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On Thursday evening, dozens of locals gathered in an empty Franklinton warehouse to review and discuss the finalized results of the East Franklinton Plan.
Public input has been gathered through a series of events over the past twelve months to help steer the development of the new neighborhood plan. The goal of the project is to provide affordable live/work options for the creative community, develop a mix of innovative infill while preserving historic character of existing neighborhood buildings, and help to create a dense walkable urban neighborhood with a distinct identity.
“In many ways the East Franklinton effort is about bringing back a neighborhood that has fallen on hard times, but which is still home to many folks and businesses,” said Vince Papsidero, Planning Administrator at City of Columbus. “So this effort gives the neighborhood legitimacy among other nearby initiatives, while also ensuring the Franklinton has a place at the table in Central Ohio and isn’t lost in the shadow of Downtown.”
The plan calls for the development of the East Franklinton area as a whole through three seperate neighborhood strategies:
- Dodge Park – (orange) This area will continue to work with the Franklin Development Association on the infill of 250-400 new affordable and market-rate single family homes. The area will see limited densities and retail, but will include the addition of new community focused greenspaces.
- Arts & Innovation – (purple) The neighborhood surrounding 400 West Rich will be the focus of additional creative spaces including studios, incubator spaces and live/work environments. The plan calls for an additional 800-1,300 residential units to be housed in renovated spaces and new development.
- Broad Street – (blue) The Broad Street corridor will be the densest of the East Franklinton area with the plan calling for 2,000 to 3,000 new residential units over the next 20 years. Private developers will be sought to partner on building out space for stores, restaurants, boutiques and office uses here.
Combined, these three neighborhoods call for upwards of 4,700 new residential units, 100,000 square feet of new retail space, 100,000 square feet of new creative office space, and 150,000 square feet of studio and entrepreneurial incubator space, all within a 200 acre area. To put that into perspective, the dense Bridge Street Corridor plan in Dublin calls for 8,000 housing units for 1,000 acres.
To paraphrase a famous quote… “with great density comes great responsibility”. But neighborhood leaders aren’t too concerned about the gradual shift toward this new way of life for Franklinton.
“Parking is of course one of the biggest questions people have when redeveloping anything,” said Jim Sweeney, Executive Director of the Franklinton Development Association. “We really believe that density dictates parking and that we don’t intend to follow suburban style parking requirements in this environment. We think people will walk, ride bikes and have fewer vehicles in East Franklinton.”
Beyond density, the East Franklinton plan is being touted as unique as it includes existing ongoing redevelopment efforts, rather than being purely an aspirational document. The goals of the overall plan stretch over the next two decades, but work in the short term will yield tangible results in the next three to five years.
“The plan is building upon efforts to revitalize the neighborhood that started before we undertook the planning process last September,” said Papsidero. “Efforts by the City under the Mayor’s leadership, Franklinton Development Association, CMHA and Lance Robbins together place this plan at a point where it can help draw connections between multiple initiatives, as opposed to trying to jump starting revitalization.”
Papsidero also says that the East Franklinton plan is realistically grounded as it is based upon a conservative market study that forecasts housing, retail and office needs over the next few years. These trends, combined with priorities defined by the residents of Franklinton are what form the driving force behind the new plan.
“The majority of the feedback I received was very positive and supportive,” said Papsidero. “An adopted plan is a key tool to ensure the public interest is taken into consideration as investment decisions are made.”
To view the full plan, CLICK HERE. (10.6MB PDF file)
More information can be found online at development.columbus.gov.
This is much more than I had hoped for. I especially like this line:
“We really believe that density dictates parking and that we don’t intend to follow suburban style parking requirements in this environment. We think people will walk, ride bikes and have fewer vehicles in East Franklinton.”
Hopefully, a precedent is set in this city that shows that it is possible to create great neighborhoods that are NOT planned around automobiles. (I’m not including the SN because much of the buildiing stock and housing was already there) This should be the plan for OTE and E. Main. This should be the plan for the Jeffrey site, the plan for Weinland Park and not only just urban neighborhoods, but in some ways, suburban neighborhoods. The transformation of the next great Columbus neighborhood will be fun to watch.
If this had been proposed by a private developer who was willing to invest, then I’d be ecstatic. But I’m glad the city is willing to drop stringent parking requirements.
There are private developers already working on projects in the neighborhood. This plan promotes more of the same.
I love the idea of Urban dense neighborhoods. I love this plan. With the addition of some skyscraper condos behind COSI, we could really create a dense, urban, central Ohio.
I am always enthusiastic about revitalizing/redeveloping areas here downtown, but the prospect of building new shopping space concerns me. I live downtown, so everyday I pass near Columbus Commons and see the strip of retail space that has yet to be used, and there seems to be no progress in getting business down there as far as I’m aware. I’m cautiously optimistic about this plan, but it does concern me that, like the strip of retail space on south High, this retail space will just be dead space. I just hope we are not wasting any money on space that won’t pay for itself.
when did franklinton get split in half?
@cheap – When 315 was built.
I only hope that this plan becomes fairly specific and is followed. I am not sure how good the 5xNW plan was but buildings such as Edward’s Wall of Shame (Tribeca) are going up on 3rd. I really hope this can be avoided in East Franklinton.
Beyond the creativity of the “hatchet job” done on Sam Vazirani in efforts to legally confiscate his property… I don’t see anything authentic or creative about this plan.
But hey “creative” hipsters live for lack of true authenticity – the entire hipster scene is like a Disney owned thrift store – so it’ll probably work out in the end.
I agree, this plan lacks creativity and seems to fit into the recent ‘one size fits all’ planning approach. One example, brought up in the comments about Franklinton being split, I see nothing in this plan to even try to address that issue. It may not be caps over 315 but what about at least redirecting pedestrian traffic patterns to the already existing crossing points instead of sticking to the sidewalks and grid pattern that reinforces the established barriers (sorry this may be better explained visually). Nothing is new or innovative in this strategy and in the first rendering seems like a new (more residential based) version of Easton.
That being said, it’s nice to see this area getting some attention and it has the potential to be a nice neighborhood. So I guess anything is probably better than nothing, but is that the motto we want to go by?
To be fair, these are only renderings meant to give an idea, a vision only of the scale. Who knows what will pop up over there in terms of architectural styles, densities, art installations, etc., the latter of which I didn’t see mentioned in the report. I do hope this becomes some sort of artistic enclave so art installations would be a welcome element of the plan.
What I’m really hoping to see is more modern architectural building styles, something this city severely lacks. (think the Neighborhood Launch townhomes or the new SN boutique hotel for examples) Don’t keep with the “historical nature” of the building stock already in place, which is kind of a mishmash IMO. That’s what every other urban neighborhood does. Mix it up and make Franklinton more unique. We need different housing styles for different types of people.
hipsters? Disney? how ironic is that! as someone who came here 8 years ago and put a stake in the ground the plan is a bit daunting i admit. hey im just glad to see my buildings still on the map! lets keep this in perspective too, this is really nothing more than a conceptually plan, granted we do seek to have it adopted but its a great document to have that promotes density and new zoning options that allow for live work opportunities. this also seeks to keep a good percentage of affordability. it may not cater to everyone on every level but im ecstatic to see such attention being made to this pocket of the community.
mean while 400 west rich is growing, FDA has a new office opening up on what was once one of the worst corners of the city, rehab tavern will open in the coming months. 566 continues to have fantastic events, “bieber house” continues to be occupied and the FDA warehouse continues to develop. rain brothers is stronger than ever, dinin’ hall opens everyday for lunch and yes we have a new pool plus not to mention the bridges.
were down here literately living the dream. love every minute of it. myself and others have worked tirelessly to change, promote and rebuild this area for the last 8 years. got tired of dodging bullets, wouldn’t mind dodging some lattes, just no Audi’s…
PLEASE make public art a priority in this whole neighborhood!!!!!
It will be interesting to see how this master plan is enforced. Have they established a design review board/area and are they modifying the zoning code for this district?
I love this plan – and it’s exactly the right space for it.
Every time I drive down Town, Rich, or State, I think what an opportunity there is for housing. It’s *so close* to downtown, and it’s a considerable amount of space. I love the infill on W Broad – was noticing the sign up on the corner of the used-to-be-commercial-van-and-used-car sales lot across the street from Byers, where they are grading and working already.
I’m excited – this is amazing news for the folks who’ve been working so hard to see Franklinton get some attention, and it’ll really benefit the city by further connecting this neighborhood to downtown. <3
I guess it’s nice to see some numbers put to how many units they think are feasible, but I didn’t see a whole lot of information in the plan about how to make it happen. My translation of the planning speak was, “Have the City acquire land, give it away to a private developer for next to nothing, have the developer build some housing (possibly with slanted walls), and have young people move in!” As I typed, I was thinking that would sound useless, but but now I’m thinking that developer subsidies in the form of cheap/free land just might be the best way to get it done.
Other than that, it would be nice to see some mention of any necessary chagnes to the transportation network. Must have been out of scope for the plan, but that picture of Broad Street with six lanes and no parking looks very out of place in a dense urban neighborhood.
I suspect the real value of the plan isn’t the 57 page, 10.8 MB PowerPoint PDF, but more the relationships that were built through the planning process.
Transportation was discussed over the course of several steering committee meetings over months. Alot of 2 way street conversions, biking etc was tossed out there. The comment about relationships was spot on John. Many were forged and created during the entire process.
that sounds about right to me John, however I think the fact this plan exists at all speaks volumes about how far Franklinton has advanced in a relatively short time after , gosh what, more than a century of neglect?
In any event the Franklinton crew has a lot to be proud of, they’ve made some serious headway in revamping the neighborhood in ways I think most never thought possible.
Here’s to continued success!
Via Email:
The draft East Franklinton Creative Community District Plan has been released for public comment by the City of Columbus and can be found on its website at the following link (http://development.columbus.gov/ef_finaldraft.aspx). An on-line survey tool is available for providing comments, which will be accepted through August 10th.
The plan has been scheduled to be heard by the Franklinton Area Commission on September 11th. Afterwards it will be forwarded to the Columbus Development Commission, then submitted in October to City Council.
http://www.goodyclancy.com/planning?categoryId=32&view=project&layout=image&projectid=188&image=1