imex99;776503 wrote:Around downtown but if your actually at the heart of downtown(broad, high, state) on the weekend's or after 5pm, most fast food or lunch restaurants close.
Heck, dunkin donuts opened a few years back and recently closed because business was slow at broad and high.
Subway at high and state street closes at 3pm on Sundays because of slow business.
On state holidays, with State workers off, it's almost dead....
You mostly cota bus riders and stragglers from nearby events.
Hopefully this park/ entertainment venue will bring people back....
That's because, as people know, people don't live downtown. Businesses are structured to serve the working commuters. Over 110 companies have headquarters downtown, with 100,000 employees and the
$375,000,000 in spending power that goes with them. Businesses cater to that.
In the immediate downtown, life is starting to pick up. In 2005 the population was 2,200; it just recently topped 6,000. While the figure isn't great, the rate of increase is nice. Overall downtown has 65,000 residents, that needs to be doubled.
In my opinion the best thing for downtown would be to a streetcar line from German Village, to downtown, the Arena District, Short North, all of the way to Ohio State's Ohio Union. Something very similar to this, although I'd lengthen the route south to around Thurman Avenue. It would connect several neighborhoods and make it much easier for someone to go visit downtown; it would also allow someone to live downtown and have greater access to surrounding neighborhoods. The people who live downtown in condos and whatnot are the same people who don't want to drive everywhere, statistics back it up. Fuck the dirty COTA
busing system.
To be fair, the places around downtown are having a ton of success. The Short North is fantastic and only getting better. The $75 million invested into the Arena District has led to $1 billion in economic return.
You have to build for momentum, and the Columbus Commons is doing just that. In my opinion it won't be enough, we need to connect the neighborhoods.
