2008 State of the City Metrospective: Part 3

This week's metrospecitve, the last piece in a 3-part series, covers the final five points I wanted to touch on from Mayor Coleman's 2008 State of the City address which he delivered last month on March 13th. Today I share my thoughts about the Scioto Mile, the Mile on High District, City Center and finally, the Lifestyles Communities RiverSouth Apartments and Condos.

NetJets and the Airport Economic Development Corporation mentioned in the Mayor's address, which I have been planning on covering, is going to be upgraded to its own separate metrospecitve and melded together with my perspective on Rickenbacker International Airport and Intermodal center in the coming weeks.

On a quick aside before I get started though, there is no doubt that the sudden shuttering of Skybus and all of its operations leaves the city a bit taken aback, not to mention the organization's 450 former employees. I find my own personal perspective more focused on the fact that there was quite a bit of local investment that went into what we hoped would be a contributor to economic development for the city and the region.

Unfortunately, Skybus was more of a risky investment that did not end up panning out as we had envisioned. But there is no growth without risk, and for Columbus, investing is Skybus was a little outside the conservative approach we're been known for when it comes to how we spend our public dollars. Nothing ventured, nothing gained though, and this is one way for us to learn from risky ventures.

For a round up of articles covering the Skybus shutdown, visit the News section of RetroMetro this morning. Additional articles can also be found under the Transportation & Roadways category of the News section also.

The Scioto Mile

“With the construction of the Scioto Mile, we will see the greatest public park in all our state. The Scioto Mile will be our signature park, the symbol of our city. It will connect the riverfront from North Bank Park to the Whittier Peninsula. It will feature numerous fountains and a four foot wide water canal, a place for outdoor concerts, and a restaurant with outdoor terrace dining overlooking the park. Benches and chess tables, dominos tables, swings, and free wireless internet access will invite people to stop and sit for a while. It will be a place for relaxation, recreation and entertainment.”

- Mayor Michael Coleman, Columbus, Ohio, 2008 State of the City Address

The Scioto Mile project has always been more about sprucing up our riverfront area than creating a great public space in my opinion. Everyone will indeed have their own definition of what constitutes a great public space of course, and my own involves places that see a good share of foot traffic on a regular basis where residents and workers alike can take full advantage of them throughout the day, sun-up to sun-down, through a majority of the year. “Places” don’t button up after 5 o’clock and they’re not empty at 8 o’clock in the morning once the workday begins.

The “Mile” is not located centrally enough within a high enough density of people to really reach its full potential in terms of becoming a bustling destination for downtown dwellers at this point in its evolution. I suppose all of that almost goes without saying and I imagine that the short-term goal of the project is not focused on becoming a “place” out of the gate.

I visit North Bank Park on the southern edge of the Arena District at various points during the year, typically on weekends. The park is currently the northern most leg of the Scioto Mile project at this point and it has always seemed to be in want of more folks to take advantage of it. It is a part-time public place as it stands today. Whether not enough people know about or if it’s not enough to draw people out for a visit isn’t really obvious at this point. I suppose people might ask why they would want to come down to visit the park when they’ve got parks with more green and shade in their own neighborhoods.

However, if you picked up on my use of “evolution” above, the riverfront is an area that is used by the entire city for numerous arts & cultural events throughout the year. Red, White & Boom, The Columbus Arts Festival, Jazz & Rib Fest just to name a few, pull in large crowds from across the Central Ohio region. The work and investment that is currently going into the Scioto Mile will immediately affect the experience people from throughout Central Ohio have when they venture into downtown for these events. Positive experiences downtown are definitley “a good thing.”

The challenge with any downtown initiative, in our Central Business District’s current state, centers on the fact that there are not a lot of people to partake in any of the initiatives as they stand today. The entire idea with all of the investment though is to build up our downtown one block at a time. Baby steps if you will.

From neglect to love, the Scioto Mile, while currently far from becoming a major downtown draw in and of itself, does represent an investment into downtown’s future, and lays down the foundation from which a great place my eventually grow as all the seemingly disparate downtown initiatives, from housing to retail, slowly come together over the next 10 to 20 years.

The Mile on High District

“Today, there is 152,000 square feet of vacant retail space in the High Street corridor and 12 acres of vacant lots and surface parking. These vacancies scar this corridor, and it’s made worse by the space of City Center. The High Street Corridor needs a 21st Century make-over, like we've begun at the corner of Broad and High. So today, I am proposing a new district downtown - The Mile on High District. This new district will increase our focus on rebuilding the High Street Corridor with active retail, office and housing, bringing more people and new investment back to the area.”

- Mayor Michael Coleman, Columbus, Ohio, 2008 State of the City Address.

152,000 square feet of vacant retail space says a lot. That number alone addresses what some folks were up in arms about when given the fact that the proposed parking structures that are being constructed downtown (first in the RiverSouth District and then next to the Neighborhood Launch Condominium project near Fourth and Gay Streets) aren’t mixed-use, containing street facing retail on their ground levels. With a 1.2 million square foot empty mall to boot, why would you build more retail space? But that’s an aside…

Despite having a number of “Districts” within the boundaries of the Columbus’ Central Business District, it has been my opinion for the past four years that there has been a lack of any cohesive marketing efforts for what the new Mile on High District aims to bring together. There have been blogosphere and general rumblings along the lines of “not another district…” but I have to say that I’m all for this one. Where this initiative goes and how it evolves remains to be seen, but there is now at the very least a name for what had remained one of the last areas downtown without an identity.

I will add to the mix though my own curiosity, concern possibly, with how retail would evolve downtown, or if it can in the next 10 years, given the efforts of Nationwide to develop their proposed Grandview Yard mixed-use project on the eastern border of Grandview Heights on an approximate 100 acre parcel of land strung together from the remains of the former Big Bear warehouse and other properties.

In initial conversations regarding the Grandview Yard concept, Nationwide had presented the idea of making the development a regional destination. With downtown and the Central Business District a mere mile and a half away and with Tuttle, Easton and Polaris Malls as examples of what over-retailing can do to a mall like City Center, I’ll be curious to watch plans unfold in the coming years.

The only way I see retail possible downtown, in conjunction with Grandview Yard should it go forward, would be from potential development that could be spurred by a streetcar system. But that’s a topic for another day…

City Center Mall

“In the coming months, we expect to present the first phase of a redeveloped City Center. It is our concept to transform the High Street side of City Center into a retail destination around a town square at the point where Town Street meets High Street. We will open up High Street by demolishing the cavernous City Center walkway.”

- Mayor Michael Coleman, Columbus, Ohio, 2008 State of the City Address

I won’t delve too far into City Center at this point given my observations above, but basing possible futures for the vacant structure off of the preliminary announcements by Nationwide on what some of the possibilities for City Center might, and might not, be in the coming years, I think there are a good number of people waiting with baited breath for the next steps for the forlorn mall. Again, whether or not the streetcar line design and engineering funds get triggered by Columbus City Council in the coming months will have a potentially significant impact on what possibilities lie ahead for City Center.

In my little fantasy world though, I’d like to see at least on level or chunk of the old mall turned into a small business incubator for technology based companies, maybe even as specific as saying Internet-based companies. When I have mentioned the idea of a entrepreneurial incubator downtown to some folks, they refer to TechColumbus and the Scitech Research Park over on Kinnear Road, both initiatives that I am very familiar with. They are, to be clear, effective and successful at their mission. That’s not what I talking about though. Take the TechColumbus incubator concept and park a branch of it downtown on a level of City Center, if even temporarily, with the idea of not only sparking entrepreneurialism but giving businesses some fertile soil to set up their roots in with an environment that has the potential to offer more than just a place to have an office.

If you want to spark innovation and entrepreneurialism, a cheap cube in an office park is one solution to help get businesses off the ground, but why not offer the whole enchilada in terms of a place to do business, get lunch and then hang around after hours. Make it an entrepreneurial business experience and invite folks from across the nation to come set up shop in our shiny renovated business incubation mega-center at the former City Center mall. Parking, the Scioto Mile, the streetcar, condos across the street…now you’ll be able to get folks attention. You can’t do that in an office park.

Lifestyles Communities RiverSouth Apartments and Condos

“I've got good news for you, because this Summer I will stand with Michael DeAscentis, and his team at Lifestyle Communities to break ground on more than 200 new apartments and condos along Front Street between Town and Rich Streets. When it comes to building for the young and talented, Lifestyle Communities gets it and they are going to deliver it, as they move their corporate headquarters downtown in June. We welcome them and the hundreds of young professionals that will be moving into this community. This $25 million project will create a new neighborhood of great looking, but accessible, downtown homes with more than 300 on-site parking spaces. The 130 apartments will start from $750 to $990, and the 76 condos will sell between $125,000 and $250,000, far less than what most downtown units costs.”

- Mayor Michael Coleman, Columbus, Ohio, 2008 State of the City Address

They will sell, no doubt. As is well known in the real estate world, you can’t effectively dictate the real estate market and the value of the land and any property on it. Affordable housing downtown is a one-time deal so if you are on board with the idea of moving downtown, you might want to keep an eye on this project. Again, I tie into the streetcar system, but mark my words, if the streetcar system design phase gets funded and the project moves forward, run don’t walk to Lifestyles Communities to buy one of those $125,000 condos. Sure, it's speculation, but follow my logic if you will:

If the successful examples of development and investment that have occurred in some other cities that developed streetcar lines ring true here in Columbus too, your condo is going to be worth quite a pretty penny five years from now. No guarantees there, but if you pull the pieces together, you won’t find it too hard to come to the same possible outcome that I just suggested.

As far as the folks out there that cry, “bring on the density!,” don’t fret. If downtown developers run out of space to build high-density, high-rise mixed-use projects, should they come into high demand in the future, that low-density land and its housing will have such a great value that it would make financial sense to buy them, knock them down and build up. Let’s hope we get to that point. (Just let go of how un-green that sounds for the moment)

We’ve already learned that in the downtown market that if you build it they won’t necessarily come, but if you build what they want for those who want them, they just might. If we get the streetcars though, I’d put my money on a downtown real estate swell, be it moderate or large, a swell in interest there will definitely be.