The city's need for downtown housing options, a collaboration with Bloomington's tech park, integrating Crump Theatre into a convention center and a new training facility for first responders hits a snag.
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: I wanted to start with something we talked a lot about in Kokomo last week, downtown housing options. I see there are a couple of housing proposals on the table now, workforce housing building and a senior living facility. Do these fit into the downtown growth plan?
Lienhoop: One of the things we identified for Columbus as a strategic initiative is we need more housing of all sizes, all price ranges. That starts with apartments and goes right up through the upper end. Part of that is a project for the elderly. We have a project identified for State Street, it has several moving parts. There's a tax revenue bond we'd have to approve. There's a part we don't control and that's a grant for federal housing credits.
We've had in my two and a half years maybe four projects apply for these kinds of credits and the applicants have not been successful. So we're hopeful this one turns out a little bit differently.
Hren: How much does the city get involved in these projects?
Lienhoop: This is land that had been owned by the hospital and the developers are prepared to buy the land. Pretty much what we do is endorse the project and provide tax abatement and lend our name to a revenue bond. The whole notion there is the bond is to be paid back by the developer. Because we issue it, it receives tax exempt status to the recipient.
The other project is moderately priced apartments. It's what we call infill. We have roads that already runs by there so we don't have to add another mile of street to maintain or plow. We've already got the sewer and the water supply out there. Sooner or later it comes on the tax rolls and begins to become a tax paying entity for the city.
Sooner or later it comes on the tax rolls and begins to become a tax paying entity for the city.
Hren: A couple months ago we heard about the tenants that will move into Bloomington’s Dimension Mill, part of the certified tech park downtown. Mayor Hamilton mentioned a trip to Columbus to meet with you about collaborating on efforts to spur the economy and bring more tech firms and expand the ones that are here. How would that collaboration look like to you?
Lienhoop: We have an application we need to make to the group in Indianapolis that oversees the Elevate Ventures program in Indiana and we want to become a part of that and find ways for Columbus and Bloomington to partner together. We're pretty close together, separated by Brown County. We'll need to split a few things, an Entrepreneur in Residence, is one name they give to a person who helps run this activity.
From our perspective, as we think to the future with respect to economic development, we realize we have a bit of a challenge now in terms of trying to find employers that want 200 employees. You know, come buy 40 acres, build a big plant, that would be a big challenge. But if we can employ companies that can employ two to ten, that's a pace we can handle. And if we get volume, one of them will grow into that 200 person company. So we feel like there's an opportunity there not only for us, but for Bloomington. The infrastructure cost is more than either community is prepared take on by themselves.
Hren: I’m sure you’ve heard about Terre Haute having the funding mechanism to move forward on a convention center, Kokomo announced theirs, Bloomington’s is expanding, we did a report on a possible restoration of the Crump Theatre into a hotel/conference center. What’s the possibility of that?
Lienhoop: When the Clarion closed, we lost a significant asset here. We had a large room that could accommodate 500 people for a banquet. And we don't have a facility like that anymore. So we feel like there's a market for that here. And that has come out as part of the Envision Columbus process we've been going through. What we hope to be able to do is provide an economic impact study to a hotelier, conference center manager and get someone in here. It's my hope we can do that yet this year.
For the past 25 years or so, it's been what to do with the Crump. It's a large facility that sits pretty much in the center of our downtown area and we've looked at a number of options over the years, and none of them have ever caught anybody's interest. So perhaps, this could be part of a conference center. We'll see. It sits on a quarter block with some ground the city doesn't own. Whether that's large enough to accommodate everything we want to do is yet to be determined.
At the end of the day, you have to find a private developer who is willing to build that.
