The Andersons site near Rt. 161 and Sawmill Road on the Northwest Side isn't going to hold an empty store for long.

Preferring Living will soon be building 614 apartments there, in a part of town already full of rental units.

The Columbus City Council approved a rezoning of the 17-acre site from commercial to residential on Monday. There was no public opposition.

The Far Northwest Coalition approved it in April and the city's Development Commission approved the rezoning on June 8.

The project works with the area's Northwest Plan, which recommends mixed-use development for the site, city planning manager Shannon Pine said.

The plan for the apartment complex, called Dresden Village, calls for three seven-story buildings, and two four-story buildings, with one of those including a parking deck, according to plans filed with the city. Further details were not immediately available.

The Andersons store closed on June 3, along with another store on Brice Road on the Far East Side. The Toledo-based company announced in January that it would leave retailing and close its stores in Columbus and the Toledo area after the four general-merchandise stores lost a total of $20 million in the past eight years.

That left neighbors and former customers to wonder what would happen to the property.

"It's a very desirable site," said David Hodge, the zoning attorney representing Preferred Living. "It would be a shame to sit vacant."

It was unlikely to do so for long. Hodge said other developers were eyeing the site, too.

John Murley, the president of the Far Northwest Coalition, said it looked like a good project to his group.

"We certainly were faced with another empty big box up there," Murley said. "They came up with something that fit pretty well, we thought."

John Best of the Far Northwest Coalition said with the changing face of retail, the sites of many big-box stores will have to become something else.

mferench@dispatch.com

@MarkFerenchik