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    Dublin Grows Upward: The Bridge Street Corridor Calls for Urban Development

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    Walker: I want to get back to the topic of transportation in a second. One thing mentioned a second ago that I find interesting are the regional and national trends that point toward this type of mixed-use development. Gahanna has built walkable Downtown destinations. Grove City has been working on similar types of plans. Upper Arlington is working on something similar for Lane Avenue. So I guess my question is whether or not you anticipate competing with other regional suburban markets for new residents for this type of environment?

    Steve: There’s plenty to go around. If you live in Upper Arlington and want to keep living there, or if you live in Grove City and want to keep living there, but you want a different kind of environment, you can find it. The idea is that we have people already here that love Dublin, and they want to stay in Dublin, but want something different. There’s also the attraction part. If you look at it in an economic development sense, it’s a plan to retain the Baby Boomers and attract the Millenials. So if there is competition, it will be with the Millenials. They’ll have their own criteria for deciding what they want, but we know for example that Millenials don’t move to a city for a job. They move to a city because it’s a place they want to live. They’ll take a look around and say, is this the kind of area I want to live in? Is Dublin the right environment, or is it in Grove City, or somewhere else? And that’s where they’ll go and then they’ll find a job.

    Colleen: We’re facing that challenge with employees at Wendy’s headquarters right now. I was in Atlanta a month ago with Kenny McDonald from Columbus2020. We were meeting with the 220 Wendy’s employees in Atlanta that have been given the opportunity to relocate here. We presented on what Columbus and what Central Ohio can offer. So many of their questions had nothing to do with their jobs. Many of them were ready to walk away from a job, in this economy, because they weren’t sure they were ready to leave Atlanta. There was a huge challenge to convince them. They’ve all been given an opportunity to come up and spend a couple of days here to figure out Columbus or see if they are willing to give up a job to stay put.

    Justin: Related to that, I think future competition is going to be less between the different suburbs. Job poaching is always going to be an issue, but there’s been a lot of talk about whether or not urbanizing the suburbs is good or bad for the entire metropolitan area. Overall, I think it’s a good thing because the challenge is going to come from attracting new populations from other metro areas, rather than cities within a region poaching population and jobs from one another. Without an immigration population, then yeah, there may be an issue, but it’s a larger issue than just each suburb providing this type of development.

    Walker: Being an urban dweller myself, I think Downtown can be a foreign environment to many people because as it was mentioned earlier, the majority of Central Ohio is very car-centric and suburban in design.

    Steve: Nationwide Arena is the closest some get to a Downtown experience.

    Walker: Right, and in many instances you can just drive in and go to a Blue Jackets game and drive back out. So do you think that providing a more urban environment in Dublin, as well as in some of the other suburban cities, will help to familiarize more people with that experience and make it more acceptable on a regional level, which could then lead to additional support for urban spaces or new mass transportation systems?

    Colleen: Absolutely. I think historic Dublin, on a very small scale, has proven how we have to educate suburban-minded people that an urban environment can be a little different. We’ve got a public parking lot there, and the fact that people have to park there and walk three blocks to the restaurant is foreign to some. But if you go to Tuttle Mall, and you find your parking spot and measure the distance to the front door of the mall, it’s the same distance. Many people have no problem doing that in a mall setting, but to park in historic Dublin and walk two blocks to a restaurant is a big culture shift. We’re teaching people on a smaller scale that yeah, you don’t have to park right at the front door, and not every development has to provide its own parking lot. I think we are teaching people how to think differently about something as simple as parking and walking. It’s very urban and it scares people from going Downtown.

    Steve: I don’t disagree with that, but in some respects I do because I think the market we are most attractive to are people who have already made that leap.

    Colleen: Oh yeah, going forward, of course.

    Justin: It’s the community acceptance of the culture change…

    Steve: The overall culture change will take much longer to accomplish. For example, we had a group of middle-schoolers in here recently doing some planning exercises. Somebody here asked them if they wanted to grow up to live in a big single-family house with a big lot around it. I was surprised at how many shot their hands up right away. It’s what they are comfortable with. Of course, there were some that didn’t want that, and they had different ideas. But the majority of them still had that culture of living in a big house on a big lot.

    Walker: Do you think the middle-schoolers even knew what the alternatives to that question were?

    Justin: Probably not.

    Steve: I don’t think so. If they’ve grown up in Dublin, then they don’t see anything different than that. That’s why I think that cultural shift, for some people, is going to be harder.

    Page 3: Infill Redevelopment & Finding the Right Retail Mix

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    Walker Evans
    Walker Evanshttps://columbusunderground.com
    Walker Evans is the co-founder of Columbus Underground, along with his wife and business partner Anne Evans. Walker has turned local media into a full time career over the past decade and serves on multiple boards and committees throughout the community.
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