Information updated March 28, 2002

Campus Partners has completed the acquisition of the land for the University Gateway Center and has successfully relocated all the remaining businesses in the area designated for the Gateway project.

In its next step, Campus Partners in March 2002 selected a demolition contractor and plans to begin demolition of the existing buildings on the site in late April or May 2002.

Planning for the first-phase public improvements has been under way for some time.  Campus Partners expects to complete that planning in the summer of 2002.  These first-phase public improvements, such as burial of overhead utility lines and the moving and separation of storm and sanitary sewers, may begin by the fall of 2002.  Construction of the new buildings could begin in 2003.  (Second-phase public improvements, such as sidewalks and pedestrian lighting, take place after the buildings are constructed.)

Meanwhile, The Druker Company has been talking with potential tenants for the Gateway Center.  After Druker secures commitments from potential anchor stores, the firm will be recruiting a variety of locally owned, regional and national businesses.  Terry Foegler, president of Campus Partners, said one of the reasons Druker was selected was its desire to include small, unique and locally owned businesses in the Gateway Center.

The Gateway Center will include a parking facility with an estimated 1,200 spaces.  For the retail and entertainment businesses to be competitive in the regional marketplace, the parking must be affordably priced.

Campus Partners is taking the lead in developing the parking facility.  Columbus City Council in 2000 established a Tax Increment Financing district to support the parking facility with non-school revenue.  The Ohio General Assembly appropriated $4.5 million in capital improvement funds to help underwrite the parking facility.  Campus Partners also is exploring a variety of other funding sources to support construction of the parking facility, including user fees and Empowerment Zone bonds.

Foegler said the parking facility is being designed to serve the peak needs of the Gateway Center.  “We fully expect, however, that the facility will help meet the parking demands of the adjacent commercial area and thereby benefit businesses up and down High Street,” he said.

The University Neighborhoods Revitalization Plan: Concept Document, adopted by the city and university in 1997, and subsequent community planning for High Street have identified other measures which the city and property owners should take to assure the vitality of High Street in the University District and the success of the Gateway Center.   Many of these measures have been implemented or are in the planning stage.  These include:

·        Property owners are preparing in the spring of 2002 to distribute a petition to create a special improvement district for High Street.

·        The city’s Development Department in 2001 implemented a program of grants, low interest loans and design assistance for property owners to improve the facades of their High Street buildings.

·        Columbus City Council is scheduled in the spring of 2002 to consider development and design guidelines for High Street in the University District.  The legislation also would expand the powers of an existing review board to oversee implementation of the guidelines.

·        As part of the economic development agreement for the Gateway Center, the city also has agreed to consider the re-opening of streets closed at High Street, on-street parking along High Street during non-peak hours, and additional streetscape improvements.

University Gateway Information