Tremont
The everyday centre of Upper Arlington: a 1950s shopping strip, the main library, and streets that go quiet by nine.
Low brick shopfronts and angled parking at Tremont Center, Upper Arlington
Why people stay in Tremont
Tremont is the working middle of Upper Arlington, strung along Tremont Road between Lane Avenue and Fishinger Road. Its anchor is Tremont Center at Tremont and Zollinger, a low L of brick shopfronts with angled parking out front that has not needed reinventing since the Eisenhower era. Huffman's Market still cuts steaks to order at 2140 Tremont Center, the Tremont Goodie Shop still sells cake doughnuts that are gone before lunch, and nobody in the parking lot has ever paid for a space. That is the appeal, and it is genuinely charming.
It is not a nightlife address and never pretends to be. By 9pm the Tremont Center lot holds four cars, the barber's neon is off, and the only movement is dog walkers under the sycamores on Zollinger Road and a stray runner heading down to Northam Park. If you want a bar with a last call, you are driving fifteen minutes to Grandview Avenue or the Short North. What you get instead is silence at 11pm, a bed you can actually sleep in, and a five-minute drive to almost everything in the city.
Prices here follow Columbus, not Upper Arlington. A mid-January Monday starts around $92 for a decent midscale room within a short drive; the same room is $150 on a June weekend when graduations and the Memorial Tournament in Dublin overlap, and can hit $300 on an Ohio State home-football Saturday with a two-night minimum attached. Book football weekends in July, not September. If your dates are flexible, Sunday to Thursday in late January or early December is the cheapest week you will ever spend in this part of Ohio.
Who should skip Tremont: anyone travelling without a car, anyone who wants to walk out of the lobby into dinner options, and anyone expecting a historic core. The listed 1920s architecture is a mile south in Old Arlington. Tremont is a suburban arterial with excellent bones, a superb library, and parks within pram-pushing distance. Families relocating, people here for school tours, golf trips and anybody who values a quiet street over a bar crawl will be very happy. Everybody else should look at the Short North or Grandview Heights.
Aim for anything within a five-minute drive of Tremont Road and Zollinger Road, which puts you central for the whole city and about twelve minutes from Ohio State. Expect $92 to $145 a night for a clean midscale room on ordinary dates, $110 to $175 in May and June, and genuine gouging on football Saturdays. Almost nothing sits inside the Upper Arlington city limits itself, so the realistic beds are the Olentangy River Road cluster two miles east and the Bethel Road cluster three miles north, both of which put you on Tremont Road in under ten minutes. Avoid rooms facing Tremont Road on the school run: 7:30-8:30am and 2:45-3:30pm the traffic backs up past the Municipal Services Center at 3600 Tremont Road. Avoid the cheapest rooms on Olentangy — under $75 in Columbus buys a problem, not a bargain.
Things to do in Tremont
At 2116 Tremont Center, a bakery that has outlasted every trend in Columbus. Cake doughnuts, buckeyes, and birthday cakes with the same buttercream since your grandmother's era. Go before 9am on a Saturday or accept what is left; they close mid-afternoon and do not care about your brunch plans.
Two doors along at 2140 Tremont Center, a family butcher and grocer with a sandwich counter that locals queue for at noon. Roast beef, house salads, decent wine, and staff who will tell you what is good today. Carry it three minutes east to the tables at Northam Park.
Upper Arlington Public Library's main branch at 2800 Tremont Road is genuinely one of the best suburban libraries in Ohio: free wifi, quiet study rooms, and a local-history shelf that explains how the Thompson brothers laid out the city in 1913. Free, warm, and open seven days in term time.
The single biggest day in the Upper Arlington calendar. The parade runs down Tremont Road toward Northam Park mid-morning, families claim curb space with folding chairs from 7am, and the whole city walks. Park a half-mile out on a side street off Zollinger and accept that you are not driving anywhere until noon.
Fifteen minutes' walk south, the Giant Eagle Market District at 3061 Kingsdale Center is the best food shop for miles: hot bar, cheese counter, sushi, and a bakery. It is the only place near Tremont still lit and busy at 9pm, which tells you something about the neighbourhood.
Upper Arlington Golden Bears play at Marv Moorehead Stadium behind the high school at 1650 Ridgeview Road, ten minutes south. Tickets are single-figure dollars, the band is loud, and the mascot is a nod to Jack Nicklaus, who grew up here. September and October Fridays only; the lots fill by 6:30pm.
What to see
Hotels near Tremont
No hotels are listed in Tremont yet. The nearest ones are on the region page.
Getting around Tremont
From John Glenn Columbus International it is roughly 14 miles: I-670 west, then SR-315 north to the Lane Avenue or Fishinger exits, 20 to 25 minutes off-peak and $35-$45 by rideshare. There is no passenger rail into Columbus at all, so do not plan around a train. COTA bus fare is $2.00 a ride or $4.50 for a day pass; Line 3 runs Northwest Boulevard from downtown to the Kingsdale area, leaving a ten-to-fifteen-minute walk north up Tremont Road. Service thins badly after 8pm and Sunday frequencies are painful. Inside Tremont, everything is a five-minute drive and parking is free everywhere.
Questions about Tremont
Very few — the city is almost entirely residential and zoned that way on purpose. The honest answer is that most people staying in Upper Arlington sleep just over the line on Olentangy River Road, Bethel Road, or near Lane Avenue, all within ten minutes of Tremont Center. Anything advertised as an Upper Arlington hotel is usually one of those. Rates start around $92 in January and climb steeply for Ohio State weekends.
Yes, in practice. COTA Line 3 gets you to downtown Columbus in about 25 minutes from the Kingsdale end of Tremont Road, but evening and Sunday service is sparse and last buses are early. Rideshare to the Short North runs $15-$22 each way. Parking is free and abundant everywhere in Upper Arlington, so the car costs you nothing once you have it.
About two and a half miles east, ten minutes by car on a normal day and forty-five on a home-football Saturday. Lane Avenue and Fishinger Road gridlock from three hours before kickoff. Locals park at Kingsdale or Tremont Center and walk or bike the last mile down Lane Avenue, which is genuinely faster. Expect hotel rates to triple those weekends.
For an hour, yes — the Goodie Shop and Huffman's Market are the real thing and cost almost nothing. It is a working neighbourhood strip, not an attraction, and most of it closes by 6pm with the bakery gone earlier. Pair it with the library at 2800 Tremont Road and Northam Park across the street and you have a pleasant half-morning.
