The city of Columbus is embarking on a new era of the city’s downtown with Downtown 2030, a project designed to create a strategic approach to downtown development. According to Ike DeClue, Executive Director of the Office of Downtown Development, the project comes as a response to changing economic and social conditions that have changed the way people interact with downtown.
“There was a previous plan called the Envision Columbus and it was finished in 2018,” DeClue said. “The issue was, it didn’t age real well because COVID-19 hit and things obviously changed quite a bit. A lot of what came out of Envision Columbus all of a sudden was quickly out of date, and so the city realized that we needed to come up with a new kind of master plan for downtown.”
DeClue added that the project is more committed to cohesion and synergy than in the past.
“Instead of working from property to property, [we] think about something that has more of a strategy to it,” Declue said. “It’s a strategy versus we’re going to throw spaghetti on the wall over here. We’re going to try this over here, or this here. The end goal is that you have multiple projects in multiple locations that are all working with one another, as opposed to independently.”
Project manager Bonnie Boatwright added to this idea, and spoke about the importance of planning.
“The city and partners within the city own a lot of spaces downtown that are not filled,” Boatwright said. “Nobody wants to just stick a store somewhere. They want an overall plan. So we’re looking at a lot of developers and a lot of business owners or land owners. They kind of want a comprehensive plan before they start making decisions.”
Boatwright described how the plan could change downtown, and allow new businesses to enter.
“One of the goals for the urban planning consultants is to help us create a downtown where the current businesses can thrive and that new businesses will want to come in,” Boatwright said. “They [want to] see downtown Columbus as a good place to be in order to have a thriving business. We want to create the conditions for our current business owners, but also attract potential business owners as well, like more restaurants and more things to do downtown.”
DeClue explained how the plan could change how high schoolers interact with downtown.
“As a high school student, you can’t go to a bar and drink, so you’re already restricted to a certain extent,” DeClue said. “Let’s say we brought something like duckpin bowling or we had live music that was accessible to teens and adults alike. Now this is bringing a new audience downtown.”
Declue mentioned that one challenge has been in gathering diverse community input, and ensuring they hear from a range of voices.
“We tend to get the input from the same kind of people over and over,” DeClue said. “A lot of times it’s the people who are already using downtown or whatever the subject may be. So I think it’s challenging to find the people who don’t go downtown. Why are people who live on the East side of town, why do they choose not to come downtown. So getting new voices in the mix is always a challenge.”
For community members looking to get involved, the Downtown Columbus 2030 website offers opportunities to take surveys and find information on upcoming public workshops.
“We would really like for people to take a look at the website, fill out the survey. That’s really important,” Boatwright said. “I think it’s fun to see the community coming together, though. I think we all agree we want to improve downtown, [and this is how].”
