Mayor Lienhoop tells us why there's a Christmas tree on top of NexusPark, reaction to the recent park drive-by shooting, and why the delay on a downtown conference center.
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: We are back in person and it's great to be in Columbus. The new 1821 Trail looks great with placards and landscaping. I'm looking forward to seeing NexusPark too.
Lienhoop: The 1821 Trail is a homage to the founding of Columbus and the founding of Bartholomew County. That's when we started in these parts. And so the trail does several different things for us, obviously, rebuilt First Street from the sewers up, provides some historical markers that talk a little bit about the history of Columbus, and why we're here and marks some of the things that have happened the last 200 years. The idea came up as we were celebrating our bicentennial in the middle of a pandemic, which made it a little bit hard to get together.
Yes, there's several million dollars worth or steel up, it's one big barn, it's going to be every bit as tall as the fairgrounds and the coliseum up at the Indiana State Fair, and it will be wider. So we're going to be able to fit a soccer field inside there. We call it NexusPark, and it's going to be the Circle K Field House at Nexus Park. The engineers and the contractors tell us we're on schedule. We should be open sometime early in quarter one of 2024. We hope to have events in there starting no later than April of 2024.
Hren: City council had to allocate funding mechanisms as this process moves along. How is that working?
Lienhoop: We've got another request to go before the city council this evening. We would like to have put all this in one funding request right at the beginning, but given the pandemic and given some of the uncertainties with respect to cost, it just really didn't make sense. So we've brought them forward as we could.
Tonight, we'll bring forward what I think is basically the landscaping. But it's a little bit more than trees and bushes. We're talking about the parking lot, all the asphalt, wastewater drainage process, as well as all the wayfinding that will occur outside. Our partners CRH, Columbus Regional Health says they'll have about 1,000 visitors a day that's on top of 200 employees. Then on the weekend, we could have a crowd anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000. And those won't be there all at the same time, but they'll be coming and going.
I'm told that the Christmas tree up top is just a habit that you do - what's called topping out. And so a week or two ago, we went up to NexusPark and signed a beam. But on top of that, we've got a Christmas tree type arrangement to just sort of have a little bit of fun and send a signal that at least with respect to that portion of the construction, we're finished and ready to move on.
Hren: I see a consultant has been has been hired for the downtown projects, including something we've talked about many times the conference center. Where does that come into play?
Lienhoop: The conference center was an idea that seems like a long time ago at this point. But it was pre pandemic, I want to say it came out of a plan we called Envision Columbus that we did in 2018. And in 2019, we put out an RFP, we had a variety of responses, we selected a developer. And we were ready to sign ready to get started on building a hotel and conference center. And then the pandemic occurred. And all that got sort of set aside or at least put on hold.
And now we got out of the pandemic, we we contracted with the same consulting group back in July or August of 2022, and got an update on our study, and confirm that there's still demand for a conference center in Columbus and a hotel to support it. And we took that back to the developer that we've been talking to, unfortunately, we weren't able to get together on price with them. And so we anticipate working with another developer, or maybe we'll go out for another RFP, we're not quite sure just exactly where this goes next. But in anticipation that we're going to need a little bit of help and guidance, we reached out to the consulting group that we've been working for.
Hren: The developer building The Taylor a couple blocks away is looking at another development near the downtown Cummins parking garage. How does this fit into the city's housing demand?
Lienhoop: The Taylor will have about 200 units. This is a different site on Washington Street between Sixth and Seventh will be developed by the same people, Flaherty and Collins. The ground there presently is owned by Cummins. And this property fronts a parking garage that Cummins built five years or more ago. And it's sort of been in the city's plan for some time to develop that area with a mixture of residential properties and light retail or commercial. And so we're happy to see that come forward.
I can say it's the same developers, so the people who will rent at that particular apartment complex will have access to the amenities offered by The Taylor. But yeah, there'll be another 50 to 55 units or something like that. And at this point in time, it's all welcome. We have constant demand for housing here in Columbus.
Hren: We reported on a drive-by shooting at Lincoln Park recently, we know the suspects are in custody. When something like this happens, the city reviews security measures, maybe sends a few extra patrols in that area. As mayor, how do you react when you hear about something like that?
Lienhoop: Number one, the reaction is to try to take care of everybody involved. And candidly, I was very pleased with a variety of our response aspects of our response. We do active shooter training for all city employees and for all city locations. And so at Lincoln Park, the Parks Department employees who were employed, and on duty at the Hamilton Ice Center and at the concession stand, they did exactly as they were trained. They lock the places down, secured the locations that they were in charge of, and provided security of the folks that were indoors.
Our police and our first responders were on scene within a matter of minutes, and they were able to attend to the the injured people and get them stabilized. And then our police had a pretty good indication as to who they thought they were going to look for. And so those people were apprehended within about four hours and today they're both in Bartholomew county jail, one of them with a $5 million bond.
Going forward, we are going to take a look at what we can do to enhance security at at all of our parks. And I anticipate that that will involve more patrols when there's an event underway, and I anticipate that there'll be more cameras. I don't know that either of those would have prevented what had occurred. But we want to make it very clear to anybody who's got this kind of activity on their minds, that we will see what you're doing and we'll come get you. And when we do, you're going to be across the street from me with a $5 million bond.
