Hilliard bank turns into Italian restaurant with pasta-viewing windows

The old Chase Bank at 4056 E. Main Street is heading toward the kind of transformation pasta people notice immediately: a sit-down Italian restaurant with floor-to-ceiling windows aimed at a visible handmade pasta program. The former vault is slated to become a wine backdrop, turning a blank suburban bank shell into the kind of room where the making matters as much as the meal.

Hilliard Development Corporation put the roughly 0.836-acre site out to bid in February 2026, asking for a community-friendly mixed-use project with walkable retail, sit-down dining, and upgraded parking and access. HDC has now entered a development agreement with The Westwood Collective for the purchase and redevelopment of the property, and city materials say the original bank building will be preserved while a new mixed-use building rises on the adjoining parking lot.

That new structure is planned to include ground-floor dining and retail, a limited number of luxury apartments upstairs, and more parking spaces than the property has today. Westwood Collective has floated the name La Volta for the Italian concept, and early sketches also call for indoor-outdoor seating, a covered rooftop, a mezzanine overlooking the dining room, and private event space. The company has highlighted SSOE Group and Studio 3e as design partners, which suggests the presentation will be as much part of the draw as the menu.

The pitch lands in a part of Old Hilliard that already has momentum. Center Street Market, Crooked Can Brewing, bakeries, and Station Park have helped build traffic, but public feedback on the redevelopment called for more upscale, chef-driven restaurants. That is where Westwood Collective sees room to push harder, with an award-winning, scratch-kitchen Italian concept aimed at giving the district a stronger evening and weekend identity.

Andy Warnock, founder and CEO of Westwood Collective, has said the project matters because he is investing in the town his family calls home. Angela Zody, Downtown Manager, called it an important step in the continued evolution of Downtown Hilliard. Warnock has also pointed to Creekside in Gahanna, Lane Avenue in Upper Arlington, and Dublin’s Bridge Park as models for what Old Hilliard could become, a place where people stay longer because there is more to do than grab dinner and leave. If the plan stays on schedule, construction is expected to start in the fall, with completion targeted for early 2028, and the pasta windows should end up doing exactly what good restaurant theater does best: turning a redevelopment into a destination.