Back in August, I wrote up a long 12-step plan for recovery for the dead City Center mall downtown. In the November issue of Columbus Monthly, there was a great cover story about what could potentially be done with the Center Center in the future. I emailed my 12-step plan to the fine folks at Columbus Monthly, and after a requested revision (it was originally way too long for print) it got printed in this month’s letters to the editor section.
So go pick up a copy and check it out! And if you can’t, here’s what I managed to trim it down to. From this to this:
As a downtown resident and enthusiast, I’ve thought a lot about the future of the City Center. Here’s my 12-step plan:
1. Tear out the ugly skywalk connecting the City Center to the Lazarus building.
2. Rip the roof off the mall to create an pedestrian path through the middle of the block.
3. Convert the second and third stories of the mall into residential and/or office space. Keep the ground-floor retail.
4. Redevelop the new pedestrian path with a variety of facades for visual aesthetics.
5. Apply the same facelift to the exterior of the City Center Parking Garage.
6. Replace the lot next to the Parking Garage with a high-rise hotel building.
7. Replace the unused greenspace at High and Rich with a high-rise residential building.
8. Add a year-round outdoor oval in the middle that would function as a summertime wate rfountain and a wintertime ice rink.
9. Add more entertainment options including a comedy club, a karaoke joint, an arcade, a bowling alley, an indoor putt-putt course, an urban driving range, etc.
10. Fill in the retail with a mix of traditional mall options, smaller versions of big box anchors, and local businesses.
11. Extend the reach of the redevelopment to encompass the surrounding blocks (Greyhound Station, Trautman Building, RiverSouth, Red Brick District, etc).
12. Most importantly, the new City Center needs to be a transit hub featuring COTA, Greyhound, Streetcars, bike racks, etc.Diversity and flexibility is going to be key for the longevity of any new City Center redevelopment plans.
The people that work downtown have no fast food place to eat. With in walking distance from there job’s are and that is North, East, South or West side of the downtown areas. So how are they suppose to come down here and live with, with no eating places that are reasonable. Plus there is no a grocery store smack down in the center of downtown.
My take on this is why even both to go anywhere downtown went there is nothing to do or and no place to shop, or get groceries.
True, there aren’t as many fast food places downtown as there are in the suburbs, but there are plenty of affordable places to eat within a long walk or short drive in and around downtown.
Same goes for groceries. There’s not one in the center of downtown, but there are Kroger and Giant Eagle stores within a short drive into German Village, Victorian Village, as well as the North Market for some grocery items.
Downtown’s resurgence is still in it’s infancy. It’s going to take a lot more people living downtown before retailers deem it worthy to open more stores there. You can’t open a business in an area where nobody lives. The people have to come first and the early adopters are still filling in.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s a big deal right now if people downtown have to drive 5 minutes to go to the grocery store. It’s the same thing people in the suburbs do for their shopping needs, and they don’t seem to complain about it.
Also, a streetcar circulator line downtown would help out on this front a LOT. Office workers at Broad and High who are too far to walk to the North Market on their lunch break could easily zip there and back on a streetcar. Bring it on!
I agree. I would love to be able to zip on over to the North Market from downtown for lunch.