Park planned to replace City Center
Columbus City Center Mall is approaching it’s 20th birthday. For it’s birthday the city plans to get it a date with the wrecking ball.
The City of Columbus today announced plans to replace the empty mall with a new park. The new park, named Columbus Commons, will be surrounded with businesses and residences and included eight new buildings.
In November 2007 the City of Columbus took control of the mall after fierce competition from suburban malls had driven more and more business away from City Center. After Federated removed it’s department store in 2003, it became clear to many people that City Center had a grim future.
Mayor Coleman is seeking $15-16 million in funds from the federal stimulus money for the demolition. The residences around park would help spur economic growth. NBC reported, “to make it retail, the city and developers needed people who would live Downtown. “
9 Responses to 'Park planned to replace City Center'
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Do we need another downtown park in which to be mugged or beaten? Who would feel safe to use it, even in the daytime?
Get real. This is a bad economy, or so Coleman says when he wants to cut services or boost taxes. Use what you already have. Turn it into an outlet mall. They work and bring spenders. Or make it a recreation center for inner city kids looking beyond mugging skills.) Or maybe a casino. Or classrooms. Anything is possible - tearing it down and rebuilding is more than wasteful. It’s idiotic.
Marie
5 Feb 09 at 8:01 am
I heard that our Mayor said the City Center was “doomed to fail” I have some news for the readers here.
The only reason City Center failed was that the city council and the mayor refused to give the anchor stores a tax break for staying.
Re-read that above statement. Think about all the lost jobs and all the tax revenue from that decision. Because of the greed of city council and our Mayor Columbus has lost far more tax revenue than they ever would have lost by extending the tax breaks.
Because of their poor decisions we are now going to have to spend even MORE money that the city doesn’t have.
Chris
5 Feb 09 at 2:56 pm
Marie, downtown is a very safe area compared to other parts of the city. There are far more daily news reports of people dying in automobile accidents on 270 than there are reports of muggings downtown.
Chris, a lot of the anchors were leaving regardless of tax breaks, and many stores left before the city even took control of the property. The option to repopulate the 1,000,000 sqft of the mall with retail was explored, but not feasible. Suburban-style box malls have short lifespans, and they really have no place in an urban area like downtown.
For anyone who didn’t bother to read the details of this project… it’s not being funded out of the budget of our city. Besides, this type of project is a long term investment that will create jobs and spur additional development.
Perhaps this will help shed some light on the subject?
Walker Evans
5 Feb 09 at 8:13 pm
What Walker said.
Downtown is a wonderful place. I worked there for 3 years until this past fall and miss being able to head to El Arepazo, Tip Top, Pearl Market in the summer and all the other awesome places. Reports of high crime and the hype by our local media are almost amusing in their ignorance.
If you follow the link Walker posted, you’ll find several things. The cost to do anything with the existing structure would prohibit anything worthwhile. It’s a windowless tomb of an aging idea that you go to a mall and shelter yourself from the outside world. As Easton, and now even Polaris, are showing open concept is the way to go. Open 9 acres of prime real estate is the best choice for our downtown. With the proximity of state, local and federal government; fortune 500 companies; higher education; cultural institutions; museums and the growing residential neighborhoods in and around the are it is all but guaranteed that someone will find value and make the investment to build up on this property.
Andrew
5 Feb 09 at 8:33 pm
I honestly think this area should have been made into more parking and a hotel that can help accomidate the number of people that can be held in the columbus convention center. Currently there are not enough rooms downtown to hold the same number of people that can visit the convention center. This causes the city of columbus to lose bids on different conventions because guests don’t want to have to take shutttles daily from locations outside of the city such as Easton. It would be to our advantage to put up another large hotel and more parking for the convention visitors.
Sarah
7 Feb 09 at 8:14 pm
I keep listening to the news speak about getting free online grant applications so I have been looking around for the best site to get one.
Murad Natha
13 Feb 09 at 7:55 pm
Sarah,
I’ll agree with the need for more hotel spaces, not so much parking. The Columbus Commons plan will allow us, if the powers that be see fit, to possibly redo the underground garage to include more spaces. If anything we would better served converting some of the existing spaces to parking garages. Double the parking without the negative impact on our downtown.
Andrew
19 Feb 09 at 7:20 pm
miley i like u a lot u r the bestttttttttttttttttttt your mom also rocks
Marquez Valencia
22 Mar 09 at 8:33 pm
chris is a good person he has never been in trouble before leave him alone.
Milo Frost
24 Mar 09 at 7:29 pm