Columbus Monthly / October 2010 / The roar over Cooper Stadium

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The roar over Cooper Stadium

Once the peaceful home of the Columbus Clippers, the empty ballpark is now the focus of the noisiest neighborhood battle in town.

When Bill Schottenstein and Regina Acosta Tobin look into their crystal balls, they see—and hear—much different futures for Cooper Stadium.

Schottenstein sees economic growth, a revitalized Franklinton neighborhood and a thriving half-mile racetrack that’s replaced the abandoned ball field. A hotel with a walkway leads into one of the grandstand entrances. Restaurants ring the perimeter of the Mound Street development, which also includes a large conference center and automotive research and technology center.

On weekdays, the center buzzes with students from Ohio State and Columbus State, as well as engineers from some of the nation’s top automotive firms working on electric-powered vehicles and other technological breakthroughs. NASCAR superstar Jeff Gordon designed the racetrack and his company, Jeff Gordon Inc., as well as DuPont and several other high-tech firms, have offices in the bustling automotive center. Central Ohio has become a major player in creating the next generation of green vehicles, while development has spread throughout the once-struggling west-side neighborhood. “The only way for us to make money on this project is for the whole area to be developed,” says Schottenstein, a developer whose Arshot Investment Corp. wants to sink $30 million to $40 million into the 46-acre Cooper Stadium site.

Acosta Tobin, however, envisions problems and some unpleasant consequences. In her forecast, ear-splitting race cars make life miserable for the 10,000 or so residents of Franklinton who live just north of the racetrack and spoil the tranquility as far away as German Village and North Bank Park in the Arena District. Property values of homes in Franklinton (and beyond) decline and hundreds of birds flee the adjacent Green Lawn Cemetery, one of the state’s prime bird-watching sites.

The predicted economic revitalization turns out to be another empty promise for long-suffering Franklinton as the 35-foot-high walls that ring the track fail to keep the noise down to an acceptable level. “It’s inconceivable our city leaders would be so blind to the noise this racetrack will create,” says Acosta Tobin, a real estate agent and board member of Redevelop Our Area Responsibly (ROAR) Columbus, a group created soon after plans for the racetrack were announced in 2007.

Soon, Columbus City Council will decide which side—and whose noise experts—are correct, and which side has more grass-roots support and political clout. In late August, Arshot applied for the zoning change necessary for the Cooper Stadium racetrack and tech center project to move forward. If the company receives approval from City Council, which should make its decision in four to seven months, Schottenstein says construction will start immediately. If he fails to get the go-ahead, the project is dead.

A lot’s at stake, and for the past several months, both sides have been lining up supporters and experts and practicing their arguments. It could get interesting—and it might even get a little messy.

“There is a movement outside of ROAR, of people—prominent people—waiting for the zoning application, who don’t want to be involved or to give their names unless they have to get involved,” says ROAR member Mary Rhinehart, who also is president of the nearby Abaco Rehabilitation and Nursing Home.

Residents of the nursing home will be inundated with noise if the racetrack is built, she says. “I don’t want to say it will destroy us, but it will be hard to get people to stay here once it’s built,” Rhinehart says.

Huntington Park, which opened in 2009, meant the end of the venerable 15,000-seat Cooper Stadium. The ballpark—which opened in 1931 and closed at the end of the 2008 season—and its grounds are owned by Franklin County. Commissioners put it up for sale in 2007, hoping for at least $3 million. The money, they said, would go toward paying down the debt on Huntington Park in the Arena District.

There was some talk that Bob Althoff, owner of A.D. Farrow Co. Harley-Davidson, was interested in developing the site—but it didn’t work out.

And so up to the plate stepped Schottenstein, a member of the famous Columbus family who developed the Fifth Third Center downtown, among other projects.

“We were approached by some people to look at the Cooper site,” he says. Previously, he looked into building a new baseball park just south of downtown, at the northern edge of the Brewery District. “We made a proposal to build the park there, and we needed to reuse the old ballpark and were thinking at the time of maybe a racetrack,” Schottenstein says. “Other than that I had no knowledge of racing.”

The idea sat on the shelf, gathering dust—and was brought back to life after the county issued a request for proposal (RFP) to sell the property. Schottenstein and Arshot offered $3.3 million.

Their plan is to build the Center for Automotive Technology and Research at Cooper Park, as well as a convention center, restaurants, a hotel—and a racetrack that will include the old Cooper Stadium grandstands and hold about 8,500 people.

The racetrack, Schottenstein says, is too small for NASCAR and would instead feature about 16 to 20 races a year, possibly ARCA Racing Series stock-car and sprint-car events, as well as vintage-car and midget-car races. These vehicles, he says, are not as noisy as the kind Gordon drives. It also would host a wide variety of nonracing events, such as car shows, concerts, rodeos and extreme-sport competitions. “It could be in use by the spring of 2012,” he says.

The Arshot proposal was the only one, and commissioners accepted the deal in 2008 with a caveat. To complete the agreement, the city of Columbus must approve a zoning change—from agricultural to commercial. The deal has an expiration date: May 3, 2011, although it’s possible Arshot could negotiate and pay for an extension (it already has done so once for $100,000) if the zoning application has not been decided by then.

“It incorporated all the elements the county hoped would be met when the RFP was issued,” says county administrator Don Brown of the Arshot proposal. “It will provide regional traction for tourism and visitors, job creation and redevelopment.” The commissioners, he adds, support the project and do not think it will create a noise problem.

The racetrack is only one element of the project, Schottenstein says, even though it is the one getting all the attention. His due diligence revealed an untapped market for an automotive research center in Central Ohio—and the racetrack would be a handy proving ground for technologies under development. The center initially will be 100,000 square feet and could later be expanded.

Ohio State and Columbus State quickly jumped on board in principle. “We are very cramped for space,” says Andy Rezin, chair of Columbus State’s Department of Automotive and Applied Technology. Rezin’s department could enroll more students and conduct classes at the Cooper complex, add new areas of study and work with Ohio State’s Center for Automotive Research (CAR) at the site on programs that combine the technical and repair skills of Columbus State with the research skills of Ohio State.

Giorgio Rizzoni, director of CAR, sees the facility as a magnet for the growing field of electric vehicles and energy storage, areas in which Ohio State is a leader. “It’s a place where we could provide training for technicians to learn the ins and outs of electric vehicles, and we do feel there is room to collaborate with Columbus State on this,” he says. “And imagine having a small proving ground in which we could develop test equipment focused on electric vehicles.”

Rizzoni also envisions a future in which the cars racing around Cooper Park will be electric—and very, very quiet. “It could be a launching pad for a series of electric-car races,” he says.

Schottenstein also approached John Bickford, Gordon’s stepfather and the president of Jeff Gordon Inc., in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We have a high level of interest,” Bickford says, adding this interest could be in the form of research facilities and test and production centers for Jeff Gordon Inc. and some of its partners, including DuPont.

Bickford says he has talked with officials at Hendrick Motorsports, which, in addition to owning and operating the NASCAR teams of Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr., is involved with Central Piedmont Community College’s Motorsports and Auto Body program.

Bickford believes a similar working relationship with area schools would create jobs and careers for local students. “We can affect the process in a positive way,” he says of Cooper Park. “We can be an ambassador for the project. We have a taller, louder soapbox and in today’s world it’s all about the attention.”

However, Bickford warns that nothing is in writing and won’t be until the zoning hurdle is cleared. “We’re patient and there’s a process to go through and we have to be respectful of the wishes of the community,” he says. “We talk regularly with Bill [Schottenstein], and he seems to be a guy who gets things done, and from our standpoint that’s the caliber of individual we want Jeff Gordon connected to.”

Not everyone is as gung-ho about the Center for Automotive Technology and Research at Cooper Park. “My first reaction was they’re crazy,” says Acosta Tobin. “I lived in the deep South and I know what these racetracks sound like from several miles away. They have no idea how far this noise will travel.”

Acosta Tobin and about a dozen others began to meet and discuss the proposed center—and decided to form ROAR. “There’s nobody in ROAR against racing,” she says. “They like to spin it that way. . . . It’s a fine sport, but we don’t think it’s appropriate in a high-density downtown location.”

ROAR eventually raised enough money to pay for a noise study, which was conducted by Noise Consultancy LLC of New Jersey. The report found that the racetrack would “generate excessive noise which causes a substantial and unreasonable interference with the use and enjoyment of the property of thousands of Columbus residents” and “deprive many residents of the peace and quiet enjoyment of residential neighborhoods.”

The volume of noise often would be above the city’s noise ordinance threshold of 65 decibels from 7 am to 10 pm, according to the report. “People who sleep here in Franklinton are the ones who will be most affected,” says Carol Stewart, a longtime resident of the community and member of the Franklinton Area Commission. Most nearby businesses—which seem to favor the project—will be closed during weekday nights and Saturdays when the races are held, she adds.

Schottenstein says ROAR’s report was predicated on a drag strip outside the racetrack and no noise-reducing walls. “They made assumptions that were not accurate,” he says, adding he asked ROAR to hold off on its noise study until his plans were complete.

According to ROAR members, Schottenstein initially told them there would be a drag strip. He says this was never part of the plan, and he was willing from the start to do whatever it took to mitigate the noise. “My attitude is if we can put a man on the moon we can reduce the noise, but can we afford to do it?” he says.

Arshot hired Harris Miller Miller & Hanson Inc. of Massachusetts to do a noise study and recommend steps needed to reduce noise to a level that would meet the city’s ordinance. “They tell you what you have to do, and you have to decide if you can afford it,” Schottenstein says.

He says he can indeed afford the $5 million cost, which would pay for a 35-foot wall around the racetrack and another wall, ranging in height from 20 to 30 feet, along the southern border of the property with Green Lawn. The walls would be made of concrete and steel and covered with a layer of sound-absorbing, acoustical material.

Once the walls are in place, the Harris Miller Miller & Hanson report states, the noise will be “effectively managed so as to comply with the City of Columbus noise ordinance. Conclusions to the contrary reached by ROAR Columbus are based on inappropriate noise emission levels and fail to take into consideration the extensive noise abatement measures that have been proposed.”

The next big step in the rezoning process could be when the Southwest Area Commission rules on the proposal. “We’re an advisory body and we will listen and form an opinion of support or nonsupport and make a recommendation,” says Stefanie Coe, a member of the commission, which already has held two public meetings on the project.

The commission, however, has formed a preliminary opinion. In July, chairman Jason Waltke sent a letter to Schottenstein “to indicate our support for the development.”

“Noise was obviously the biggest issue, and we believe after the two noise consultants presented their findings at our meetings that it would be addressed,” Coe says. “From my perspective, the ROAR consultant didn’t say the modeling the developer’s consultant used was incorrect, just that the standard of 65 decibels was too high. . . . Our understanding is that 65 decibels would allow people to carry on a conversation face-to-face.”

The Franklinton Board of Trade also supports the project—but with a condition. “Arshot is working with the Southwest Area Commission to put together a good-neighbor agreement,” says Kathy Gatterdam, president of the Franklinton Board of Trade.

This agreement must protect the community, she says. “Once the structure is built, it will either contain the noise the way they say or it won’t, and if it won’t it will have to be stopped immediately without lawsuits and going to court.”

She believes the walls will work and the project will help the community and bring much-needed development and jobs. “But it will take time,” she says. “It’s not like the Arena District popped up overnight, and neither did German Village, and it took the Short North forever.”

The Franklinton Area Commission has yet to issue an official statement, but it will do so after members have had a chance to read the official Arshot proposal, Stewart says. She is against the project. “I think it’s going to be very loud, even with the noise walls, at least within the first mile,” she says. She would have preferred an entertainment complex.

Rhinehart’s dream for the property is a sky garden, a seven-story structure that would produce plants and crops year-round. She hasn’t given up on her idea and is working to put together a group of investors to purchase the site if the Arshot zoning request is turned down, or find another location if it is approved.

“All the technology for this type of organic farming in an urban setting is available; it’s just never all been put into one building,” she says.

The German Village Society and Downtown Residents’ Association of Columbus also are against the project. Kevin Wood, president of the latter group, believes many downtown green spaces “may also be impacted by the noise and air pollution generated by a raceway in such close proximity.”

So far, City Council members, the ultimate arbitrators, have been very careful not to publicly take sides. “City Council continues to wait and listen to what civic associations and area commissions have to say on the development,” says council spokesman John Ivanic. Mayor Mike Coleman, meanwhile, will support the project “only if there is clear neighborhood support,” says his spokesman, Dan Williamson.

Schottenstein believes there is widespread backing for the project—and the zoning request will be approved. “You’re never going to get 100 percent in favor, but the vast majority of the people are for this,” he says. “There is a very vocal minority, but they are a minority.”

Acosta Tobin disagrees. She promises to continue the fight against the complex and says no matter what happens, she is proud of the role ROAR has played so far.

She calls the group the annoying piece of gum on the bottom of Arshot’s shoes. “If not for our group, there wouldn’t be noise walls, and there would still be a drag strip, so we have already had an impact.”

Steve Wartenberg is a freelance writer.