DeClue
The Columbus Redevelopment Commission is considering collaborating with the new Office of Downtown Development (ODD Office) on a grant program to revitalize historic buildings.
The commission is discussing the idea but hasn’t taken any action, with Redevelopment Director Heather Pope saying the idea is still “in the infancy stage” and the commission’s financial contribution has yet to be determined, though $200,000 has been earmarked as a potential expenditure.
ODD Office is a new grassroots initiative focused on the vitality of downtown Columbus. Funding for the startup’s operational budget was provided through private, corporate and civic investments, and organizers have said this will continue to be the “target division” of funding moving forward. According to executive director Ike DeClue, the organization’s board includes Pope, redevelopment commission member Kyle Hendricks and commission attorney Mary Stroh.
DeClue told the commission that creating a façade grant program is one of ODD Office’s major initiatives and is expected to be of great benefit to downtown Columbus.
“We believe that by partnering with redevelopment to implement such a grant program, we aim to revitalize our downtown both physically and culturally and to be more enjoyable and accessible to all,” he said. “Part of the inherent value of our unique downtown is the historic buildings and they way they work together to provide a sense of place and belonging. By helping to protect and assist in preservation and advancement of these precious assets, we are investing in a downtown of tomorrow today.”
He said that ODD Office is proposing to be the “key partner” in presenting and implementing a downtown façade strategy. The organization plans to model the program based on successful initiatives in similarly sized communities across the country and have also been engaging with local design experts, Indiana Landmarks Vice President of Preservation Services Mark Dollase, and several other subject matter experts.
DeClue said that ODD Office will work to finalize its proposal in the weeks leading up to the commission’s July 17 meeting.
The department has been in talks with DeCluefor several months, Pope said. Prior to that, redevelopment officials spoke with other communities about façade grant programs.
“We were working on this, and just trying to find the right mechanism in which to grant these funds through was the challenging piece,” she said. “And then when Ike and Laura (Miller) were coming to the office and were telling me about their initiative, it just, it fit perfect.”
Pope added that she would like to see if there is a way to extend the program beyond just façades, noting that there are a lot of vacant two-story buildings that may be underutilized due to internal issues, such as not having elevators.
Rich Starkey with Indianapolis law firm Barnes & Thornburg said that a lot of communities call these programs “downtown revitalization.” Pope and DeClue agreed that this might be a good term to use.
“What are the key elements that seem to become a common theme when you’re having these discussions, in terms of what we want to — is sustainability something that’s popping up?” commission member Shannon McDonald asked DeClue. “Is it legacy of downtown Columbus? Is it energy inefficiency?”
DeClue replied that it varies from city to city. In Columbus’ case, the city has a “great historic downtown,” but there are challenges to working and living in old buildings, such as upkeep, accessibility and code issues.
“It depends on what we end up wanting the scope to be, if we want it to be for when visitors and people walk downtown, things look nicer, or is it a little bit deeper than that, going into helping the internal components of the building as well?” he said.
Another piece they’re not sure about yet is grant amounts, which also vary by community, he said.
“In the work that we did benchmarking over the last year, some of the communities that we saw had programs around $100,000 on annual basis for a program like this,” said Hendricks. “The annual project cost — and again, this is probably pre-COVID numbers at this point — it was around $10,000, $15,000 per project.”
However, Jason Major, who is a nonvoting liaison to the commission representing the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp, thought these figures might be a bit low, given the costs of architectural and interior renovations.
In discussing how program would be administered, DeClue said they’re still figuring this out and are considering having an approval committee that could work with redevelopment.
“I think one of the biggest concerns that we had, when we kind of came to the end of our research last year, was that what we’d seen is that redevelopment can and probably should be a partner in this work but that we can’t lead the administration of a program like this,” said Hendricks.
He asked if ODD Office would be comfortable taking the lead on administration, and DeClue said that they would be.
In discussing program parameters, DeClue said ODD Office has not set boundaries for where properties would have to be located to participate in the program but added that they would like to focus on the more historic buildings in downtown Columbus.
However, Tyler Hodge, who co-owns Lucabe Coffee Co with his wife, asked the commission and ODD Office to consider having the program be broader than just downtown.
“The community does have a lot of mid-century architecture, and that architecture is 60 years old now,” he said. “And in some cases, that architecture is not always suited for the original intent, and so it needs to be modernized.”
The Hodges have two Lucabe coffee shops: their original location in downtown Columbus, and a second shop at the former Irwin Union Bank and Trust in Eastbrook Plaza. The bank location received a 2022 Modernism in America Award, with the Hodges, the Landmark Columbus Foundation and other collaborators credited for their adaptive reuse of the property, which was designed in Harry Weese in 1961.
Hodge told the commission that they spent a “considerable sum” to redevelop and restore the building, and there are still aspects that could be improved, such as signage and having more energy-efficient windows. However, these are costly expenses to consider, he said.
