Scrooge Rehearses All His Christmases. East of Africa Update - Flooded Worksite Forces Crew to Halt Culvert Project. Business News Briefs.
News Briefs - A Closing and A New Headquarters
Good Medicine’s “A Christmas Carole” Opens Sunday in Westerville
Good Medicine Productions brings its fast, funny spin on Dickens to Uptown this weekend with the opening of Uptown Scrooge: Abridged! at Java Central in Westerville. The cast ran through a lively dress rehearsal Friday evening, filling the café with costumes, laughter, and the kind of organized chaos the show is known for.
The one-hour production turns the classic story into an interactive holiday sprint. The audience plays the role of Scrooge, choosing the order of the chapters by shouting out numbers whenever performers call “HUMBUG.” The result is a different sequence every time, with the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future racing to keep up.
CityScene Magazine has called Good Medicine’s approach “the most innovative interpretation of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol,” and this abridged version keeps the spirit while playing everything at high speed. Along with the laughs, each ticket helps support Good Medicine’s year-round visits to pediatric and senior care facilities.
Performances run Sunday afternoons, December 7, 14, and 21 at 12:45, 2:45, and 4:45 PM. Tickets are $26 for adults and $16 for children and students. All shows take place at Java Central, 20 S. State Street in Westerville.
Westerville Business Briefs
BTTS Holdings Acquires $3M Westerville Site for New Headquarters
Events, catering, and floral company BTTS Holdings is relocating its headquarters to a newly acquired site at 733 Green Crest Drive in Westerville. The company paid just over $3 million for the 25,000-square-foot building, which sits on 2.5 acres on the city’s southern edge.
BTTS, which currently operates out of three facilities across Westerville and Worthington, will consolidate into the new location by early 2026. The space includes 10,000 square feet formerly occupied by a major Tim Hortons franchisee; the remaining 15,000 square feet will continue to be leased to Archive Data Solutions.
Managing Partner John Brooks said the company will invest $1 million in renovations to transform the site into both an operations hub and a client experience center.
“We made the conscious decision to stay centered in Westerville, which is my hometown,” Brooks said. “It gives us the ability to continue to scale the company as we’ve done in the last 10 years.”
The new facility will house office space, a warehouse, and production areas to support BTTS’s growing event services portfolio.
Westerville LA Fitness to Close December 18
The LA Fitness location at 2100 Polaris Parkway in Westerville will permanently close on December 18, part of a broader national restructuring by parent company Fitness International.
The closure is one of two in Central Ohio this month, with the other in Hilliard.
LA Fitness entered the Central Ohio market in 2012 through its acquisition of Urban Active. While some locations still display the Esporta Fitness name, they are now rebranded under LA Fitness.
The Westerville closure aligns with a series of recent exits by the company in states including Minnesota, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania, as part of a nationwide realignment of operations.
Culvert Installation Halted by Overnight Flooding
Crews arrived ready last week to install the concrete culvert for the future roadway connecting Africa Road to Westar Blvd., part of Westerville’s 88-acre East of Africa development. The plan was clear. A crane would lift eight precast culvert sections along with the paired headwalls into the excavation. Each section needed to be placed in order, sealed to the next, and fully grouted to prevent leaks once water starts flowing through the structure. It took about a dozen semi-trucks to deliver the pieces.
Delivery ended up being the only thing that went right.
Rain washed in overnight, filling the excavation. By morning, it had become a deep, muddy pool. The crew tried to keep the site workable. They added pumps, then more pumps, then larger ones, but the water kept coming back as quickly as they removed it.
Because there was no safe or stable way to position the sections or perform the sealing and grouting work, the installation was halted. The project will resume once the crane can be rescheduled and the crew is available to return and complete the full assembly.
For now, the eight concrete sections and headwalls rest on higher ground, waiting for a dry spell and an opportunity to be installed as intended: piece by piece, sealed tightly, ready to channel the flow beneath the new road.
The Westerville News is a reader-supported publication by Gary Gardiner, a lifelong journalist who believes hyper-local reporting is the future of news. This publication focuses exclusively on Westerville—its local news, influence on Central Ohio, and how surrounding areas shape the community.
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