Central Ohio wins the state’s largest economic development award in history, gasoline prices hit all-time highs, and big-name businesses set up shop here.
Add it up and 2022 was a big year for business in the Columbus area.
How well do you know what’s going on in the business world? Test your knowledge with this quiz (answers below).
- Which company announced in January that it would invest $20 billion in Licking County, the largest economic development project in state history?
- Which automaker said it would build a $3.5 billion plant in Fayette County to make batteries for electric vehicles?
- Which Grandview Heights school supply and craft store closed last summer after 90 years in business?
- Which power company intentionally shut off power to many Columbus neighborhoods in June to prevent widespread power outages after a severe storm and then a heat wave?
- Which prominent Columbus family has received state approval to turn part of Darby Dan Farm into a solar farm?
- Which local bagel shop is being sued by Block’s Bagels for allegedly violating certain terms of a licensing and supply agreement?
- Which international e-commerce giant opened a retail clothing store in Easton Town Center, in a space once occupied by Forever 21?
- How many Max & Erma’s locations are left in central Ohio?
- Which luxury fashion house returned to Columbus for the first time in more than 30 years?
- Gasoline prices in central Ohio hit an all-time high in 2022. How high did they go?
- What site is being studied for a possible Amtrak stop in Columbus?
- Which renewable fuel that is included in the 88 unleaded is growing in popularity in central Ohio?
- Which month has the highest number of 90-degree days in central Ohio in more than two decades?
- Intel and Honda have both pledged to achieve carbon neutrality with their new factories in central Ohio. What is one method they will use to help them do this?
- The developers of a 31-story building near the North Market have chosen a name for the site. What is it?
- Which developer built a 20-foot-tall slingshot at the corner of Sullivant Avenue and Lucas Street in Franklinton, near the River & Rich development?
- Columbus developer Edward Cos. has received permission to build an elevated, plant-covered walkway three blocks long downtown. What is the model of the walkway?
- Which Columbus hotel now has 1,000 rooms, the largest in the state, after an expansion that was completed in the fall?
- What is the name of the coffee shop chain where workers at several stores, including Columbus, began organizing into a union?
- Which Prohibition-era concept continues to resonate with Columbus?
- Which central Ohio company announced in July that it was laying off more than 600 workers?
- Hyperion Cos. California-based plans to hire 700 workers at a Far West Side factory to build what?
- Which retailer re-entered the central Ohio market in November after being gone for two decades?
- Workers at which major Columbus retailer came to the brink of a strike in September?
- What problem did customers of Columbus-based Bread Financial face over the summer?
Answers
- Intel is building two factories, called fabs, that will employ 3,000 workers when it starts making semiconductors in 2025.
- The Honda battery plant will help the automaker transition to electric vehicles.
- Star Beacon Products, the go-to place for school supplies and arts and crafts materials, fell victim to the pandemic.
- American Electric Power says it had just minutes to decide which Columbus neighborhoods would lose power after it was ordered to reduce demand to prevent outages from spreading.
- The 2,400-acre Pleasant Prairie Solar Energy project planned for the villages of Pleasant and Prairie includes 900 acres of the Darby Dan Farm owned by the Galbreath family.
- Block’s Bagels, founded in 1967, claimed Fox’s owner Jeremy Fox breached a 10-year supply agreement dating back to 2016.
- Amazon opened its second Amazon-style location in Easton Town Center in October.
- One, in Lancaster, after the Reynoldsburg location closed.
- Italian luxury fashion house Gucci opened in Easton Town Center in July, its first Columbus location after closing at the Columbus City Center mall in the early 1990s.
- $5.07 per gallon on June 8, according to AAA. Prices have fallen since then, back to about $3 a gallon.
- Greater Columbus Convention Center. It is part of a plan that will connect Ohio’s four largest metropolitan areas: Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland.
- Unleaded 88 is 15% ethanol. The surge in growth in central Ohio is due to the arrival of Sheetz more than a year ago.
- Temperatures reached 90 degrees on 10 days in June, the most since 1999.
- Through the use of carbon credits that finance renewable energy projects to offset companies’ electricity use.
- The $300 million project is called the Merchants Building.
- Cast. Franklinton artist Andrew Lundberg, who runs Lundberg Industrial Arts, designed the Franklinton Slingshot as “a visual reminder of our moment as a community, preserving the mischievous nature of the artists who make us who we are.”
- The walkway, which runs from Third Street South over Fourth Street South and into the Young Street parking garage, is modeled after the elevated walkway of the New York High Line.
- The new 28-story Hilton Columbus Downtown tower was completed in the fall.
- Workers at the Starbucks at the corner of Broad and Third streets downtown, in Westerville and on the Ohio State University campus are among workers nationwide who have voted to unionize.
- Behind freezers or secret staircases, speakers have continued to grow in popularity locally.
- OhioHealth announced that 637 workers, mostly in its information technology workforce, were the company’s largest single layoff.
- Hyperion plans to build the hydrogen fuel cells at the plant, at the former Dispatch printing plant, at 5300 Crosswinds Drive.
- BJ’s Wholesale Club opened a store at 5900 N. Hamilton Road near New Albany after closing two central Ohio locations in 2002, with another planned in Orange Township in Delaware County.
- Thousands of Kroger workers were on the verge of a strike before agreeing to a new contract.
- Bakery customers could not access their credit card account information.
Dispatch reporters Jim Weiker, Taijuan Moorman, Erica Thompson and Patrick Cooley contributed to this report.
mawilliams@dispatch.com
@BizMarkWilliams
