It's our first visit to Columbus since the pandemic took hold two years ago. Lienhoop says he's seeing an increase in foot traffic downtown, takes your questions on climate change, and previews the groundbreaking for a housing and grocer development.
On this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop addresses these issues and more. Listen to the full conversation with Indiana Newsdesk anchor Joe Hren by clicking on the play button above, or read some of the questions and answers below. A portion of this segment airs 6:45 and 8:45 a.m. Wednesday on WFIU.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Hren: Nice to be back in Columbus, even though it's a rainy day - is it business as usual? COVID cases are the lowest since the beginning of the pandemic.
Lienhoop: I don't know if it's as usual, but it's certainly getting back there. I've noticed just on the drive to work in the morning, and again at lunchtime today, we see people downtown, walk in the sidewalks. And that's kind of heartening, just to see folks returning to maybe a little bit more normal routine, or maybe a new normal routine. So yeah, it's kind of good to see.
Hren: Are you hearing anything about the fall-out of the pandemic? Are there still things struggling to come back?
Lienhoop: Business travel is pretty important to us. We may talk a little bit later about the hotel project that we've planned for downtown, that's primarily affected by business travel. We're also a little concerned about the unemployment rate, and just getting people back to work and return into a little bit of a sense of normality with respect to just the number of folks who work and the size of the workforce and how easily people can find a job when they need one.
We're hopeful that maybe as future variants show up that the vaccines and policies that we put in place to try to help people understand the effect of being in crowds, that mitigates the effect of any variance.
Hren: Michael emails in and wants to know what actions the City of Columbus has taken concerning climate change since you've been mayor? And any additional efforts you'll be making?
Lienhoop: Well, since I've been mayor, that's six years worth of activity, it's a little hard to summarize all that just in the time that we're sitting here. But we have pursued the purchase of vehicles that are hybrid style. We're interested in cost because we're spending taxpayer dollars. So we have to be a little cautious about that.
We've also pursued the installation of some water fountains, we've done studies on the electric usage in our buildings. This room that we're sitting in here, we have the low, LEED certified lights. We have investigated from time to time the installation of solar panels on various city owned properties, it's difficult for us to get enough mass to really be effective and in terms of the installation, but we continue to try to find ideas that will will make us a greener place.
We've got some ground out at the sewage treatment plant, we've got some ground here beside behind city hall. But again, it's difficult for us to get the correct amount of acreage, if you will, to really make a meaningful impact and, come up with a project that's enticing to some of the contractors, but we'll continue to work on that.
Hren: The official groundbreaking on the housing and urban grocer development is April 21 at 3 p.m. That's at the southeast corner of 2nd and Lafayette Avenue. 200 apartments and a $40 million investment.
Lienhoop: Part of what we wanted to do here in downtown Columbus is really two things. One was to provide a walkable residential option. A place where you can walk to work, walk to your recreation, and walk to a grocery store. And so the addition of the grocery store as part of this project is really important to us. Because we wanted to have a place downtown where people could walk down and buy milk, get an aspirin, basic stuff. It'll be a welcome addition downtown.
The second thing we're after is trying to just create a little bit more foot traffic in the downtown area, we've got several restaurants downtown, now we'd like to have a few more, we want the ones that are here to be a little bit more successful. And part of the way we do that is to bring people downtown who hopefully will have some disposable income and patronize those places.
If it's 200 apartments, make that 300 people. And not far away up on Seventh Street, we've got about 75 units that are really close to completion. It's hard to say, but that's more than 100 people, so they're all within walking distance of downtown.
Hren: Bloomingfoods was thought to be in consideration for that urban grocer. Do you know anything more on that?
Lienhoop: No, I don't, we've left that choice tenant up to the developer, and they've guaranteed us that there will be a grocery store, they haven't been able to tell us who it's going to be yet.
Hren: The developer is also paying as we talked about in the past, 70% of that cost, and the city is helping out with the rest?
Lienhoop: The way that it is, you got to be a little cautious. What we're going to do is sell some bonds that would obligate the property taxes from the project, it won't really get into the city's general revenues, but the bonds themselves will be paid back by property taxes that the project will generate. So there's no real out of pocket costs from that activity related to the city.
Now we've given them the land for the project. And I think we did put about $2 million of cash into it, but the bulk of the so called City contribution is a bond that will be repaid by the property taxes generated by the project and that bond does not require the city to be a guarantor.
Hren: Let's get an update on NexusPark. Last time we talked the city was looking at a request for qualifications?
Lienhoop: Correct. We now sent out an RFP, request for proposals. And I want to say we did that about a week ago, maybe two, and anticipate having responses here within the next week. So once we get those, we'll sit down, evaluate who best meets our criteria and then we'll make a choice as to who builds.
This will be for the Fieldhouse, there'll be a separate construction contract for activities within NexusPark, that would comprise the parks department offices, and meeting spaces and so forth. We anticipate being able to demolish the old Goodie site if you're familiar with the configuration of the old Mall. We expect to do that in quarter three, and then break ground quarter four.
