About a month ago, I posted some thoughts about downtown development following a Dispatch article where some local developers hated on downtown development at a public meeting. While I wasn’t at the meeting, and I’ve only got the quotes from the Dispatch to go by, it sounds like the Streetcar project was only briefly mentioned, and not in a very positive light.
Yesterday, an anonymous source forwarded me an excerpt from a Columbus Metropolitan Club meeting back in 2006 where Mr. Kass spoke positively of the Streetcar, and blamed downtown’s development problems on the automobile. Which are accurate statements to make, but puzzling why there was such a change up from what appears to be an optimistic opinion of downtown in 2006, to painting bleak pictures in 2008. One thing that could be the reason comes from the Dispatch article last month:
Casto thinks the city somehow needs to find a big-time tenant to help Downtown. In other words, it has to hit a grand slam. Casto and Kass were rebuffed by the city last year when they tried to buy City Center from Simon Properties Group.
Anyway, below is the bit of info forwarded to me from the CMC meeting in 2006:
Columbus Metropolitan Club
Frankly Speaking – Featuring Frank Cass
4/12/06Question: You talked a lot about parking and how important it is for folks to get from the suburbs to downtown and vice versa. What role do you think public transit plays in this concept of a great downtown from your historic perspective and moving forward from today?
Answer: I don’t know I’m probably going to disappoint you with this answer, but I’m not big on public transportation in areas that are this broad. I don’t think it works. I think it uses up too much of our government dollars and will not take enough money in the turn style. I think the downtown trolley that will connect the downtown areas and the campus is a brilliant idea and I think we need that. I think that people who choose to live in the suburbs need to figure out if they really want to be downtown or if they don’t. I don’t think we can afford to send a 40-passenger bus to Canal Winchester twice a day….
…So I think that public transportation is for urban centers to the extent that we’re going to build up our urban center and connect it to our campus and all of our campuses meaning Columbus State, close to it, and Ohio State, and the whole downtown loop is tremendous. The reason you want a trolley instead of a bus is you know where to catch the trolley because there’s a track. So I think it’s important. Anyhow, there’s my answer… I think we need to get 50 mile a gallon cars. There’s what I think we need. Because that’s the problem.