Background

The Brice-Tussing area of Columbus was once a vibrant and viable retail district on the far east side of the city.  Over the years, retail activity shifted even further east and suddenly the area found itself out of favor with retailers of all sizes.  The preponderance of big box retail made the decline even more noticeable when preferences began to shift.

The Task

Tired of watching the Brice-Tussing area languish, the City engaged an enterprising team of consultants to study the area and identify opportunities for redevelopment.  During the study process, the team met with a variety of stakeholders including several local area commissions, residents, commercial realtors, local business leaders and potential investors.  Data was poured over and parcels were scrutinized for highest and best use as well as optimal land use and zoning.

Info

The plan is currently in the final stages of development.  In the interim, here is a page dedicated to the project and maintained by the City of Columbus.  Here you can read a midterm draft of the plan as well as view several display boards that were generated for the various open houses.

As the plan develops, this blog will provide information related to the project.  You can also follow and participate in the planning process by visiting the following sites.

Important Links & Related Sites

www.westfranklinton.com – This site is serving as the primary information collection & dissemination portal for the duration of the project.  The software that is powering the site is provided by MindMixer.  The topics and information that is disseminated through this site, will evolve as the actual planning project evolves.

West Franklinton Facebook Page – West Franklinton has a Facebook page that will also provide a place to keep folks informed on the planning process.  Links to project documents and project photos can be found on this site.

@WFplan (Twitter) - this is the Twitter account for the West Franklinton Plan.  Follow it and you will never be out of the loop!

Project Timeline

October 2013 – The consultant team begins meeting with the Staff Working group (planners from the City of Columbus, recreation & parks, housing, mayor’s office, and others).  Later that month, the team conducts their first meeting with the Community Working Group, a group of leaders from Franklinton comprised of members of the Franklinton Development Association (FDA), Gladden Community House, Mount Carmel, to name a few.

November 2013 – The consultant team begins conducting stakeholder interviews and collecting “existing conditions” data.  Each parcel within the neighborhood is surveyed and vacancies are documented.  The commercial (retail) market analysis begins.

December 2013 – Stakeholder interviews continue as does the data collection and analysis for the existing conditions.  The housing market analysis begins.

January 2014 – The project’s website (www.westfranklinton.com) goes live.  The public information gathering begins in earnest.  Existing conditions data gathering concludes.  The market analyses (housing, commercial, office, and industrial) concludes.  The planning team meets with the Staff Working Group and the Community Working Group.  Both groups are briefed on the results of the existing conditions report and the market analyses.  Later that month, the first public workshop is held.

Public Workshop #1

On January 28, 2014, the first West Franklinton planning Public Workshop was held at the Gladden Community House.  Even though it was the coldest night in decades, almost 100 hearty souls turned out to provide their input and mingle with others that were interested in participating in the planning of Franklinton’s future.  NBC 4 in Columbus even came out to document the event with a nice video piece with an accompanying web article.

One of the exercises that the public was encouraged to partake in was a mapping exercise where four location-specific questions were posed to participants.  The results of that exercise were as follows:

1. Question:  What one place would make the neighborhood better if it was dramatically different from how it is today?  Please indicate on the map.
   Answer:  Click here to see the map
2. Question:  What do you consider to be the “heart” of West Franklinton?  Please indicate on the map.
   Answer:  Click here to see the map
3. Question:  What is the one place that a visitor to Franklinton should see?  Please indicate on the map.
   Answer:  Click here to see the map
4. Question:  If you could create a new neighborhood park in West Franklinton, where would you build it  Please indicate on the map.
   Answer:  Click here to see the map

February 2014 – The “plan development” phase begins.  This is when the rubber meets the road.  New topics are added to the westfranklinton.com site.  The new topics reflect the progression of the planning process.  The team begins working with the City and the Community Working Group to craft a comprehensive vacant housing & housing development strategy.  Late in the month, the team meets with the Community Working Group to initiate the plan development phase.  Discussion topics include improving community outreach for the next public workshop (scheduled for the end of April).

April 2014 – The 2nd community workshop is scheduled for Wednesday, April 30 from 5-7 PM.  The official press release can be found on westfranklinton.com (in the “about” section) OR you can link to it here.

October 2014 – The West Franklinton Plan has been completed.  You can download the plan here.  The plan is very progressive in its approach; emphasizing connectivity and public open space (parks) enhancements as property becomes available.  The flexibility built into the plan allows for the development of these features in a variety of places throughout West Franklinton.

November 2014 – The West Franklinton Plan has been adopted by Columbus City Council.  You can learn more about the Plan by checking out the City of Columbus’ website.

“Creating successful urban retail districts is a goal of planners and community leaders alike. But as Robert J. Gibbs points out in Principles of Urban Retail Planning and Development(2012; Wiley; 272 pp.; $80), planners may be hampered in that task by an overly romantic view of an ideal shopping area. Even in the best planned new urbanist developments, he points out, retail components often fail to live up to expectations.

….(Gibbs) explodes various myths about what makes a successful retail district and lists some of the common mistakes made by planners, business owners, and community leaders — failing to begin a project with a professional market analysis, for instance. He shies away from easy answers. While clearly in favor of the walkable retail districts that planners typically espouse, for instance, he concedes that they don’t always succeed financially.

Gibbs includes plenty of useful information on specifics such as parking. His book will be most useful to private-sector planners and those who work with public-private partnerships. But the material it contains will also be helpful to public planners dealing with zoning issues. — Ryan Smith”

Several of us here at UDG, have at one point in our lives, worked for real estate market analysts (in fact, we have several current clients that are in this line of business).  This is where we learned the value of conducting a market analysis for planning and development purposes.  Our backgrounds in GIS and Urban Planning provide us with a unique perspective on the concept of the market analysis.  We have seen more than our fair share of good and bad examples of market analysis.  If you are a city conducting a land use or comprehensive plan, it is in your best interest to include market analysis as part of the planning process.  In addition, you should thoroughly vet the analyst to make sure they understand what the goals and objectives of the plan are.  Traditional, boilerplate market analysis is not going to suffice.  Cities, and the spaces within a city, are unique.   The market analyst must be willing to approach their task as part of the entire planning team, which means they must be engaged in the process from start to finish.

Traditional market analysis does not address the goals of a land use or comprehensive plan.  There are two basic questions planners need to answer with respect to the market analysis:  1.  Is there a market and 2. how “much” should we plan for? Further, planners (and the public in general) may ask questions regarding “what it takes” to achieve the critical mass required to achieve the desired results.  For example, “how many households do we need to add, at varying income levels, to achieve the critical mass required to support a medium-sized grocery store?”

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are the perfect tool for conducting this type of analysis and far too few analysts invest the time and money to employ a robust GIS to help them answer these spatial questions.  A GIS makes it much easier to visualize the current conditions as well as visualize future conditions – which is at the heart of the concept of planning.

Urban Decision Group has been fine tuning this very type of analysis into a service we call “Planning Market Analytics“.  Planning Market Analytics is specifically designed for informing  comprehensive or land-use plans.  Like a traditional market analysis, field observations are required but the observations must be targeted and focused on the goals at hand.  Our service focuses on a data-driven GIS model to produce predictive analytics via established methods such as Huff Modeling.

The Planning Market Analytics service is usually expensive because of its intended audience.  The audience for a traditional market analysis generally consists of developers and  financiers.  That group is looking for very specific price points, rents, and lease rates for defined product types like town homes or 2 bedroom apartments.  The planning audience, on the other hand, is focused on the larger picture.  They need to  know if a project has a  chance at being successful (is there a market?), how much space should be allocated, what infrastructure improvements will be necessary, etc.  Two different audiences require two difference approaches.

So if you’re a city, county, region or state that is engaging in city or regional planning, I agree with the letter writer above.  Do you your homework first.  It’s a nominal portion of the project cost that can literally save you millions on the back end.

If you would like more information on Planning Market Analytics and you live in North America, contact Urban Decision Group at 614-383-8447 or email Rick Stein at rstein at urbandecisiongroup.com.