jonoh81

Preaching to the choir, but Columbus does not support its history when it comes to development.

Larger towns in the state are doing much better than smaller ones, and it's much better to be in a metro area than not for all levels. But I think it's a pretty rosy statement to say that most Ohio cities and towns are doing well when 2/3rds of the state is in population decline. You can't mask that with a fresh coat of paint, and there are real reasons behind this.

No, it isn't. It added about 88K people 2010-2020, which would be almost 40,000 fewer than Columbus in the same period. The difference is even more stark when you consider that Nashville is consolidated with its county, which means that the actual city grew even less. The Nashville metro grew more than Columbus', but that's not exactly what I would call good growth. It's all suburbia/exurbia at the expense of the city.

https://allcolumbusdata.com/redeveloping-westland-mall/ What do you guys think about this theoretical redevelopment of the Westland site? I feel like it's not going to be anything remotely like this, with instead low-density apartment complexes and fast-food outlots/strip centers being the dominant form.

I did just a quick little layout of my own for the site, just to see what could realistically fit in just over 8 acres. This is what I came up with. -The blue box is a parking garage taking up just under 1.4 acres. For comparison, the Goodale garage by the Convention Center is on less than 1 acre. Depending on the number of floors, it could easily accommodate hundreds or even 1000+ cars. -Barthman would be extended into the site and connect to a garage entrance/exit. There would be another entrance/exit on Wall Street. -Reeb Avenue would also be somewhat extended into the site, and a new, small street grid would otherwise be built. All the streets would of course have sidewalks. -The yellow line would be a main sidewalk along Wall Street, and I'm sure they could get the city to finish sidewalks from High Street to connect to the site, including safe crosswalks for pedestrians. -All the orange boxes are buildings. Each one is between 1/2-1.2 acres in size and each accommodating between 100-300 units, depending on the number of floors and overall site size. So between 6x-9x the number of units that are currently being proposed. And there would be 4 individual buildings facing Wall Street instead of one gigantic, block-long building without any design or architectural breakup. -A park/event space in green, about 1.5 acres in size. I noticed the site plan had retention ponds, so if something like that is necessary, it could be a feature of the park. And of course, you could have retail or restaurant spaces anywhere on the ground floor of these buildings, especially facing the park. I feel like this part of the South Side doesn't have a lot of that. But that's just kind of a rough alternative layout and doesn't even have to be anything exaclty like this, but the point is that there's obviously so much more potential for one of the largest undeveloped sites in that part of the city.

How about 6 and just renovate the house? It's not even in the way of anything given that it's on the corner and wouldn't interfere with the rest of the development.

IMO, this kind of development layout should be completely banned. It's a terrible use of space and land, it's poor design that promotes car-dependent neighborhoods, and even the developer makes out poorly given that they're not even bothering to maximize the potential site profits by building more units. Even if they only have the financing for this number of units, they could build those, let them fill out and then build other phases down the road. There is no reason to build like this.

More and more counties in the state and beyond are reaching natural growth reversals, where deaths are increasingly outnumbering births. And what younger people do exist aren't staying in rural counties that have no jobs or amenities. So if they're not heading to bigger cities like Columbus, they're leaving the state completely. A lot of these places also have little to no immigration to speak of, so it's a double demographic issue. Columbus has managed to buck those trends for the most part.

I would imagine most buildings that haven't seen real investment in decades are "meh" inside. We shouldn't let intentional neglect be an excuse if they can be rehabbed into something nice and still get a decent new project for the back part, but I am am minority voice on that.

Estimates are tricky. The Census clearly believes that Ohio is doing very poorly right now, and it's hard to argue against that. I think the estimates are reflecting that, even for the places that typically see growth because estimates basically do a spread-the-loss kind of thing. I just think they're spreading the losses a little too much into areas that are seeing stronger growth than indicated. I said last year and I'll say it again now that come 2030, I think we'll find that the estimates this decade were too low for Columbus and the overall metro, and possibly for Ohio overall.

What I mean is that you have to look at all neighborhoods, not just some, if we're measuring full city growth or loss. It seemed that you were saying that the question of whether Cleveland overall is growing or not should be entirely decided on the trends of its fastest-growing neighborhoods, but maybe I misunderstood you.

If you want to be offended by that, that's on you because I didn't say that. All I'm saying is we can actually have something new, dense and exciting while still maintaining a lot of what's already there, which I absolutely would consider historic buildings. If the option exists to have both, why wouldn't it make sense to support both? And that option absolutely exists here, as it does in most cases of demolition. What makes the bank building so special, exactly? Because it has more details? Because it is more aesthetically pleasing? I think this is part of what I was talking about before. IMO, there's a problem in the thinking that only the prettiest old buildings deserve preservation. A Victorian house is certainly nice looking, but I don't think it has more inherent value than a turn of the century Foursquare that may not have the same curb appeal. As for there being a "right way" to do development, aren't we all basically arguing that point to some degree? Don't we all want better urbanism and mixed-use density with some height? I want the same thing as you, but I also want old buildings saved too.

Something of note is that they also lowered 2021 estimates for the 2022 update versus the original 2021 numbers released last year. For example, in 2022 they estimated Franklin County's population at 1,321,414 for 2021, while this year they have the 2021 figure at 1,317,560. This seems to be the case for most counties, so they're saying that the dip was worse than originally estimated. And that doesn't just seem to be the case for Ohio counties, either.

I did say almost everyone, not everyone. I just think a lot of people become blinded by something shiny and new. I'm a huge proponent of density, mixed-use, height and better development. I'm just not willing to sacrifice every pre-War building to get there, especially when there are alternative options. Saving the facades is better than nothing, but it's also bare minimum. It's the equivalent of saving a single arch from Union Station. The developer doesn't seem to be proposing even that, though. And the plaque comment was if the buildings were demolished, and that there were plenty of other old buildings on High Street, so it wouldn't matter if a few more were torn down. I would like to see 187-189 saved entirely, and at least the front half of 175-177. That would leave about 1/3 acre combined with the parking lot and skinny building section of 175-177 and the 1-story addition behind 187-189 removed. that's more than enough for an L-shaped project that could get some decent height to it. If we absolutely have to lose one of them, I'd rather it be 175-177 because it's much smaller overall. If we lost it, the site would be 0.4 acre. Part of the project could even include turning part of 187 into some restaurant space where the adjacent section of dead-end Walnut is opened up to some kind of large patio/pedestrian space. The backdrop of the old building with its great stone foundation would create a very nice space with frontage on High. Vine's hotel to me is somewhat of a missed opportunity, but regardless, I think 175-189 has far more potential overall than just putting up another low-rise new build that the developer is almost certainly going to propose based on their portfolio. The city doesn't even stick to its own development standards on High. The Nicholas and HighPoint certainly don't come anywhere close, and they have allowed demolitions for parking lots even though they supposedly don't like it.

I don't think anyone opposes all demolitions just due to age alone. The building above is a good example of a renovation- not a restoration- that has ultimately destroyed any original character to the point where it no longer contributes to any architectural variety or historic value. The damage was already done a long time ago. Sure, you can point to sites where demolitions happened where something "better" went in. That said, you seem to be arguing from the standpoint that demolition had to happen in every case to create something positive, and I think that's a false narrative. My example about German Village is a perfect example. We could replace the entire neighborhood with massive amounts of mixed-use density or multi-level housing and plenty of people would say that it would be an improvement because "it's just old and we can do better". In fact, that's pretty much what city leadership wanted to do at one time. Not much value in what way, though? The ability to provide a greater tax return? Again, there's no reason that dense, mixed-use projects that both address housing and increase local walkability and vibrancy can't coexist with preservation. The only 2 reasons it doesn't happen is because developers want to maximize profits at all costs and there's a general lack of imagination on what is possible. I'm not sure I agree. If the only consideration for an old building is whether the proposed project to replace it is larger or has more density, then I think we are in fact saying that anything built before 1950 is largely expendable in the name of progress. If the developer wanted to replace the corner bank with a 50-story building, almost everyone would immediately drop all preservation talk. And yet some are ready to see the buildings in question torn down without even seeing a theoretical replacement.

What makes German Village special? It's filled with a bunch of squat-looking, lookalike brick boxes. We could technically lose most of them and replace the neighborhood with highrises, and just put up a plaque and call it a day. Being old doesn't make it special, right? There are thousands upon thousands of early 20th Century American Foursquares and Victorians in Columbus too. What's the point of saving most of them when there are so many? Sarcasm aside, this argument that "It's old, not historic" is total semantics. We're always lamenting all the lost architectural history in the city, but we're still willing to look the other way with the exact same reasoning that every other loss was based on. A building doesn't have to be arbitrarily deemed "historic" to have value. The last thing we should want is for the city to have no architectural variety or interest because everything older than 1950 has been demolished. You can have density with preservation. You can have height with history. It's not one or the other.

Which are the non-historic buildings, though? The buildings next to the bank arguably have more character to them than anything built on High Street Downtown in decades.

The last place we should be praising as "urban". It's a largely unplanned, car-centric hellscape masquerading as a city.

To be fair, wasn't Easton like one of the first major "lifestyle centers" of its kind in the country? I feel like everything that came after had the advantage of seeing what the early ones did right and, more importantly, what they did wrong. I'm not sure if Easton would've been built the same way had it come a decade later.

Wouldn't that just be cherrypicking to get the specific result you want? Cleveland does have growing neighborhoods, and I do think its population loss is slowing, but saying studies or rankings should only look at the best-performing neighborhoods to determine if the city is growing seems dishonest to me.

And arrogant elitists who have no idea what struggles the average person actually deals with. Case in point.

You just seem to be saying a lot of words here without actually saying much of anything. What "policies of the 80s" did cities rebel against? And which bad ones did supposed progressive cities champion? I feel like you don't have any real connections or relationships with a single minority or minority group in America if you truly believe there is no systemic racism or discrimination anymore.

I would argue that any progressive movement is still being dragged back to the center right. There arguably is no serious, organized progressive movement in America. Or at least not a very successful one. But it makes for a great and convenient boogeyman.

There's nothing more delusional than the belief on the Right that one's personal experiences or advantages should automatically apply to all people, and that anyone who doesn't have their success is merely a lazy failure. There is a reason that economic divides continue to widen and the middle class is going down, and it has nothing to do with one's work ethic.

This is either incredible gaslighting or completely oblivious. Systemic racism continues to persist in most institutions, whether it is legally sanctioned or not. Your own party *loves* systemic racism in voting laws, among other things, and gerrymanders away minority power. And that's just for starters. So let's not pretend like it's been a magical last 5 decades in which all or even most discrimination is gone.