Bottoms up: Gentrification in Franklinton
By Massarah Mikati
Sitting in front of a lavish, hip piece of artwork, Jim Sweeney, executive director of the Franklinton Development Association, reflected on what his office location used to be.
“This building itself was a quick-pit carry out,” he said. “Most of their business was harboring drug dealers who all sold drugs on this corner here.”
He gestured outside the one-way mirror windows lining his royal blue, cube-shaped office building, saying everyone knew not to stop at that street corner. Across the street, a Caterpillar excavator was busy clawing its way through a now-empty lot.
Over the last decade, Columbus, Ohio has evolved into one of the largest and greatest cities in America, ranking among some of the best places to live in the nation. But Ohio’s capital only became the flourishing, young city we know it as today after years of redevelopment — and the positive changes did not arise without consequences.
By increasing the property value, and subsequently the cost of living, of certain Columbus neighborhoods, the original inhabitants were no longer able to afford their hometowns and were thereby displaced — a phenomenon known as gentrification. An analysis of home values in Columbus neighborhoods from 2000 to 2015 clearly exhibits this increase in values.
“Gentrification would be characterized by land values rising,” said Donald Haurin, professor emeritus in the Department of Economics. “It’s a very natural process and lots of people are going to end up moving around lots of places.”
In Columbus, the neighborhoods impacted by gentrification include the Short North, Italian Village and Olde Towne East. Now, redevelopment, an increase of home values and the possibility of gentrification have been unraveling in another neighborhood: Franklinton, the first and original neighborhood of Columbus.
Let’s talk gentrification
Sixteen years ago, the Short North, Italian Village and Olde Towne East were rundown, dangerous and highly avoided. But this changed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as the neighborhoods’ economic and tourist potentials were recognized. After years of significant development, they became the noteworthy sights and sounds of the 614 — and also the most gentrified areas of Columbus.
So what is gentrification, and how did these Columbus gems become living examples of the cursed phenomenon?
Gentrification occurs when low-income families and individuals optimistically working their way up the ladder buy homes in lower-income areas — a common trend in the these neighborhoods. When they begin investing time and money into developing their houses and neighborhoods, restaurants, shops and galleries start to pop up. Higher-income families then become attracted to those areas, bringing their wealth with them. As wealth floods the area, property value increases, and those who had been living in the neighborhoods for generations can no longer afford to call them home.
This process is clear when evaluating the change in home values in these neighborhoods.
Overall, the average housing price for a piece of property in one of these three Columbus neighborhoods in 2000 was $52,124, compared to their 2015 average of $134,052.
They all share relatively the same story: value and potential profit-machines are found in a low-income, crime-infested neighborhood. The first people that move in may sacrifice safety and amenities for the cheap housing prices they get. The neighborhood starts to take off, attracting masses of higher-income people, new amenities, shops and restaurants. With that, home values shoot up, and the original inhabitants leave to find another neighborhood where rent is still affordable.
During the 1980s, antique stores and art galleries began to open in the empty, warehouse-populated Short North. As a hip culture and gallery hops flooded the area, safety in numbers improved the neighborhood’s crime rate, and interest and redevelopment soared in the area.
A previously drug-ridden neighborhood filled with gang violence and street-level crime, the Short North had an average housing cost of $74,916 in 2000, compared to its $178,305 expense that we see today. That value shot up by $10,000 between 2001 and 2002, around the same time light poles went up and crime rates went down on South High Street, enhancing the growing popularity of Gallery Hop that had become a staple to young, aspiring artists.
Olde Towne East has a similar tale to tell. The neighborhood that currently makes up the East side of Columbus has seen an increase of over $70,000 in average home values since 2000. The gentrification is visually visible in this neighborhood, with just a few blocks making up the divide between the affluent and poorer areas.
Italian Village had the most drastic change in home values of all the neighborhoods, from $59,386 in 2000 to $129,294 in 2015. The neighborhood’s home values saw a spike of over $20,000 between 2004 and 2005.
Now, Columbus’ beloved and original neighborhood, Franklinton may be going down the same path as its predecessors.
Franklinton on the radar
Wayne Smith, owner of The Patio Bar and Grill, lived in Franklinton his entire life. It wasn’t until he moved to the North side of Franklinton, after returning from his time in service for the army, that he started to see Franklinton go downhill.
“The neighborhood to me was normal because that is just what I thought it should be,” Smith said. “By the 50s and into the 60s, this was a working class neighborhood.”
Franklinton is the lowest-income area in Columbus. The median income of households in East Franklinton is $10,000 per year, and 40 percent of households in West Franklinton earn an income of less than $15,000 per year.
“People started moving out and renting, which is where you get your slum areas,” Smith said.
One of the main issues that has plagued Franklinton over the years is slumlords that take advantage of low-income individuals and families, renting out substandard homes to people for extremely high prices.
Franklinton was the first neighborhood of Columbus, established in 1797. Located west of the Scioto River, just across from downtown, it has a prime location for young professionals commuting to their city jobs.
However, the neighborhood’s location on the river has been a double-edged sword, as it was victim of multiple floods that pushed the poverty rate of the area before a floodwall completed construction in 2004. It has been nicknamed “The Bottoms” ever since.
In 1993 — the same year construction of the floodwall began — , a group of community enthusiasts saw the opportunity for growth and development in Franklinton, and came together to form the non-profit organization Franklinton Development Association.
“The goal is to revitalize the neighborhood for those who live here, and to also attract new people to the area,” Jim Sweeney, executive director of FDA, said. “We are hoping that mixing people of higher income with people of lower income will bring with it retail services that are reliant upon more disposable income across the area.”
One of these retail services, Sweeney said, is establishing a grocery store in the neighborhood. Food scarcity is a prominent issue in the Franklinton neighborhood, with the nearest Kroger being almost three miles away — an inconvenient distance for such a low-income population, most of which does not own cars. Many residents resort to nearer but more expensive small mom and pop shops for their pantry needs.
“The problem is that Franklinton is so depopulated and the incomes here are so low that there is just not enough money here to support a grocery store,” Sweeney said. He hopes that fostering a higher-income neighborhood would provide more incentive for a grocery store to open in the area.
The FDA’s main goal is to change the depressed real estate values in Franklinton in order to attract a private sector to invest in remodeled houses. They have been working on boosting these values by strategically investing in different blocks in Franklinton. According to their website, they have built and remodeled over 150 new homes.
“Part of those have been sold to moderate income families, the other has been reserved for a management company that the FDA hired so they will control the rent to keep it affordable,” said Brenda St-Clair, president of the Franklinton Arts District and lifelong Franklinton resident. “If people rehab their properties, and we reclaim the boarded-up houses, then the overall property value goes up. At the same time, they are building housing stock for low-income people.”
The development process is simple: the FDA buys property at fair-market value, which can be between $8,000 and $10,000 depending on the houses’ conditions. They rehab and remodel the houses, then sell them at fair-market price. In 2015, FDA sold four remodeled homes in the West Franklinton area for prices between $115,000 and $134,000.
“I think everybody should be happy with redevelopment because it makes your home value go up, it makes your neighborhood better,” Smith said.
Franklinton’s home values have indeed significantly increased in the past 15 years. While the average home value in West Franklinton in 2000 was almost $78,409, that number increased to over $133,654 by 2015. Median home values, in the meantime, have more than doubled since 2000. The main spike occurred between 2005 and 2006, with the average value increasing by over $21,000 and the median increasing by over $11,000.
Despite the positive impacts of the redevelopment of Franklinton, its residents and community members are still concerned about the cultural changes and possibility of gentrification.
“Our hope is to… become one community together, (but) that has proven to be a little more difficult that we thought,” St-Clair said. “We have two different establishments with two different demographics.”
Where is Franklinton going?
When Smith was a young boy, he grew up in the projects in East Franklinton, located on Walnut, Skidmore and Rich streets. Those projects are now gone. When he was 12-years-old, Smith used to carry newspapers to houses all over Franklinton, including around now-Cosi, then-Central High School. Those houses are now empty lots.
“Right now, (people) are watching their neighborhood being taken away from them day by day,” Nakia Johnson, a West Franklinton resident, said. “Every day something is happening, that street is gone (and) that street is gone.”
But is gentrification in Franklinton’s future? According to Sweeney, the FDA is doing everything they can to ensure that just the opposite happens.
“We have to be patient and understand that real estate values need to grow in order for the private sector to do a better of job of improving the housing and other things,” Sweeney said. “It’s not going to happen overnight, and it shouldn’t. If we force it to happen too fast we will end up damaging the neighborhood and people that live here.
Yet according to Haurin, the real estate values increasing is exactly what would lead to gentrification.
“If people are looking to move into Franklinton, land values will then be rising, property values will rise, eventually property taxes increase,” Haurin said. “(Landlords) are going to charge higher rents, it’s a natural economic response.”
If Franklinton’s redevelopment and renewal process is competitive in comparison to other redeveloping neighborhoods, it will attract more high-income people, which naturally results into lower-income people being displaced and looking for cheaper rents elsewhere, he said.
In addition to gentrification, however, residents are bothered by the divisive effect the redevelopment has had on the Franklinton community, splitting it into East and West.
“I think the people in East Franklinton are very excited about the opportunities, and I think that the people in West Franklinton are a little concerned,” said Gale Gray, community outreach coordinator for the City of Columbus. “If we are creating a new community then let’s go ahead and spread the wealth of it.”
Sweeney described East Franklinton as a “missing connective tissue.”
“We have to fill in this gap before we can connect (Franklinton) to downtown,” he said.
With the new arts district being located in East Franklinton, the hub of which is 400 West Rich, some people are perceiving that East Franklinton is the center of most of the development and growth, leaving West Franklinton behind.
Sweeney says that this popular perception is a misconception, though. Of the more than 150 homes the FDA has redeveloped, only six of them were in East Franklinton.
Yet despite West Franklinton seeing more home redevelopment, in the past 15 years East Franklinton’s home values have consistently been higher than those of West Franklinton, save for 2002 and 2003. East Franklinton saw its most significant spike in 2001 of over $47,000.
This trend of higher home values could be attributed to East Franklinton’s higher rate of business revitalization, especially when the $60 million development West Edge Business Center was launched in 2001 to bring business growth and 1,000 jobs to the area.
Since then, East Franklinton has only grown with more hip restaurants and bars.
“I think that Franklinton is the coolest place in Columbus, it really is becoming the new Short North,” said Cory Davidson, an artist in 400 West Rich. “It is growing tenfold since I have been here, there is a waiting list for studios of 200-plus people.”
But according to St-Clair, the Short North is the FDA’s example of exactly what they don’t want to happen.
“The arts community is how the Short North started out, a bunch of young artists in small studios with small galleries,” St-Clair said. “As it developed, the galleries became so expensive that unless you were a successful artist, you could not afford a studio there. So one of our goals is to keep everything affordable.”
Davidson is not seeing affordability being maintained as a priority for the development, though.
“It is going to get ridiculous,” he said. “They are building these condos that are (about) $150,000 apiece, and that right there is exactly why I am going to end up getting kicked out of here.”
Despite his concerns, Davidson and others remain excited for what East Franklinton will turn into, especially with its flourishing art scene.
“I see East Franklinton as a stepping stone for artists and that is totally awesome,” Gray said. “It also seems like a lot of young people like to go there for Franklinton Fridays and Independent’s Day, so there is a lot of hope there.”
Sweeney believes that branding Franklinton with this new image will help improve the neighborhood for everyone.
“We have started talking about Franklinton in a whole different light; it is a place for young creatives to get an affordable place and do good community work, and now people are very interested in it,” he said. “This is a multi-generational decline that has happened here, and it will be a multi-generational recovery.”
