Huntington Building Historic Register Listing Clears Tax-Credit Path

Columbus City Council has placed the 1926 Huntington National Bank building at 17 South High Street on the city's historic register, an emergency step the owner needed to seek state historic tax credits toward converting the downtown landmark into Ohio State University's law school.

## What the council did On September 28, 2026, the council voted to list the building on the Columbus Register of Historic Properties as listed property CR #84, approving Ordinance 2569-2026 by a vote of eight in favor with one abstention. Council member Melissa Green abstained; the motion was made by Emmanuel Remy and seconded by Christopher Wyche, and the Historic Resources Commission had recommended the listing earlier after a September 3 public hearing.

## Why the emergency The listing was handled as an emergency so it could be finished in time for a state deadline. In the ordinance the city wrote that the listing "will facilitate its eligibility for historic tax credits in conjunction with the planned rehabilitation and adaptive use of the building," and that the deadline to apply for the state historic tax credits was September 29. State rules let a building qualify for the credit when a Certified Local Government, which Columbus is, designates it a local landmark, so the signed city ordinance becomes part of the application file.

## The building being protected The tower went up in 1926, when Huntington finished converting and expanding the earlier Harrison Building on the site, and the city's designation covers a period of significance running to 1965. The ordinance describes it as a locally significant example of the Renaissance Revival style tied to the Huntington banking family's role in early 20th-century Columbus.

## From bank to law school Downtown Columbus, Inc., the nonprofit that owns the building, plans to lease it to Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law, which expects to open there in the fall of 2029. CRE News reported that announcement last month; the law school would take most of the 13-story tower, with the main floor becoming event and common space and the upper floors rebuilt as classrooms, a library and offices, according to The Lantern. Huntington National Bank, which has kept a branch at Broad and High for generations, plans to move it to a new street-level space within the same building by the summer of 2027.

## A pattern downtown The Huntington listing was not the only one council approved that night. In the same session it added the Pilgrim School at 440 Taylor Avenue to the register as CR #83, also as an emergency tied to the same tax-credit application window. Ohio's preservation credit is a competitive program that takes applications twice a year, in March and September, so the late-September listings cleared a narrow window.

## What the listing does and doesn't settle Listing the building protects its exterior from unreviewed changes and makes it eligible for the state credit, but it does not by itself pay for the work. Neither the city ordinance nor Ohio State's announcement has put a dollar figure on the renovation, and tax-credit applications are not public while the state reviews them. An award, if one comes, would be decided later in the competitive round; until then, the building permits and the renovation budget that would show the project's real scale have not been filed.