Columbus Monthly / April 2011 / Stake in the Ground

 Email  Print

Stake in the Ground

The city of Columbus–and Mayor Mike Coleman–has invested a lot of resources into trying to revive the King Lincoln District. While progress is apparent in this historic near east side neighborhood, there's still plenty of work left.

Craig Murphy walks along a street lined with well-maintained older homes and several new builds that reflect the overall character of the historic downtown neighborhood. There are new streetlights and a community garden; several people are in their yards or walking, perhaps headed to one of the two nearby coffee shops.

It could be Victorian Village or Clintonville.

But it’s not. Instead, this scene is in the long-troubled near east side, on 21st Street between Long Street and Mount Vernon Avenue. Murphy plays a key role with the nonprofit Columbus Housing Partnership, which is responsible for helping create this oasis of rejuvenation in the area. “These three houses are ours, and so are those two across the street,” says Murphy, director of CHP’s Homeport Home Ownership Division. “We’ve done 23 new builds and four rehabs on this street. And we have two more homes we’ve purchased that we haven’t torn down or rehabbed yet, and several vacant lots we’ll eventually build on.”

A block to the east, though, is an entirely different scene—22nd Street is filled with crumbling, boarded-up houses and a few inhabited homes that have been divided into multiple rental units by absentee owners.

These two streets represent the dichotomy of the past and hoped-for future of the area known as the King Lincoln District, a small section of the city that includes the King Arts Complex and recently renovated Lincoln Theatre. It is part of what was once the larger hub of the city’s black—and segregated—community, known back in the day as Bronzeville, a center for jazz, culture and commerce. “The area was the heart of everything for the African-American community,” Columbus Mayor Mike Coleman says. “It was a thriving, bustling, progressive area.” It was the Columbus equivalent of Harlem.

The thriving came to an end in the 1960s and 1970s, as I-71 created a barrier that cut the area off from downtown, with middle- and upper-class blacks moving out in droves and crime and drugs gaining a foothold. Once an area starts to slip, it’s hard to turn around—and easy for it to fall into a never-ending spiral of neglect, decay and crime.

Revitalizing the King Lincoln District—and beyond its boundaries—is now a priority for Coleman, who has plowed millions of city dollars into the area and staked a good bit of his political clout and ultimate legacy on this lofty goal. He calls it “one of the most important priorities of my administration.”

There has been progress, most notably the May 2009 reopening of the Lincoln, as well as the construction of the Gateway Building with retail and offices and CHP’s success in rehabbing old homes and building new ones on vacant lots.

There also has been controversy and a few missteps, including the Whitney condominium project on Mount Vernon Avenue. These townhouses are an attempt at more upscale living to attract higher-income families, increase property values and attract private developers. As of mid March, not a single unit has been sold. In December, City Council stepped in to bail out the nonprofit collaborative developing the project with a $3.4 million loan.

“Nobody has bought a single unit and nobody knows if this will ever be successful,” says Willis Brown, president of the Bronzeville Neighborhood Association and a frequent critic of Coleman’s plans—and name—for the area. “They should have put that money into the existing businesses.”

And then there are all those streets similar to 22nd Street, which are lined with blight and still in need of revitalization. The area’s crime rate is about six times the citywide rate, according to neighborhoodscout.com, and the income level places it among the lowest 15 percent in the nation.

Those grim facts are hard to overcome.

It’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the King Arts Complex is buzzing with activity: a choir and dance group prepare to take the stage of the historic Pythian Theater; an inspirational vocal group and members of a high school acting class soon will perform in the Nicholson Auditorium; scores of well-dressed Central Ohio residents roam the halls, visiting exhibits on the rich history of the area and admiring the artwork of the center’s many students. In the lobby, Coleman is hugging folks, shaking hands and posing for photos.

“We’re drawing people in, we’re bringing people back,” says Larry James, a Columbus attorney who played a major role in the creation of the King Arts Complex in 1987 and the renovation of the Lincoln Theatre.

The arts center was the magnet that drew people back to the area, and its success eventually led to the idea to restore the Lincoln Theatre, which initially opened in 1928 and attracted such stars as Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Sammy Davis Jr. But it lost its shine, closed in the early 1970s and slowly began to deteriorate. In 2006, Coleman turned to the obsessively organized and efficient James. “The King Arts Complex was already a great asset to the community and we wanted a linkage, continuity between the two,” Coleman says. “Larry was the president over there and he knew the community and I went to him and said, ‘Look, we have to get this done, I need someone to watch over this.’ ”

Critics said the city and Franklin County’s contribution—a combined

$10.3 million—was money ill spent in an area not worth saving. Nevertheless, the $13 million renovation moved forward and the 566-seat, Egyptian Revival-style theater reopened in May 2009.

Run by a nonprofit association led by James, the Lincoln was an immediate hit. More than 75,000 people showed up in the first year for concerts, classes and private events, including 35 weddings. In its first 12 months, the Lincoln generated a $35,000 surplus from more than $600,000 in revenue.

“The King and the Lincoln have broken down the taboos about the neighborhood,” James says. “They bring in people, many from outside the neighborhood who would have been reluctant in the past.”

Soon after he was first elected in 1999, Coleman made it clear improving inner-city neighborhoods was a top priority, and the King Lincoln District was at the top of this list. Coleman, the city’s first black mayor, and Boyce Safford III, at the time a member of his policy office and currently the director of development, kicked off the revitalization during a meeting in July 2001 at the King Arts Complex. The result was the city’s King Lincoln District Plan, which was published the following year. This is the type of long-term commitment that led to the successful turnarounds of other areas of the city, such as German Village, the Short North and Arena District.

Coleman has been known to ramble on about topics close to his heart, and he goes into full-ramble mode when discussing the King Lincoln District. “What I’ve learned is you can’t have a flash-in-the-pan rejuvenation,” Coleman says. “It has to be sustained and extended over a long period of time on a consistent basis. So, in my 2004 state of the city speech, I put a stake in the ground and said we will bring this area back. We will make public investments and attract private investments.”

For planning purposes, the King Lincoln District Plan defines the boundaries of the area as I-71 to the west, Atcheson Street to the north, 20th Street to the east and East Broad Street to the south.

This arbitrary boundary angered Brown, who claims Coleman and others have forsaken the history of Bronzeville and the accomplishments of the black men and women who built the area. The boundaries of Bronzeville, Brown says, are more expansive and, “It should be called the Bronzeville revitalization and you can say the King Lincoln District is a part of it.”

“I’m glad they renovated the Lincoln Theatre, but how many of us residents can afford to go there?” he continues. “Other people, people from the outside, are benefiting, but what do we get?”

“We needed a name, a starting place, and we drew a circle around the Lincoln and King,” Coleman says in response. “Over time, it will grow. . . . This is a comprehensive effort that will result in the lifting up of everyone. Not just the folks of medium income, we want to lift up everyone.”

Growth to the east, the mayor says, will connect the district to Ohio State University’s expansion of its University Hospital East, which recently was awarded city tax incentives worth $35 million. In return, Ohio State has pledged to spend $10 million to help revitalize the area.

Meanwhile, the Ohio Department of Transportation’s $180 million project to rebuild I-70 and I-71 through downtown will help connect the King Lincoln District westward. A bridge enhancement plan for Long Street—to start this spring, with completion set for 2013—will be similar to the Short North Cap over I-670 and connect the area to Columbus State Community College and the Columbus College of Art & Design. On Jan. 24, City Council approved $2.5 million for brick crosswalks, bike lanes and underground utilities. “This is very important to how the rest of the area is developed,” Coleman says.

While public funds have provided the seed money for the revitalization of King Lincoln, private investment in housing and commercial projects is ultimately what will make it a success. But there’s a catch-22 when it comes to attracting investors, especially for residential projects: It currently costs more to build a house than its appraised value after completion.

And real estate developers aren’t in the business to lose money.

Al Waddell, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker King Thompson who works with CHP to sell its homes, likes to tell the story of the time he showed a house in the King Lincoln District to a young woman and her parents. One of the parents asked him: Would you let your daughter live in this neighborhood?

“I told them I live a block away,” Waddell says as he sets up an open house in a new CHP build on 21st Street. “And I also told them that no matter where you live, you need to take precautions and you’ll be safer.”

Still, it’s a tough sell. And that’s where CHP steps in. Its mission is to provide affordable housing to low- and moderate-income families throughout the city, but in recent years it has become the major real estate mover and shaker in the King Lincoln District.

Since 2005, the organization has acquired more than 60 properties in the district—and built or rehabbed and sold about 30, says David Reierson, project manager for CHP’s Homeport Home Ownership Division. Plans for 2011 include four new builds and two rehabs, plus the development of the nine-unit NOBO on Long condominiums at the corner of

East Long and 21st streets. Units start at $110,000.

“What happened here is what happened in many urban neighborhoods,” says Amy Klaben, president and CEO of CHP. “Who’s left are the people who didn’t have enough money to move out to the suburbs, and you have too much housing stock and the people left don’t have the means to maintain their properties and more and more become renters. . . . The vast majority who lost their homes here to foreclosure were some sort of investors, not the people who lived here.” No one has been displaced, and CHP has helped existing residents obtain grants for home improvements, Klaben adds.

CHP’s goal is to provide affordable and attractive housing to a diverse population. Unlike for-profit developers, CHP qualifies for government money to subsidize its projects. “The cost to acquire the land and develop it exceeds the appraised value,” Murphy says. “But we qualify for money from the city and federal government and can create affordable housing.”

The price of CHP homes ranges from about $70,000 to around $160,000. And there are incentives to attract buyers, including a 15-year city tax abatement (owners only pay tax on their land and not on their homes). “They’re only paying $100 or $200 a year in city taxes,” Murphy says. And many of CHP’s buyers qualify for a special mortgage program offered by Huntington National Bank, which includes a fixed-rate mortgage of just 3.25 percent over 30 years.

But the revitalization of the King Lincoln District won’t be complete until more streets look like 21st Street and less like 22nd.

It was vital to build an office building with retail space across East Long Street from the Lincoln Theatre, Coleman believed. “We needed to bring jobs to the area,” he says.

From the mayor’s lips to investors’ wallets proved to be difficult, though.

“We went to a number of developers for that corner and none were interested,” Coleman says. “And we also wanted a minority developer. I knew Tony and knew he had an interest in this area and asked him, ‘Can you do this?’ and he said, ‘Well, we think we can.’ ”

Tony is A. Robert Hutchins, a Columbus attorney who specializes in real estate development. About eight years ago, Hutchins and two friends, Eric Carmichael and McCoullogh Williams III, decided to team up on the for-profit project.

“At the time, they had started talking about renovating the Lincoln and we finally said yes,” Hutchins says. “We figured we wouldn’t make a lot of money, but that

we wouldn’t lose any. . . . It was a way to give back to the community and be part of the revitalization of the area.”

The project became the $6.7 million, 57,000-square-foot Gateway Building, which opened in May 2006. The first floor includes a dry cleaner, CHP’s Homeport office and a coffee shop, Zanzibar, which is owned by Hutchins and his partners. The Columbus police and fire departments also have offices in the building. “We’re doing OK, we can pay our notes,” Hutchins says of the bottom line for the Gateway Building.

He has encountered many more problems with the area’s first large-scale project, the 28-unit Whitney condominiums on Mount Vernon Avenue. It is located on the site of the former Whitney Young public-housing complex, which was torn down years ago. The empty lot was purchased by the city for $100 in 2004.

The $6 million deal is a venture of the Whitney Young Collaborative, a nonprofit group that consists of Alpha Pi Alpha (a historically black service fraternity) and three local churches. Units sell for $179,000 to $259,000, says Hutchins, the collaborative’s attorney.

The group initially received a $3 million construction loan from the Ohio Community Development Finance Fund in 2008. But then the problems, delays and costs began to mount as the real estate market tanked. Their money ran out. The townhouse units are mostly completed, but none have been sold, although a sale was pending in mid March.

On Dec. 6, Columbus City Council approved a $3.4 million loan to the collaborative to pay off its initial debt and keep the project moving. Again, much like the Lincoln Theatre, there were questions about the use of limited public funds.

“The overall intent is for the good of the community,” Hutchins says. “There’s a legitimate public purpose—and it’s a loan, not a grant.”

Brown, however, sees it as a bailout for a flawed business plan. “What if some resident has a problem and can’t pay for their home,” he says. “Can they go to the city and get a bailout?”

City Council had some concerns, but ultimately voted unanimously in favor of the loan. Council president Andrew Ginther says the city did a thorough review of the collaborative’s books to ensure the public funds had been spent wisely and was satisfied with the results.

“We felt good about this investment and quite honestly couldn’t afford not to invest in this project without seeing other investments in the neighborhood take a hit,” he says. “The last thing we wanted to do was leave those unfinished shells there and stall all the momentum.”

The project, Ginther adds, will add upscale housing options to the area, which will increase the district’s diversity and also raise the property value of surrounding homes.

For Coleman, the choice was clear. “We could allow it to fail and sit there vacant and abandoned and then see further vacancies and a sense of hopelessness or we could transform it and make it a success,” he says.

Kristian Rose-Anderson doesn’t consider herself a pioneer. But that’s exactly what she became five years ago when she purchased one of the modern homes on 21st Street built by CHP.

“I was looking to buy and I wanted to be close to downtown, I’m very much a city person,” says Rose-Anderson, who works at AEP and has an 8-year-old son. “I learned about this area and it was exciting. I have a brand new house in a neighborhood with a lot of history. It’s a win-win.”

It also took some courage to move into an area that had been on the decline for so long. “Yes, safety was an issue,” Rose-Anderson says. “I have a child and I’m not crazy; I know crime is everywhere. And when you have a community that’s been neglected for so long, it’s here. But when you pay attention, you see a positive change.”

When she first moved in, Rose-Anderson says there still were several vacant lots and boarded-up homes on her block. But as CHP began to build and rehab more houses and new people moved in, the entire vibe of the block changed. A growing sense of community began to emerge, first through a neighborhood block watch organized by CHP. This has grown into clean-up projects, that community garden and the North of Broad Community Association, of which Rose-Anderson is president. Now, she says, everyone on 21st Street knows each other and looks out for one another, both the new residents and those who have lived there for decades.

“It’s a really neat community,” Rose-Anderson says. “I know a lot of people are skeptical, but what I tell them is to come and take a look, to see for themselves all the good things we’re doing.”

n n n

There are no guarantees in the revitalization business—just a lot of hard work over many years, building by building, block by block. “This is not a project, it’s a transformation of an area involving many people and organizations,” Coleman says. “And it’s two steps forward, one step back.”

It appears Coleman, who recently announced he will run for a fourth term in November, could be around a few more years to push for the revival of King Lincoln. But at some point, he will no longer be mayor, and the new one might not be as committed to the district.

“I wouldn’t say that’s a problem, just a different set of challenges,” James says. “If we don’t get the welcome and leadership of the next mayor as we’re getting from this mayor, we’ll just have to work harder.”

Steve Wartenberg is a freelance writer.