Walker: One of the ongoing topics of conversation on Columbus Underground is the development of green field sites versus brown field sites…
Justin: Most of what we have here are “gray fields”. Brown fields are typically contaminated sites.
Walker: I imagine that historically, the majority of development that has occured in Dublin over the past few decades has all been on green field sites. Do you anticipate there being new challenges to address with the redevelopment of these gray field properties and legacy issues with infrastructure that has aged for a few decades?
Steve: There’s always challenges. Number one is cost. There’s higher costs that come with acquisition, demolition and reconstruction. But the higher levels of density permitted can help to offset some of those costs based on what the site was originally planned to do. We also still have a lot of what we call “infill sites” which were never developed for whatever reason. Sometimes for environmental reasons, sometimes things are tied up in estates. While developing those can take place on farm fields, I don’t really consider those to be green field sites because they have surrounding properties and they have a different context. But they’re not gray field either, so they fall somewhere in between.
Colleen: They’re green but they’re not sprawl.
Justin: Walker, I wanted to comment on the part of your question that was about infrastructure capacity. We’ve gone through extensive modeling for both transportation and utilities infrastructure. We’ve actually found that one of the benefits of refocusing back on our core is that this area is already well served by utilities infrastructure and will take only minor upgrades to increase for density. The transportation infrastructure is obviously going to be a challenge because it’s going to phase in over time. So there are going to be some growing pains and that has been difficult to explain in some of our public discussions. Not only are we going to be seeing taller buildings, but there will be more traffic associated with it. We’ll have the street connections, but they may not be the final street connections that ultimately we’ll see when this vision plan is built out over time. Another challenge will be finding ways to phase in larger developments, and find a logical way to reuse portions of buildings. Ultimately, we need to have a sustainable way for redevelopment to happen long-term, but find as balancing point between allowing for some creative reuse of existing structures that will not impede the ultimate vision of developing into a more urban type of development pattern.
Walker: Are you having conversations with existing developers about these plans, and if so, are they with existing regional developers who might not be used to this type of plan, or with a new type of developer from outside the region?
Steve: Both. We’ve had a lot of interest from out-of-town developers. National developers takes a better look at demographics than we do and they see the Dublin market as being severely under-served for multi-family units. We must be talking to half a dozen multi-family developers on a half a dozen sites. Some of them are from Texas and some of them are local developers. So it’s a mix of both.
Justin: We have very few rental options in this city, and we see the bulk of the multi-family demand being here within the Bridge Street Corridor.
Colleen: There’s a lot of multi-family rental options south of Tuttle, but that’s not within our city boundary.
Walker: Speaking of Tuttle… one thing I hear pretty often from local retail consultants and analysts is that Central Ohio as a whole, is over-retailed. Do you see there being an issue with new retail development within The Bridge Street Corridor potentially cannibalizing other retail development either within the City of Dublin or in other parts of Central Ohio?
Justin: I don’t think so. What we found from our retail market analysis is that we are, as a city, under serving the retail needs of our own populations. So residents of Dublin are leaving Dublin and driving to Easton or Tuttle or Polaris and doing their shopping there. We have local market demand that’s under served, which we could serve here. What the impact would ultimately be on those other existing retail centers remains to be seen. However, if we achieve the type of density and the drawing in of more residents here, then I think the hope would be that we’re not necessarily hurting those other places.
Colleen: We’re not trying to recreate an Easton. Easton, to me, is still a destination for retail. Our plan is to build a neighborhood. We want to create more of what you have in an urban setting where you can walk to a coffee shop or a dry cleaner or grab a sandwich or go to a smaller grocer. And to be able to do all of that while not relying on a car. We’re really trying to create a neighborhood, so that neighborhood-related retail service level will increase in this area, but it’s not destination shopping. We’re not going to have a Cheesecake Factory, I wouldn’t think.
Justin: There just wouldn’t be that conglomeration of all of those retailers all in one place here at that scale. I think we may ultimately see more retail options for Dublin residents, but it’s not going to replace all of their options that they’re getting elsewhere in the region.