The city is ramping up for the total solar eclipse next month, resources are being put together to combat homelessness, and a big ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned Wednesday.
"We are told from Homeland Security, we can have twice our population. So we have to plan for 5,000 or 100,000," Mayor Ferdon on planning possible eclipse attendance.
In this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Columbus Mayor Mary Ferdon addresses these issues and more during a visit to Columbus City Hall. 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. Here are some highlights.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Hren: How's it going? How's it feel to be mayor?
Ferdon: It feels different. The honeymoon lasted for about two weeks. But no, it's been great. And it's been a really true, smooth transition. I've learned that a lot of people want to meet the mayor, and have a lot of questions and complaints at times. But it's a very important role in the community. And so I'm learning that you're a role model, and you're always on.
Hren: We have so much to get to every month and I know that things don't just wrap up with the previous mayor. You're balancing a bunch of plates. What's on your plate right now? What are what are some of your priorities?
Ferdon: The fact that I was here in the administration for eight years, I was part of a lot of those and you're right, they don't stop from year to year. We're really excited getting to the end point of our adaptive reuse of the old Fair Oaks mall here in Columbus. We renamed it Nexus Park. It's where we took a 35-acre property and we have converted it into a health and wellness and recreation center.
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Columbus Regional Hospital our local partner has already moved into it. They've got 12 or 13 physician practices and a therapy pool and labs and clinics. And this tomorrow night at the State of the City, we are officially opening and ribbon cutting our 150,000 square foot Fieldhouse.
And then later next month, we'll be opening our parks and community space. And then later this year, our entire campus will be done. So that's a process and a project that started back in 2018. We made it through COVID through construction costs. And so we're just so pleased to kind of be nearing the end of it and being able to give it to the community and see how they react to it.
We've been working on setting up an employee clinic for a number of years. And so it's going to be part of the employee health clinic, the City of Columbus as well as our local Bartholomew County school district employees. So we're really excited about starting that.
Hren: There've been some city council appropriations for funding, is everything balancing out ok until the user fees start coming in?
Ferdon: We're using an EDIT bond for the Fieldhouse, we're using a park bond for the park community spaces. We've had somewhere in the neighborhood of $4.5 million dollars donated from local businesses and individuals. And then we also were able to use $6 million of READI grant funds for it. So we've been able to find the funding.
Hren: I have to ask you about the eclipse because it's what everybody's talking about. We were just in Brown County last week, of course, Bloomington before that, and everyone is preparing — how is Columbus preparing for the eclipse?
Ferdon: About a year ago, we realized the significance of the events. So the city as well as Bartholomew County, started doing some major planning. It took us a little bit of time to get our first responders to understand how big this could be. So the city team now meets on a weekly basis, working on our emergency plans, working on our traffic plans. We have a number of local businesses who are having events throughout the weekend.
We have a huge event at our airport Air Park, a Renaissance event. And so it's a combination of Renaissance Fair and solar eclipse, assuming the weather is good. So we are told from Homeland Security, we can have twice our population. So we have to plan for 5,000 or 100,000.
Hren: I read, the city was notified of a record 130 encampments this year, staying in tents than local shelters. How is Columbus working with those experiencing homelessness now that you are in office? I know this is something Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson had to delve into her first days of office.
Ferdon: It's across the nation, we're seeing the number of homeless increase. And so we know that it's tied to mental illness and drug addiction. And we see that got progressively worse post COVID. So we have great social services, we have great social agencies who have stepped up who run shelters, we've got our churches who have done a lot. But it's a very difficult situation, because there's not necessarily a right answer because every person's reason for being homeless is different.
We are fortunate, because locally, our United Way has stepped up and we're going to start an initiative with a lot of various community organizations who are going to pull resources and figure out what we're currently doing and how we can do it better. Because it's a problem that's really beyond the capacity of any one organization.
Hren: I see there may be some updates on a new proposed conference center in Columbus? Or at least the project is picking up some steam again?
Ferdon: It is in the sense that we're starting the process of reimagining our entire downtown, the riverfront project that you've been following for years, we finally got all of our permits late last fall. So we've hired a construction manager, and we're starting to look at building out the project. So we're so excited about that. And then we have several new housing projects. But we also have a couple of properties in our downtown that have gone up for sale.
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We call it the old Sears building that was owned by a local company, as well as the Irwin conference center. And then we have a property that was burnt down a couple years ago in our downtown that hopefully will be going on on the market quickly. So what we're seeing is we have a lot of opportunities. And so trying to figure out where the Hotel Conference Center fits into all of those because, post COVID, we've talked so much about what the new normal looks like and my position is, it's time for us to just get down to start figuring it out on our own and, transform Columbus. And I think we can do that.
