City, OSU working to boost East Side

Campus hospital expansion to fuel reclamation plan

By Robert Vitale

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Ohio State University will reinvest $10 million in tax incentives from an expansion of its campus medical center to improve health care and housing on the East Side, officials said yesterday.

Mayor Michael B. Coleman and OSU President E. Gordon Gee made the announcement at University Hospital East, the center of an area that will be the focus of a decade-long effort to reclaim vacant houses, offer help to homebuyers and address problems with residents’ health and health care.

“It will change and transform this neighborhood for the better for generations to come,” said Coleman, who said he thinks the plan will help residents and not chase them away through gentrification.

OSU officials said they don’t know yet how the effort will be implemented. It will begin with a study of the neighborhood and input from residents.

The investment will include programs to buy and fix up homes and provide down-payment assistance to buyers. It also will include a $1 million initiative, run through neighborhood churches, to improve people’s diets and encourage them to exercise.

Ohio State announced plans last fall to build a new 17-story tower as part of a $1 billion expansion of the OSU Medical Center on its main campus. Officials say it will create 6,000 permanent jobs and 5,000 during construction.

The project is targeted for completion in 2014.

Columbus is offering Ohio State an incentive equal to 30 percent of city income taxes generated by the new jobs. City Council members must approve the agreement, which would be capped at $35 million over a 15-year span.

Columbus still would net about $77 million in new income taxes, Coleman estimated.

OSU, in return, would spend $10 million of its incentive money on the East Side effort.

Dr. Steven Gabbe, chief executive of the OSU Medical Center, said University Hospital East has renovated its patient floors in the past decade, rebuilt its emergency room and offered free health screenings on the East Side.

“That’s just the start in the years to come,” he said. “It’s a great example of neighbors helping neighbors.”

State Rep. W. Carlton Weddington, whose father delivered 3,000 babies during 40 years as a doctor on the East Side, said the focus on both health and housing is needed.

Problems ranging from high diabetes rates to a large number of vacant homes affect the quality of life for residents, said Weddington, a Democrat from Columbus.

“We’re in the epicenter, right here,” he said. “This says to the people who live in this neighborhood: The city cares; the Ohio State University cares.”