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There’s a Dispatch article in today’s paper that showcases Columbus State Community College as an “economic powerhouse” that adds over $737 million dollars per year into the local economy through increased earnings of students, employee payments and supplies purchased locally, and spending on school-related items by current students.
This brings us back to a point that’s been raised a few times here on Columbus Underground… CSCC (and it’s next door neighbor CCAD) have no neighborhood appeal. The immediate area surrounding these two colleges is made up mostly of flat parking lots. Why is there no student housing?
Imagine if just a portion of the 23,000 students enrolled at Columbus State were given the option to live in affordable student housing within walking distance of their classes. Imagine the businesses that would spring up in the neighborhood after this influx of new young downtown residents.
An area currently known for nothing more than parking lots could turn into a thriving 24 hour neighborhood full of young professionals living in mid-rise housing with a blend of neighborhood restaurants, bars, art galleries, shops, and more. The success of the commercial strip adjacent to OSU along High Street, and the massive off-campus student population in the University District could easily be replicated in a more dense, urban setting along Spring, Long, Cleveland, Grant, and Gay Streets. Student housing could even spill over east of the campuses onto new I-71 highway caps and into the northern end of Olde Towne East, an area that could greatly benefit from some new young residents contributing to the revitalization and culture of the neighborhood.
Now imagine how much money CSCC would be pouring indirectly into the local economy. Add in a nearby stop on the downtown streetcar circulator and you’ve got a mobile young demographic living downtown in an area where there is currently nothing but asphalt and painted lines.
Not that I have anything detrimental to say about that vision, but on the other hand, I do tend to be suspicious of these numbers. Triple the economic benefits of 2002 (assuming those numbers were accurate)? My guess is that these numbers are more a product of methodology than merit.
I would definitely like to see midrise residential along the eastern marches of Downtown, no question. I certainly believe that at least a few thousand of CSCC and CCAD’s students would like to live closer to school, though nowhere near the proportion of OSU students that do because CSCC is more commuter-oriented. I’m not entirely sure that identifying CSCC per se as such a money pump is a good starting point for making that case, however.
The Sennecca Hotel renovation is supposed to supply just that – lots of student apartment housing for CSCC and CCAD. Throw in an employemnt base at Grant Hospital, State Teachers Retirement, State Auto, and a few other “Discovery District” sites and there’s no doubt that an energetic atmoshphere could be created there.
Add to that
250 condos between Gay and Long
The creation of a campus green type connector between the two schools
The potential for apartments at the old Deaf School office building
The potential for a cap over I-71 from Spring to Main (or somewhere in between at least)
and all of the sudden it’s practically a thriving new neighborhood. I wonder if CSCC will buy the old Columbus Cadillac Dealership and Land.
CCAD does have dorms right? Must suck to be from out of town maybe with no car, and living in a dorm on CCAD campus. Guess you would get very friendly with COTA.
I think this would awesome.
I agree. I think CSCC probably has a larger percentage of adult/working students than OSU, so the option to live downtown right next to school wouldn’t appeal to everyone enrolled there, but something else to consider is the “hangers on” (for lack of a better term) when students graduate, but are comfortable in their neighborhood and aren’t in a rush to move somewhere else. There’s a large number of young people who live around OSU who no longer go to school there (or never did), and over time you’d probably see that demographic develop around a CSCC campus neighborhood as well.
Hehe… this isn’t a starting point (for me anway) on this. I’m not trying to push this plan on CSCC either. I think if a project of this scale were to be tackled it would require involvement from the schools, the city, and countless other groups coming together. I have no solutions, just an idea here. ;) And this news article was just another chance for me to raise this point. Consider it a “jumping back in” point.
I’ve heard that, but how many students will fit in the 96 apartment units going in the Seneca? And as for those other condo projects along Gay St and at the deaf school, I’m not sure how many would be apartments, and how many would be affordable for college students.
It’s a good start, but I want to see something bigger! :D
As a CCAD grad I’ve gotta say this topic hit home for me. CCAD has dorms for freshman year only, and let me tell you it was a bit of a shock to break out of my little town in Michigan only to be stranded in the middle of big o’ Columbus and find that it shuts down at 5:00! People with cars were very very popular freshman year :wink:
I think affordable student housing would be great for this area, just what it needs!
Welcome to the site owltoes! 8)
Yeah, I’m sure it’s a quite a culture shock for those freshmen at CCAD! What is there to do other than hang out in your dorm room or classes? There’s not even any place to grab coffee or a bite to eat in that area without walking over 15 minutes to somewhere more downtown, and you’re right that even that stuff closes at 5PM.
I really think the answer lies in a denser student population. Get some more affordable housing around CSCC, CCAD, and Franklin, and I’m sure the coffee shops and stores will quickly follow! :D
Yeah, I’m sure it’s a quite a culture shock for those freshmen at CCAD! What is there to do other than hang out in your dorm room or classes? There’s not even any place to grab coffee or a bite to eat in that area without walking over 15 minutes to somewhere more downtown, and you’re right that even that stuff closes at 5PM.
I know when I attended CSCC for some classes, fellow students and I would often want to grab a bite to eat or hang out somewhere to work on a project. There is practically nowhere to do this around campus. It makes no sense at all to me. Also, don’t forget Franklin University is in this area too. They need affordable mixed use development that caters to students.
Yeah, I can’t imagine what student life at OSU would be like if the only places to eat and hang out were the cafeterias and libraries on campus.
The epicenter of social life would just become even more concentrated in the dense off-campus student housing than it already is, if you took away all the retail along High and Neil and Lane. (Of course, market forces being what they are, if you took it all away on Monday, it would all be back by Wednesday unless you bulldozed every storefront and put something else in its place.)
I wonder if the physical layout of the CSCC campus has something to do with it. Even a few hundred feet of critical space misused in the wrong area can make big psychological barrier. I’ve never walked around CSCC, I’m just going by what I’ve seen driving by, but maybe it just doesn’t invite people to walk off campus the way OSU does with the Ohio Union, Mershon Auditorium, and several major classroom buildings literally right there at the edge of campus, making the gap across High St. seem like essentially nothing. If you had to walk across a could of parking lots before you crossed High, for example, the effect would be very different; people would be disinclined to do that on a whim. CSCC seemed designed as a school your drive to–and away from.
A storefront along High St. feels practically like part of OSU’s campus, be it a chain restaurant, bank, tattoo parlor, you name it. I wonder if maybe the same isn’t as true about the major thoroughfares bordering CSCC.
You’re right, there are vast amounts of parking lots and it isn’t fun to walk around the patchwork of asphalt and occasional buildings. That being said, the schools could work together and develop a mixed use strip along one or more streets that would add more housing for students and only take away a small amount of surface parking. (Notice I didn’t advocate taking away all or most parking.)
I am also a CCAD graduate. It’s true that there is only a freshman dorm, and while i was there freshman could have cars. I think that has changed though now though. So mostly freshman year all we did was hang out on campus, hang out in the dorm, do homework, and beg rides off kids who had cars.
CCAD has purchased that large empty ex-car dealership on the corner of Broad and Cleveland. I think they’re tying to build more student housing on that property.
Also many CCAD students rent apartments at Washington Place at the corner of Washington and Town Street, and other apartments on Town in that area. They’re been over there for awhile, and no one has tried to develop that area at all.
I think there are more physical and psychological barriers at CSCC than there are at CCAD. CSCC is composed of large parking lots and a parking deck to the south of the campus, with additional parking bordering the highways to the north and east of the campus. This really only leaves the north west end open to Cleveland Avenue, where some class buildings are located on the opposite side of the street as well. Otherwise, there are no real through-streets on campus or bordering campus.
Additionally, the layout of the main part of the campus further isolates CSCC from the rest of the surroundings. The main building in front (Nestor Hall) serves as an archway leading you inside the campus and out of the city. Your view of downtown is cut off with this building, and you’re left to roam inside the campus area.
CCAD on the other hand, has quite a few through streets on it’s campus and classes futher west towards downtown along Cleveland, Gay, and Grant. Commercial and residential buildings could probably be pretty easily integrated throughout their campus.
Here’s a couple map photos from google to illustrate:
Below: The massive parking lots that make up the south-western end of CSCC. With such a large area undeveloped, it shouldn’t be too hard to dig up and bury all of this parking underground and redevelop all of this land into classrooms, commercial, and residential structures. Spring, Long, and Cleveland could serve as main strips. Parking Lot access roads between Spring & Long could be converted into pedestrian-only walkways to connect the streets in the middle of the long block.
Below: The area west of CCAD and east of downtown. There’s a few buildings sprinkled in there, but most of it is parking lots. Bury as much of it as you can, and redevelop the rest. This should be the new off-campus cultural hotspot for young professionals living downtown.
Below: The Main part of the CSCC campus. It’s just about the same size as the parking lots around it.
Below: A closeup on the center of campus. You can see how enclosed it is with the surrounding buildings, isolating it from the rest of the neighborhood.
Below: The area just west of CSCC. The dirt lot along Cleveland is where they’ve just constructed a new building. The grass lot on the left is a big concern though. This land isn’t even being used as a parking lot!
Below: A closeup of the intersection at Cleveland and Long. A busy area where these two colleges meet. We’ve got a new CCAD building in the SE corner, parking lots in the NE and SW corners, and an ugly one-story building with a large parking lot around it in the NW corner. Who’s idea was this? And who do we get to fix it?
Nice spy-sat work, Walker.
Ever since I started looking around at that district, I’ve believed there has to be something wrong with that patch of grass on the left of the last photo. Environmental damage or something. It’s right next to the Ross plant, CSCC, and so much else. Easy access to the highway, too. Add the tractor-trailer storage lot to the west, and you could practically fit another Jeffery Place in that space without razing anything more than a single one-story building.
Nice detailed look at the place. It just boggles the mind, there’s so much that should be there, but inexplicably isn’t. I don’t know why X% of student housing must be provided and why some sort of incentives haven’t been presented to get things moving.
^ I mean I don’t know why it isn’t that X% isn’t provided. Shut up, I ate a good amount of food, so I ‘m tired.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
By KELLEY YOUMAN TRUXALL
Work on Columbus State Community College’s Liberty Township campus likely will start this summer.
CSCC officials were before Liberty’s zoning commission last week, seeking approval of the project’s first phase, an academic building which they hope to open by 2010.
“We can’t build this building and open it fast enough,” said CSCC president Val Moeller, citing the state’s plan to boost college enrollment.
The Ohio Board of Regents announced earlier this month the plan to increase enrollment in the state’s public colleges and universities by 230,000 students by 2017.
READ MORE
CCSC is more interested in educating a wide number of people rather than builing up a centralized campus.
In all fairness, they have added quite a few nice building additions to their downtown campus over the past five years.
The inner campus of CSCC is very nice and well scaled. Great landscape/relationships between the buildings. I have hung out there a few times and had a really pleasurable time.
CSCC Buildings:
http://www.cscc.edu/Tour/masterguide.htm
New ones (from the last few years) include:
- Center for Workforce Development
- Discovery Exchange (houses the bookstore, copy center, mail services, print shop and a cafe and convenience store.)
- Childhood Development Center
- Center for Technology and Learning
I hope they keep it up and replace a few more of those one story ugly buildings with three-four story buildings.
I don’t see them adding campus-built residence halls anytime soon, but I think a developer could easily build something affordable near there geared for students and still be able to turn a profit.