Future city plans for FairOaks Mall and Donner Center dominated the conversation as the Columbus Park Foundation updated the community on current and upcoming projects.
Around 50 people, including several city and foundation officials, attended the Thursday meeting, which was at the FairOaks Mall.
Tom Brosey, a former Cummins Inc. executive hired as a consultant for the FairOaks Mall project, was the featured guest speaker and spoke for around 30 minutes about the scope of the mall project, its vision and provided updates of what’s coming up.
“I’ve heard (Columbus) Mayor (Jim) Lienhoop say that he wants to see (FairOaks Mall) as a park,” Brosey said. “His vision, and I certainly agree with it, is that this will be an indoor community center located in a city park. Now that requires some creative thinking at this point because there’s not much green space and there are some challenges with things like parking. But that’s the vision, that’s what we’re looking for.”
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On Dec. 14, the city finalized the purchase of the 35.36-acre mall property at 25th Street and Central Avenue for $5.9 million. The city put up approximately $4 million, or 75 percent of the property’s appraised value.
Columbus Regional Health contributed $1.3 million, or 25 percent of the appraised value. Additionally, the Heritage Fund — The Community Foundation of Bartholomew County committed to providing $450,000, which is the difference between the selling price and the appraised value. Under state law, the city could not pay more than the appraised value.
The impetus behind the purchase is to transform FairOaks Mall into a community wellness and sports tourism complex. The overarching project, however, includes repurposing the aging Donner Center and looking at the connectivity between the two sites and the surrounding area.
“There’s a lot of emphasis around connectivity with the surrounding area,” Brosey said at the foundation meeting. “If you think about where we’re at right now (at FairOaks Mall) and what’s close to us, it makes a lot of sense to think about integration in the community. We’ve got Lincoln Park, we’ve got Hamilton Center, the People Trail is a very short distance away, CSA (New Tech) High School is literally across the street, (Columbus) North High School is within walking distance. How do those entities, which are public entities more or less, integrate with what might happen here at the mall? How should those entities impact what happens at the mall?”
Brosey went through several of the proposed uses for the mall property and Donner Center. The mall site could include Columbus Parks and Recreation offices, an indoor sports turf field, health and wellness activities from Columbus Regional Health, indoor community spaces for informal gatherings, retail, restaurants, among other amenities, Brosey said.
Donner Center could include a renovated aquatics center that is integrated with Donner Park, he said.
Currently, the design firm the city hired to help guide the city through the process of defining the future of FairOaks Mall and Donner Center, is starting to analyze public input and is working with the FairOaks Community Development Corp. to look at what kinds of facilities could be built at different locations on the mall property and at Donner Center.
The firm, MKSK, has partnered with Perkins+Will, Greenstreet and Moss.
MKSK is a collective of architects, urban designers and planners with studios in Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis and West Lafayette; Detroit, Michigan; Greenville, South Carolina; Louisville, Kentucky; and Cincinnati, Ohio.
Perkins+Will designed Central Middle School’s new building, which was completed and opened in 2007.
The next public engagement session for the FairOaks Mall project is scheduled for Nov. 12.
“The consultant team is doing a lot of test fits,” Brosey said. “What we mean by that is, for example, the indoor sports turf, how would it fit on the (mall) property? What would you have to take down or remove if you put it in any one of three places?”
“One of the things I would expect to see at the November meeting is that your going to see some of these test fits,” he added. “Everything has been leading up to this, and at the November meeting, you’re going to start seeing, ‘We think this should go there.’”
Other projects
Though much of the annual meeting centered around the future of FairOaks Mall, Donner Center and the surrounding area, park foundation and city officials also gave updates on other ongoing and future projects in the city.
Mark Jones, director of Columbus Parks and Recreation, said the renovation of the James A. Henderson playground at The Commons is one of the projects he is looking forward to in the coming year.
“The playground has been an important economic driver of traffic in the downtown area, and is one of the most utilized playgrounds in the parks and recreation network,” Jones said. “…The success of the playground resulting in higher-than-forecasted visitor traffic has accelerated the need to renovate some of the equipment. This renovation has created an opportunity to modernize an experience provided to our visitors.”
Jones said more than 100,000 guests visit the Commons playground annually. The playground was built in 2011 as part of the renovation of The Commons.
Columbus Parks and Recreation, Hitchcock Design Group and The Commons Board are in the process of “reimagining” the playground. The Columbus Park Foundation will be “critical” in helping raise funds for the project, Jones said.
“We’re still finalizing the James A. Henderson playground (project),” Jones said after the meeting. “We’re going to be doing a renovation there. We’re still fine-tuning that. There will a fundraising opportunity there. That will be on the biggest projects. Between the FairOaks Mall and the playground, those are the two big ones.”
Jones said he expects to have updates on the playground project by the end of the year, but “we’re still finalizing details, numbers.”
“We haven’t launched anything,” Jones said. “There’s still some work to be done.”
Additionally, the Jolie Crider Memorial Skate Park 2.0 will have a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 4 p.m. Nov. 1, Jones said.
Jones said a lot of work has been done in the past year and that he is optimistic about the future.
“Five or 10 years from now, looking back on what we’re doing just this year, that’s what keeps everybody going,” Jones said. “We’re looking forward to the future.”
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Visit columbusparkfoundation.org for more information.
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