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Can Hineygate return?
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BY STEPH GREEGOR
If you’re looking for a place to rest your hiney on Ohio State football game days this fall, you can forget about parking it front of the former Holiday Inn on Lane Avenue—well, you can park your butt there, but this year, you might be alone.
Ohio State announced April 3 it had purchased the hotel for dorm space and, soon after, made it clear that the annual pregame party known as Hineygate was no longer welcome at the coveted Lane Avenue location. Just a few days before that, Mike Elliot, program manager for 610 WTVN, which hosted the event, made it clear in an e-mail distributed by the station on March 30, 2009, that Hineygate would unfortunately be no more because of it.
“610 WTVN’s Hineygate was a part of the fabric of Ohio State Football and gameday Saturdays for 26 years!,” the e-mail read. “The Holiday Inn on Lane Avenue was the home for this fine tradition and a significant element of Columbus pop culture. We are saddened to see both leave us now. On behalf of everyone involved with Hineygate, I thank you for your unwavering support over the years. It means more than you know.”
The e-mail was posted on the Bucknuts website by Dave Biddle, the site’s assistant editor.
But not so fast…according to an e-mail to The Other Paper Wednesday morning, Elliott said that announcement was to say “Hineygate as we know it, is over.”
As we know it?
Actually, Elliott said, Hineygate isn’t really dead after all.
“We’re currently in discussions with a few different properties on Lane Avenue to continue this great tradition for this season and beyond,” Elliott wrote in his e-mail to TOP. “At this stage that’s all I have for you.”
Doug Aschenbach, president of Campus Partners—a real estate arm of OSU that worked to acquire the Holiday Inn property for residential use—said he thought the Hineygate crew would work to find a new place for the event.
“I really don’t know what they’re doing,” said Aschenbach. “We had talks with them about moving Hineygate once it became apparent (the Holiday Inn) location would be housing only.”
But OSU spokesman Jim Lynch made it clear that, as far as the university was concerned, Hineygate—which featured beer sales and live music—didn’t have to go away mad; it just had to go away.
“As a university, we look out for the needs of our students first,” said Lynch. “And it just didn’t make sense for it to continue at the same location.”
Riverwatch, on the hand—a competing game-day event, also held along Lane Avenue at Riverwatch Towers, just west of Hineygate—seems to be going full speed ahead, though it has switched promoters. It was formerly handled by Aaron Wallace of Marketing Activations Group of Columbus, but was out-bid by BCS/Event Productions, according to Marla McGraw, Riverwatch Towers property manager.
BCS, however, is being tight-lipped on just what is going on behind closed doors.
“It’s too soon to release anything,” said Tom Skladany, OSU’s former All-American punter and now owner of BCS.
Chuck Manofsky, executive vice president of Ohio Equities LLC Realtors, which operates the Riverwatch Towers, said the group is still in the process of negotiating contracts for the event.
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