Crandall Touts Bright Horizon for Hilliard
State of the City Address Shows Dynamism, Maturing Development Cycle and AMTRAK?
A groundbreaking is set for 10 a.m. April 14 for Hilliard’s future Recreation and Wellness campus, a 105,000-square-foot facility that is also to house an integrated medical center staffed by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
The project is among Hilliard’s future goals that City Manager Michelle Crandall highlighted at her third annual State of the City address March 21 at the Center Street Market in Old Hilliard.
The nearly $70 million project is to be funded in part by the 0.5-percentage-point income-tax increase voters approved in November 2021.
It is to be constructed just west of the Roger A. Reynolds Municipal Park.
“This development will play a defining role in our city’s future,” Crandall said.
It is to include an aquatic facility, community-event rooms, a commercial and teaching kitchen, multi-use activity space, and a 25,000 square-foot wellness center staffed by OSU’s Wexner Medical Center, which is only one example of Hilliard’s collaboration, according to Crandall.
“Another area we see as being ripe for such partnerships is the rising tide of high-tech businesses in Hilliard and throughout central Ohio,” Crandall said.
Last year, Hilliard and Converge Technologies, 4621 Lyman Drive, created Hilliard City Lab, where entrepreneurs can gain access to city-provided infrastructure and services.
“It allows a business to prototype new technologies in a real-world environment (and) our entire city becomes a test bed for start-ups. In return, (Hilliard) benefits from the attraction and expansion of high-tech businesses and the (associated) income-tax revenue,”
Major Equity project, TruePointe, to mark new stage of commercial development in Hilliard.
“When completed, it will be Hilliard’s first true mixed-use development,” Crandall said of the development by Hilliard-based Equity.
The first stages of construction are underway on the $100 million mixed-use development.
TruePointe is to be built on 28 acres on the west side of Trueman Boulevard, approximately 1,500 feet south of Davidson Road.
It has approximately 1,900 feet of frontage on Trueman Boulevard and 2,100 feet of frontage along Interstate 270, according to the staff report, and was part of the SOMA rezoning in 1998.
According to the final development plan, TruePointe is to include 15 building lots, 359 multi-family dwelling units in 5 buildings, a 6-story parking garage with 616 spaces, and a second 6-story parking garage with 708 spaces, on 28 acres. Additionally, it is expected to include restaurants not currently in the Central Ohio market, according to Crandall.
“(TruePointe) will change the face of Hilliard,” Steve Wathen, CEO of Equity, told the former Hilliard ThisWeek News in July 2022.
Crandall also took the opportunity to speak about several future projects, definitively on the books and some more visionary.
In May, construction is to begin on the city’s 16th traffic roundabout at Cosgray Road and Woodsview Way. Construction is expected to be finished by the end of September.
In conjunction with the building of the Recreation and Wellness campus, construction is to start on the extension of Cosgray Road, south across Scioto Darby Road to Alton Darby Road.
Crandall also shared that city is cooperating with regional partners to explore the possibility of creating an Amtrak station in Hilliard that would take travelers between Pittsburgh to the west, and Chicago to the east.
“Landing an Amtrak station in Hilliard would have major economic benefits for our community (and) provide an incredible transportation option for those who live and work here,” Michelle Crandall - City Manager Hilliard
Director of Communications David Ball added that while Amtrak had yet to select final sites “Hilliard wants to position itself to be a front-runner for consideration…for a central Ohio stop.”
http://media.amtrak.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/3CD-Corridor-Fact-Sheet-05-17-Final.pdf Amtrak Documents regarding the potential development
Finally, in perhaps the most eye-popping detail; Crandall shared the city’s income-tax revenue was nearly $47 million in 2022, more than three times the amount of $13 million it received twenty years ago.
Crandall, like many city managers and mayors of central Ohio suburbs, delivers an annual address, typically in the first quarter of the year, outlining the city’s past achievement and forecasting future goals.
Crandall began serving as Hilliard’s first city manager in January 2020, following a voter-approved charter amendment that placed a City Council-appointed city manager in the stead of an elected mayor.