working out at the YMCA
downtown and rehabbing homes
[movie
recommendation]
Thank You for Smoking “It is
just a great comedy, it’s intelligent humor. I just love
those types of movies.”
[most recent vacation]
Australia and Fiji
[great
things about his neighborhood]
loves his 30 second commute
and spring time in Victorian Village
Nick talks about everything from eating out,
movie going and neighborhood transformation to panhandlers,
yuppies, hippies and drag queens.
Raised in Reynoldsburg, Nick Schilling has
lived in the Metro downtown area for 9 years. He currently
resides in Victorian Village, a neighborhood he describes as on
the move.
[on hanging out, good food and screaming
kids]
Nick says everything he likes to do
is right in his neighborhood. “Everywhere I like to hang out is
down here. All my friends who live out in the suburbs come down
here to play; it’s not the other way around. A lot of them are
moving down here”
A favorite eatery is the Rossi,
“It’s an excellent restaurant. Ron, the owner, is a hell of a
restaurateur. He owns Rossi, Press Grill and Club 185,” Nick
says.
He’s also thankful for the Arena
Grande. “That’s just an awesome theater. It’s a place more for
adults, people in their mid 20s and up. You don’t have as much
of a screaming teenage crowd there.”
[on victorian village’s character and
characters in victorian village]
“We’ve got everybody. That’s the
thing about this area, it’s true city living. In order to live
here you have to be laid back and you have to have an open mind.
You’re going to get the yuppie, the hippie; you have the
straight population, the gay population. You even run into the
occasional drag queen,” Nick says. “Then the flip side, because
you are in the city, you have a few panhandlers, but it just
adds to the character and the essence of the city. Everybody
seems to get along pretty well.”
Nick’s tips for feeling at home…be
yourself. “Really just be yourself. There’s every type of person
here so you can’t live here if you’re a racist or a bigot, you
won’t get along, you won’t like it here.”[on aesthetics]
Even after 9 years,
Nick admits the beauty of Victorian Village in the spring is
always a bit of a surprise. “The city stays a little warmer than
everywhere else because of all the black top and the radiant
heat. It seems like all of our stuff blooms a week earlier than
suburban areas, and Victorian Village, with all the different
types of trees, is just incredibly pretty in the springtime,” he
says. “There’s about two weeks where everything has flowered
before it sheds and turns to green. That surprises me every
spring, how pretty this area is, how pretty it can be.
[sound advice for future
residents]
“It surprises me to
see how much work has been going on. Because it is an up and
coming area, it’s almost there, it’s almost completely done, but
you’ll drive a street one year that doesn’t look like a place
you would want to live. You drive it a year later and 80% of the
homes have been rehabbed and all the sudden it’s an absolutely
gorgeous area,” he says. “It’s just turning so fast.”
One of Nick’s hobbies
is also his career; he does housing renovations in the area. “I
started working on that after my freshman year in college and
eventually formed Urban Restorations with my brother-in-law.”
“I tell all my
friends, if you’re looking to buy, buy now, especially if you
are at the lower end of the price range, trying to pick up a two
bedroom between $200,000 and $230,000, there’s just nothing left
anymore. If you find a place and don’t jump on it, that goes and
the next thing that comes up will be 5 or 6 thousand more than
the last one,” Nick warns. “The property values are going
through the roofs. It’s true value; it’s not an inflated value,
because the neighborhood is changing so quickly.”
[why victorian village?]
“Here you have all the
shops, all the galleries, the restaurants, everything that goes
on at Goodale Park. You’ve got Comfest, Red, White and Boom.
There’s just a whole heck of a lot to do here. If you’re young,
or even married with kids and looking for a fun place to live,
this is where you should be.”
