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Heidi Samuel Aesthetic improvement of Columbus’s urban arteries: Corridors leading into the city from the outskirts like Broad, Main and High streets reflect the depth of the city’s vibrancy. Setting the tone for the kind of city Columbus is, these corridors must be attractive and welcoming. (The arches and “the cap” on High Street are a great start.) Creating incentives for residents to reinvest in established, urban neighborhoods located near downtown. I believe continued investment and emphasis on a city’s core is the only way to guarantee its longevity and health, not only for the core but for its outward expansion. A coastline. BACK TO THE LIST OF RESPONDENTS John Saros Improved mass transportation. More housing for poor and displaced families. More high-quality day care available to all social-economic groups. BACK TO THE LIST OF RESPONDENTS Pete Scantland Columbus has an incredibly underutilized riverfront. Recent projects such as North Bank Park are a dramatic improvement, but activity at the parks ends at sundown. We should dredge the river downtown from the confluence through the Whittier Peninsula and construct a small marina just west of COSI. The city should lease space on the water to cafes, bars and restaurants that could build their establishments on stationary riverboats and barges. The new “Marina District” would offer a full day of activity: One could take in the exhibits at COSI, dock and have lunch at a cafe, take a skyline tour of Columbus in a boat and spend the evening at a waterfront reggae club. This would spur commercial and residential development throughout downtown and Franklinton, as well as provide an additional amenity for the new Whittier Peninsula and River South developments. Down the road, we could explore a series of locks to move boats up and down the Scioto all the way into Dublin and Delaware. Despite the incredible contributions that Columbus artists, businesses and educational institutions make to the world, Columbus has a poorly developed national image. We should highlight the innovation and creativity occurring daily at the Ohio State University, Battelle, Limited [Brands] and countless others. This will help us attract better students and talented young folks who usually end up on the coasts. At home, we suffer from an inferiority complex, which ultimately leads to our best and brightest leaving. We should establish a commission charged with studying cities of similar size that have a better image, and implement their successful strategies. Why does Portland, Oregon, have such a positive image when Columbus doesn’t? Columbus is in the fortunate position to be one of the only growing cities in the Midwest. As we begin to plan our future infrastructure, housing and public works projects, we would benefit from making a commitment to great architecture and design. Remarkable buildings, bridges and parks not only benefit the eye, but also the bottom line. The recently completed Knowlton School of Architecture has dramatically increased not only the national visibility of Ohio State’s architecture college, but also its recruitment efforts. We should resist the temptation to seek only signature architects from around the world to build our new structures, instead allowing talented Columbus-based architects to do world-class work. BACK
TO THE LIST OF RESPONDENTS Bill Schaefer An effective and well-respected public school system would be an important first step in attracting to Columbus the kind of families and people that will make Columbus a more highly thought of city. Recognition that the city of Columbus is more than merely the home of or the city in which the Ohio State University is located. A well-developed downtown area with a sense of identity and purpose that people would “want to drive into rather than drive away from.” BACK TO THE LIST OF RESPONDENTS Alex Shumate We have before us today three unique opportunities to ensure a bright future for our citizens, a strong environment for our businesses and a way of life that inspires the best in all of us. What Columbus needs is to: Relentlessly pursue efforts led by CompeteColumbus to create, retain and attract jobs in four key areas: 1.) logistics and distribution; 2.) personalized medical services; 3.) entertainment, hospitality and tourism, and 4.) automotive components and support services. Sustain the momentum we’ve gained in the past five years through the leadership of Mayor Michael Coleman to revitalize our downtown core by expanding housing, attracting new businesses, building new parks, improving pedestrian access and embracing the riverfront as the “front door” to our city. Leverage our exceptional nonprofit organizations including the Columbus Urban League, the United Way of Central Ohio and countless others as forums for interaction, education and strengthening understanding among an increasingly diverse populace. BACK TO THE LIST OF RESPONDENTS Karen Simonian More corner markets, please! I mean small grocers on corners or near the street where you can buy a banana or a quart of milk while you’re walking somewhere. Columbus has some of these, but not nearly enough. Too often, residents have to get in their cars to pick up food staples. Bring on the bodegas! (Related to this: We need more bread bakeries—places where you can pick up a decent baguette while on foot!) A place to go ballroom dancing to a live band on a Saturday night downtown. Is this really too much to ask? I’m talking swing, salsa, tango, a combination—whichever. And I’m picturing an intergenerational crowd. More interesting or edgy public art in the central part of the city. Columbus is a youthful, dynamic, creative town. Its public art should reflect this energy and sense of innovation. We have made some strides to this end in the past several years. We need to make more! BACK TO THE LIST OF RESPONDENTS Bradley Smith Returning to the area after five years away, we were immediately struck by the taxes. State taxes are higher than in Virginia, and the city cannot control that, but property taxes are more than double what we paid outside Washington, D.C., largely negating the lower cost of housing. There we paid no local income taxes. Here we pay twice—from both Columbus (my place of employment) and the community in which I live. The latter does not give a full credit for the Columbus tax. Surely the city and its suburban/exurban communities know they live or die together and can harmonize that. We think Columbus is a great place to live, but why would a business looking from afar relocate here given this tax structure, not just on the business, but on its employees? It’s not for the climate or the mountains. The core downtown remains weak, especially as City Center flounders. There are theaters, but few restaurants or clubs, too few cabs. Additionally, the city does not make good use of its riverfront. The city must find a way to fix the schools. I don’t know how much of this is a substantive problem and how much is a PR problem, but it is an ongoing drag on progress. BACK TO THE LIST OF RESPONDENTS Gene Smith I like what Mayor Coleman is doing with the areas that need upgrading. Addressing empty lots and homes and going after landlords is a good idea for the city. He needs to continue that. There needs to be a source for newcomers to learn about all the charities that exist in Columbus. As I search for where I want to help it seems so challenging. Is there a single source that provides that information? Continue to bring in cultural events. People are not aware of the cultural diversity Columbus has. Continue to promote that! BACK TO THE LIST OF RESPONDENTS Harrison Smith Quit wasting real estate sources. The Scioto Peninsula could have produced private development in the many hundreds of millions of dollars, multiplying additional opportunities to the west and south—and it is a single failed museum. We’re about to do the same thing with the Whittier Peninsula: the water half to be a bird-watching park, the railroad track half to be residential. The fact is a park next to the railroad track and the houses next to the water saves millions of dollars. And the migratory birds will be there three to four weeks a year. And greater densities and intensities in land use can create tax values and more efficient systems. Get proactive. Don’t wait for the owners of City Center to decide what to do. Decide what City Center ought to be and get it done. The mayor did that with residential development downtown, and it’s the only approach that works. Problems don’t solve themselves; leadership solves problems. Linkage—we’ve got wonderful venues in our central city: German Village, Victorian Village, the Brewery District, the Short North, the Arena District and the Scioto and Whittier peninsulas—but we have no transportation system linking them together. The mayor’s streetcars should move in a continuous right-turn system from OSU south along High Street to Whittier [Street] and ideally out to the Whittier Peninsula across on a bridge to COSI and then up Neil Avenue to OSU. That connects people to places, which is the way to get people to places. But check our downtown park system. It effectively isolates people from places and provides no reason to be in those parks. BACK TO THE LIST OF RESPONDENTS Jodelle D. Spruill Could always use more police officers on the road, freeway patrol, respond to calls faster. For what they are expected to do, they need raises. That is an extremely hazardous job. Neighborhood lighting. Some older neighborhoods need lighting for safety and crime prevention. The residents are usually older, sometimes the only occupant in the home and need lighting for security purposes. Limited income and high electric bills are to be avoided so they don’t turn on own lights. When it looks like no one is home, break-ins occur while the resident is there in the home. Assessing property taxes for installation costs is not the answer. Just because homes are worth more doesn’t mean we have to pay more to protect them. Taxes should cover this expense. Road repair in neighborhoods. There is grass growing through the cracks in the streets. The edges are crumbling and some potholes have appeared. |
