Is too much downtown residential a bad thing?

[Posole]

A cautionary tale from Seattle, where residential growth has cause conflict with other kinds of amenities. Some popular music clubs have closed after housing grew up around them. Seattle’s Capitol Hill was a huge boutique/nightlife area and was sort of their epicenter of nightlife like our short north. However as the area gentrified and ‘tourism’ increased, residents have been pushing to curtail the “rowdy” atmosphere, which many of the areas supporters feel gives the area its character.

[mbeaumont]

We’ve got a long, long way to go before we have problems like this. Seattle has multiple neighborhoods along the lines of the Short North (Ballard, Capitol Hill, Belltown, Upper and Lower Queen Anne, etc), plus a lot of their “suburbs” feel like our urban areas. Hell, Bellevue has it’s own skyline that rivals ours.

It’s an interesting topic to discuss, but I don’t think this will be an issue in Columbus for decades as we’re still very underdeveloped, imo. Just my two cents.

[Josh Lapp]

Posole wrote:

A cautionary tale from Seattle, where residential growth has cause conflict with other kinds of amenities. Some popular music clubs have closed after housing grew up around them. Seattle’s Capitol Hill was a huge boutique/nightlife area and was sort of their epicenter of nightlife like our short north. However as the area gentrified and ‘tourism’ increased, residents have been pushing to curtail the “rowdy” atmosphere, which many of the areas supporters feel gives the area its character.

Whats the definition of ‘Downtown’ here? The CBD? The Short North? Brewery District?

There is plenty of variety and nodes of development within the more broad urban area, and within the actual boundaries of Downtown to accommodate much more residential development alongside everything else. ‘Bar’ districts are ever-changing, especially in Columbus, so I’d say there isn’t much to worry about there.

Most ‘downtown’s’ of our peer cities have twice our downtown population. I think if you add up all of that, we can safely say: No, ‘too much’ downtown residential is not a bad thing. And thats without all the positive and efficient aspects of adding Downtown population.

[OneBagTravel]

We need more suburbs.

#TriggeredWalker

[Walker Evans]

mbeaumont wrote:

We’ve got a long, long way to go before we have problems like this. It’s an interesting topic to discuss, but I don’t think this will be an issue in Columbus for decades as we’re still very underdeveloped, imo. Just my two cents.

+1

[lbl]

the evolution of night-life is just a fact of the business. nothing in that world lasts forever. there will always be bars, and an area or three with a rowdy crowd, though it may not always be along the same blocks.
if the SN trends more upscale and family friendly eventually, then the businesses around it will evolve also.
seems most of our larger current housing developments are in our core anyway, so if that demo is a younger, partying type, maybe in a few years there will be a higher concentration of night-life in our core also. (vs the SN)
and of course Franklinton will most likely be the next hub for night-life here. already well on it’s way.

one would have to expect the Park Street bars will relocate to somewhere – any indication of long term plans for them?

[Ned23]

The early adopters will also shift the “cool” neighborhoods to new areas where property is cheap to get away from the whiners. Franklinton is one of the new the pioneer neighborhoods. SN and IV are already pretty gentrified.

[Author]

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