening on this stretch of Main Street is closer to a change of hands than a change of face, and if you walk it in October you will still recognize the skyline of the block even as the smells coming out of it change completely.
Four Fall Dates Worth a Spot on the Fridge
If you want to see all of this in motion without waiting for grand-opening ribbon cuttings, here is the calendar:
- For the Love of Hilliard, Saturday, September 12, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. More than 20 Downtown Hilliard businesses run promotions and pop-ups, with a Shop Local Passport that earns a free tote after five stamps. Details are on Destination Hilliard's event page.
- Fall Festival, Sunday, September 13, 1 to 4 p.m., Roger A. Reynolds Municipal Park. The city's annual fall gathering, confirmed with programming details on Performance Dogs of Ohio's event listing.
- Columbus Coffee Festival Weekend, October 3 and 4. The festival spills over into the Historical Village and Museum at Weaver Park, per the Hilliard Ohio Historical Society's calendar.
- Halloween Haunt, October 16 and 17, 6 to 9 p.m. A semi-spooky, family-friendly trick-or-treat and craft night through the decorated buildings at the Historical Village, five dollars for anyone over age three, also listed on the Historical Society's site.
Two weekends bookend the new-restaurant news almost perfectly. Show up for For the Love of Hilliard in September and you can walk past the Chase site mid-construction. Come back for the Coffee Festival in October and there is a real chance the Italian restaurant has opened its doors.
The Short Version
One family-run company is behind more of Downtown Hilliard's changing storefronts than most residents realize, a second developer is placing the same bet down the road on Trueman Boulevard, and both bets trace back to the same gap: a neighborhood with the income to eat out more than it has historically had the restaurants to do it in. The buildings staying put while the tenants change is not an accident either. It is a deliberate choice by an owner with deep roots here, and it is worth knowing his name before you order dinner in it.
If you are the kind of neighbor who likes understanding the why behind what shows up on Main Street, you will probably also want a straight answer when it comes to what any of this means for home values nearby, whether you are thinking about a move or simply curious. That is a conversation The Lundquist Group is always happy to have over coffee, no pressure attached. Schedule a Free Home Consultation whenever the question comes up.
