Mike Wolanin | The Republic A view of the parks and recreation input station during an open house for Columbus Regional Health’s and the city’s draft plan for development of the CRH property on the westside of Columbus, Indiana at NexusPark, Thursday, May 31, 2023.
A concept plan outlining a potential future for nearly 700 acres of westside property owned by Columbus Regional Hospital is up for final approval next week.
Columbus City Council will vote on whether to adopt the City View District Plan as an element of the city’s Comprehensive Plan on Sept. 5, said City/County Planning Director Jeff Bergman. The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. in the council chambers of Columbus City Hall.
The City View District Plan addresses the site also known as the Garden City Farms property, which stretches east-to-west from Interstate 65 almost to State Road 11/Jonesville Road, and is south of the westside Walmart and north of the Bartholomew County 4-H Fairgrounds. The approximately 690-acre site is owned by CRH.
“The City View District planning process has been a collaboration between Columbus Regional Health (CRH) and the City of Columbus, aided by consultant Design Workshop,” city officials said. “The process seeks to establish a vision for the long-term future development of the property. The resulting plan is intended to serve as both a master plan to guide CRH decision making as property owner and a component of the City of Columbus Comprehensive Plan.”
The Comprehensive Plan provides guidance for future land use and development in the community.
In addition to an approximately 100-acre CRH campus, the City View District Plan includes a variety of residential neighborhoods, commercial centers and a research and development campus. These areas would be connected to each other and nature via “open spaces, green corridors, and amenities that extend throughout the property,” officials said.
CRH President and CEO Jim Bickel has emphasized that the plan is meant to create a long-term vision for the site and said that CRH doesn’t have an “imminent plan” for its facility needs at this time.
“Our discussion tonight is at the very, very start of what would be a very long process with elements, with a number of other steps remaining,” Bergman said at a previous city meeting, in regards to the development of the property.
These steps include annexation, connection to city utilities, rezoning, subdivision and analysis of flooding risk.
Certain areas of the site are located in flood hazard areas based on maps from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Vice President of Strategic Facilities Planning and Operations David Lenart said that the concept plan for the City View District shows 100-year floodplain around the area where the hospital facility might be located. However, he added that there are more constraints on their current 17th Street campus due to the majority of the land being within a floodway.
“We believe that at least for the City View District, the FEMA maps there are fairly old,” he said. “I think we have to take a contemporary understanding of that area, and I think there may be able to have some modifications to the plans as we currently know them. Maybe more land is actually not in the current floodway or floodplains as there (is) currently identified. We won’t know that until we do another study. We hope to do that study soon, because that would help inform this particular comprehensive plan even further.”
The Columbus Plan Commission voted on Aug. 9 to send the City View District Plan forward to city council with a favorable recommendation.
The vote was 6-1, with member Dennis Baute voting against the motion. He said that while he is not necessarily against the plan, he would like to hear more public input on the concept and doesn’t feel that it’s ready for adoption, given questions around certain matters such as flood hazards.
