Columbus City and Suburban Development News (Upper Arlington, Arlington: installing, routes, resident)

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by Mplsite

CU recently asked the question, "Is Columbus Following Through on the 2010 Downtown Strategic Plan?" and came up with, short answer: no. 12 big plans were due to be implemented by 2020. Here's the status from the website on each project:



Even when Columbus sets up the goalposts where it wants it can't even meet those expectations and the boosters really have to pull for straws. Take 1 and 8 which are listed "In Progress". With the former comes the long discredited notion that a highway project will encourage urban development. A decent sized parking lot on Rich got some pretty nice infill, but certainly nothing has happened that anyone would notice a gateway of any sort. As for the biking improvements, well, nothing changes the fact that Columbus is terrible on the ground for people looking for safe bikeways. You can count all the sharrows you want, but sharrows are not bikeways. However, Columbus did just remove sharrows on Ohio Ave and installed freshly painted bike lanes of the door zone variety when there is under-utilized parking on both sides of the street. Instead of taking out one of those and replacing it with a buffered or protected one-way bike lane they chose to prioritize motorists being able to always choose parking on either side of the street at the expense of cyclist safety.

6, 7 and 10 all went the way of the streetcar and why the pedestrian-bike bridge is among those is unconscionable. The city couldn't do anything about interstate rail due to the state halting that, but they have no excuse for putting off a transformative local project: a project which they themselves originally set out to accomplish. 3 and 11 are in the planning stages, so those are unlikely to debut by 2020. 2, 4, 5, and 9 all fall under "Not Yet Started" with High St and Broad St again demonstrating major failings on local projects. At this rate these are looking to start by 2020. Even that start date may be too generous. The river greenway is the lone project listed due to be complete by 2020. That's 1/12 or a big fat "F" no matter how you spin it. But this is no surprise when you notice that Columbus hates being a city and would much prefer to be a suburb. And so far, it has accomplished that.

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If it has chosen to be a suburb, why should this bother you so much? You've said literally the same thing hundreds of times, if not thousands, over just the few years I've been posting here. Clearly it's not changing in your opinion. Who cares at this point. Columbus didn't meet your standards so you moved. It still doesn't meet your standards. Why continue to complain about something that you claim over and over again has no hope of ever getting better? I really want you to answer this. What are you getting out of doing this when you admit it won't make any difference whatsoever? No one on this forum works for the city. No one on this forum, as far as I know, is a Columbus developer or anyone remotely able to affect real change in policy. Are you sending your concerns to the city, or is your complaining here merely meant to try to dissuade people from moving there, or to create such a negative view of the city that it's population growth/economy fall apart? What is your end goal here, on this forum, when no one can do anything about it even if everyone agreed with you (which they don't)? You've never directly answered this question, and I would really like to know your motivation once and for all.

[Mplsite]

That it's not changing is not my opinion, as evidenced by a status update of a dozen major downtown developments which have almost no chance of coming to fruition save just one. This is the development thread, not the, what-is-your-motive-for-posting thread (which I've answered several times already; there's a search function for that). Even locals find the city is not changing to meet their standards. Obviously, you care, to the point that you spend time scouring the internet for any new developments in the Columbus metro. Why is that? I don't care and that has nothing to do with this thread.

If you have anything to add about this dozen of developments and why only one is due to be completed by a timeline planned by the city, please be my guest. I'm sure we're all on the edge of our seats waiting for your excuses, err, answers for each one.

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by Mplsite

That it's not changing is not my opinion, as evidenced by a status update of a dozen major downtown developments which have almost no chance of coming to fruition save just one. This is the development thread, not the, what-is-your-motive-for-posting thread (which I've answered several times already; there's a search function for that). Even locals find the city is not changing to meet their standards. Obviously, you care, to the point that you spend time scouring the internet for any new developments in the Columbus metro. Why is that? I don't care and that has nothing to do with this thread.

If you have anything to add about this dozen of developments and why only one is due to be completed by a timeline planned by the city, please be my guest. I'm sure we're all on the edge of our seats waiting for your excuses, err, answers for each one.

Oh it's definitely your opinion, but again, if you don't think it's changing and hold no hope that it will, why bother?

I do this thread because I like Columbus. It doesn't need to be perfect in every single way (perfection is subjective as well, anyway) for me to like it. It's still my hometown. That is my motivation, beyond trying to be somewhat informative about what's going on there. When I'm critical of it, and you've seen me be very critical at times here and elsewhere, it's because I want it to get better. I want it to get better because I like the city and care about its future. But that's clearly not your reason for being critical. You don't actually care if it gets any better because, fundamentally, you really hate the place. You became so frustrated and angry that you moved hundreds of miles away to your supposed urban Shangri-La just to escape, so I know you couldn't care less if it got better. So what is your motivation? If you've given it, I haven't seen it, so at its very core, what do you hope to accomplish?

As for the 12 ideas, here's the actual breakdown:
1. Southeast Gateway is in progress, so that's happening.
2. Topiary Park infill- Hasn't started yet, but it's never been shelved. I suspect we'll see action on this sometime in the next couple of years as more development activity heads this way. The only reason it wouldn't is if the owners of the lots don't want to sell, which is certainly possible. The city can't force the sale of private lots, no matter how much it would want to, so to this point, it's not a city failure by any means.
3. Broad Street- This idea was actually approved awhile back, but I'm not sure what the delay on it is. It hasn't been shelved though and is still planned to happen.
4. High Street- There has been a small change, with the return of on-street parking. COTA is also removing several bus lines from here to other streets like 3rd-4th so that the bus "wall" isn't there anymore. However, this one largely had to do with some kind of streetcar or rail project. I wouldn't expect that to happen anytime soon, and on the rail front, the city is definitely lacking the leadership to move it forward. Pretty much every transit article I see now about Columbus is full of comments about the city needing expanded transit options, so the public seems fully supportive of it.
5. Downtown Transit Station- This is basically being rendered obsolete as COTA decided instead to redo its entire route system, which will have a far greater impact long-term. The bus system won't be using the spoke system anymore, which is what this station would've been used for.
6. 3C Corridor Station- Kasich killed this, or it would probably exist by now. Not the city's fault.
7. Biking Improvements- This is in progress. Perhaps not as fast as you personally want to see, but it's being done. Theoretically, this particular one will never actually end so long as there are places to add bike infrastructure, but it is happening.
8. Downtown Field House- This one always seemed like a stretch to me. However, with the recent news that a 1000-room hotel is needed soon, it could be part of the overall project depending on where it's built. The large surface lot behind the convention center was the original proposed location. This is one idea I've actually seen referenced a few times since the list came out, so it's not dead.
9. Pedestrian Bike Bridge- A few things about this one... First, the Scioto River Greenway was originally supposed to be finished before this, and that project isn't quite done yet. Second, I would expect this proposal to come back once the new Vets Memorial starts to take shape over the next year or so. I haven't seen anywhere that this idea has been shelved, but rather postponed while current construction projects are wrapped up/progressed.
10. Scioto Peninsula- A plan is already done for this, and construction on the first part, Vets Memorial, is already underway. This is a multi-year plan, though.
11. River Greenway- Almost done.
12. Creative Campus- This seemed, at least to me, to be the most vague idea of all 12. However, it seemed to revolve largely around CCAD and Columbus State expanding their campuses, and both of them have plans to do that. Columbus State in particular, if you've seen the plan, plans to get rid of the vast majority of the surface parking lots it owns, which are numerous in that part of Downtown, but this is probably the longest-term item on the list. The plan is there, though.

I guess I don't see a lot of failure here. In terms of what the city alone is responsible for, I think it's biggest failure from the actual list is High Street, and only because of the transit element. Topiary Park, the Creative Campus, the Scioto Peninsula and the Southeast Gateway are all partially or mostly private development. As far as public projects go, I think that once the Scioto Greenway is finished, another one of these will start. Which one, I don't know, but if I had to guess, it's going to be the hotel/field house, bridge or Broad Street.

[jbcmh81]

http://www.columbusunderground.com/t...n-columbus-bw1

A 12-story hotel and retail concept has come up for the surface lot just north of the old Madisons building near the intersection of Gay and N. High.

[jbcmh81]

http://www.columbusunderground.com/f...-at-broad-high

A 24-hour diner for Broad and High.

[jbcmh81]

http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/...arl-alley.html

Campus Partners are considering turning Pearl Alley between 14th and 17th Avenues into a local retail destination and may convert it to two ways with pedestrian infrastructure added.

[logongst]

Originally Posted by jbcmh81

Hotel Concept Calls for 12 Stories on High Street Downtown | ColumbusUnderground.com

A 12-story hotel and retail concept has come up for the surface lot just north of the old Madisons building near the intersection of Gay and N. High.

Not a fan of the bland colors but this needs to be built asap.

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by logongst

Not a fan of the bland colors but this needs to be built asap.

That design, in all likelihood, would not be what the final product is. It's been presented as a concept, something planned after the Madisons project is complete sometime next year. The size and design will very likely change, perhaps even significantly.

[jbcmh81]

Columbus reports 5% jump in enrollment | The Columbus Dispatch

Columbus schools saw a 5% jump in enrollment for this fall. This represents the first significant enrollment increase in several years, and is now back to where it was 8 years ago. The thinking is that population growth within the city (the greatest area increases in schools were urban, such as the Near East Side and Downtown) and students returning from poorly performing charter schools contributed. We'll have to see if the enrollment increases continue in upcoming school years. The total enrollment is still well below its peak in the early 1970s.

[motorman]

http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/...ster-with.html

Build it and they will come...

(Almost overnight, the new 250 S. High St. tower becomes a very important building in downtown Columbus! Great news, along with far-reaching positive ramifications.)