City officials on Monday approved funding to pay three firms to put together a new downtown strategic plan that will look for ways to revitalize and activate the city’s downtown, while also accounting for a changed climate in the area post-COVID.
The Columbus Redevelopment Commission unanimously approved funding in an amount not to exceed $464,820 and entered into a contract splitting the funding between the three firms: Sasaki, SB Friedman and Storyboard. The new strategic plan for downtown is expected to be complete in June 2025 and set forth a vision that can be actionable within a timeline up to 10 years, informed by community feedback.
The plan is set to have a more narrow focus than 2018’s Envision Columbus downtown plan, city officials said. Although the plan will have a smaller footprint, it will include more available buildings and spaces for consideration comparatively.
The primary objective is to identify the best use for 22 downtown parcels identified as critical, made up of 12 owned by the Columbus Redevelopment Commission such as the recently purchased former Sears Building and adjoining parking lot, six current project areas including the riverfront and downtown entrance plaza and three parcels identified as future project opportunities including the Irwin Block Building.
The updated plan is supposed to be guided by three questions:
- How do we build a downtown where people want to be?
- How do we maximize the use of the spaces and places downtown?
- What gaps do we have downtown, and how do we address those gaps?
The city released a request for proposals (RFP) for the plan in July and firms had up to Sept. 16 to indicate interest. Bonnie Boatwright, project manager for Columbus Downtown 2030, said they received 18 proposals back representing 65 firms.
The firms were selected based on a point-based evaluation criteria assessing things like understanding of the project and community, clarity and thoroughness in addressing required tasks and a firm’s plan for engaging the public.
Representatives from the three firms gave the commission an overview of what they will look to do.
“The 2030 strategic plan for this very special place draws upon a lot of work that we’ve been doing nationally for cities of your size and cities a little bit bigger, that touch upon a lot of the themes that we’ve already heard today,” said Martin Zogran, principal and urban designer for Sasaki. “Themes about return to work, the number of employees in the downtown, what that means for retail, what that means for hospitality, what is the future of housing? How do we make it more attainable? And what is the role for the parks and public spaces that knit everything together?”
Work on the plan gets started immediately, representatives from the firms said, and will start by building from information gathered through other recent city endeavors, including its recently released housing study and ongoing redesign of the city’s downtown entrance plaza.
“As we step through the overall process, we begin to identify some of the physical attributes, the project ideation and then walk through until we reach a very concrete and clear set of guidance for the implementation,” according to Zogran. “And that’s really important— not just another big plan, but rather a very clear step-by-step to move forward into the future.”
Formulating the plan will involve a comprehensive public engagement process, in part by using proprietary tools for digital and virtual engagement that Sasaki has developed to get feedback.
Indianapolis-based Storyboard will be providing “a little bit of local insight and presence,” said Jessica Thorpe, public engagement specialist.
The firm will also be “tracking and identifying what voices might be missing throughout the planning process” and doing targeted outreach to make sure that everyone is represented. In addition, there will be pop-up engagement events and an emphasis on “really working to meet people where they are,” Thorpe said.
Ranadip Bose, economic development advisor for SB Friedman, said they are approaching the plan analytically to find strategies that can make an immediate difference.
Bose referenced a chart that showed that monthly visits downtown are down 25% compared to pre-COVID.
“We’re going to go deeper into this and try and understand how many are office workers, how many are residents, how many are visitors from out of town? What does that mean? How do we fill that gap is sort of the core starting point of our analysis,” according to Bose.
SB Friedman will be focused on making sure the strategies provided are achievable in the market and come up with road maps for the near-term, mid-term and long-term, according to Bose.
Zogran later added that the time frame for those road maps would be 1 to 3 years for near-term, 3 to 5 years for mid-term and 5-10 years for long-term.
“One to three (years) is pretty aggressive,” Zogran said. “Those are for things that are little bit less CapEx, or capital expenses. Those things happened potentially quickly.”
Three to five years is where “you should really begin to see some action and actionable projects that are built on very clear recommendations,” said Zogran.
Beyond that, “what you’ve done in the first five years begins to have that catalytic effect of pulling in the market forces in the private market to follow what wise investments the public sector has made and begun to steer toward.”
On sites already owned by the redevelopment commission, Bose said the purchase of the properties like the former Sears Building and parking lot at 323 Brown St. “really cuts down a lot of time, because you have site control.”
“What you have when you own property is you basically guide your redevelopment future. You basically do it in the best interest of the public,” Bose said. “… There’s processes of going through a developer solicitation process after you know what your vision is, and so I think you owning the property and having site control, really reduces that timeline of achieving your end goal.”
