The South Side of Columbus – often forgotten and maligned by the rest of Central Ohio – could someday be transformed by two massive mixed-use developments with their developers seeking greater density (building higher) with little to no parking. One at the Great Southern Shopping Center, after it is bulldozed, and the other across South High St. from “The Fort,” which is near the State Route 104 on-ramps and a few miles from German Village.
The Fort (pictured above) is a 100-year-old former factory complex where firetrucks and fire ladders were built during the first half of last century. It was bought and repurposed in 2017 by Justin McAllister who moved in his high-end furniture manufacturing business while also setting up a small business hub now occupied by artists, photographers, a coffee roaster and a winery, among others. But McCallister has much bigger plans for The Fort – building a 1000-residential complex with shopping, dining and entertainment on the surrounding property and naming it “Steelton Village” to honor the neighborhood’s namesake.
And with the autonomous drone manufacturer Anduril building its plant near Rickenbacker airfield, and the Honda EV battery plant now emerging out of the farmland 40-miles southwest, City officials are strategizing for this migration of egomaniac and entitled “Tech Bros” and “Brogrammers” to the so-called “Silicon Heartland.” Together, Anduril and Honda are expected to bring over 6,000 jobs to Central Ohio.
Just over a year ago South Side advocate Bruce Miller – who was forced out as an area commissioner for his outspokenness – told the Free Press something very interesting when it comes to how City Hall sees Columbus’s future playing out, specifically on the South Side.
“Tony Celebrezze [Deputy Director for the Department of Building and Zoning Services in Columbus], in a conversation, told me that they want to – and this is a verbatim quote – they want to make the Far South corridor the next Short North or the next off-campus, as far as the way they look,” said Miller. “Celebrezze said they have completed studies where they have interviewed the people who are moving here for Intel and the Honda battery plant, and that they are already driving three or four hour commutes out in California and in the Silicon Valley, and so if they have to only drive 40 minutes to an hour one way, these people are saying, ‘Praise Jesus, hallelujah, we’ll do it.’”
No doubt, the migration of Tech Bros from California to Austin (Texas) not only skyrocketed housing costs but also made the working-class scoff at their arrogance and lack of social skills. Also concerning for a potential Columbus migration is that our West Coast “Tech Bros” could lean conservative and be very much “America First.”
Consider how Anduril’s founder, 32-year-old Palmer Luckey (pictured above with Jon Husted) admitted to spending $10,000 supporting a pro-Trump group dedicated to spreading viral content disparaging Hillary Clinton in 2016. What’s more, local progressive activist and freelance journalist Taylor Dorrell is onto something when he recently posted this on Twitter: “I now have an ongoing series of articles on the dystopian trajectory of Columbus as a kind of Cold War tech hub increasingly run by right-wing venture capitalists from Silicon Valley. And it’s only getting weirder.”
The right-wing venture capitalists who moved here from Silicon Valley is Drive Capital, founded by Mark Kvamme who raised millions for J.D. Vance’s Senate run. Calling themselves “strangers in a strange land” (that being Columbus), Drive Capital is raising millions to fund Anduril’s “Arsenal-1” plant.
“So why would Anduril pick Columbus?” asked Nick Solaro a partner at Drive Capital in a recently posted video pitching for Anduril. “It’s certainly not because of the weather. It’s because places like Columbus and the other cities around us have the raw materials for building truly scalable, next technology companies. He added these observations: “We have the human capital…We literally have energy and water…We have a welcoming political environment…We have high amounts of freedom.”
The proposed Anduril plant has already been met with one protest on site at Rickenbacker by ant-war and environmental activists, veterans, and social justice organizations. One demonstrator, Veterans for Peace activist Darrin Broering, refuted claims that Anduril would produce jobs, capital investments, and grants and other benefits from the state, or that it would strengthen national security and the military establishment. He explained that “We don’t really want our jobs and tax money going towards destruction when [they could be used for] productive forces instead…We’re out here to have our voices heard and to start networking and getting people together so we can start educating our community on what this is all about.” Other participants argued against the use of their tax dollars to kill people and warned that developing increasingly destructive weapons could lead to catastrophic outcomes.
Recruiting Tech Bros to Columbus is not all about where they will work but also where they’ll live. If Tony Celebrezze had his way “Easton South” would already be a reality. Indeed, Justin McCallister of The Fort, with help from Kyle Katz who developed the Buggyworks, is ready to put shovels in the ground as they see Steelton Village becoming an “endcap to the energy and investment spilling south from downtown.” The Free Press sent emails and called McCallister’s office but did not hear back.
The project is commendable considering the land across South High from The Fort is a wasteland of sorts, replete with a junkyard. Renderings of the project show Steelton Village connected to a new park area on the banks of the Scioto with a bridge crossing over the river to Berliner Park (pictured above).
It’s been several years McCallister and Katz proposed Steelton Village, but there was some movement on this as revealed in the January minutes of the South Side Area Commission’s monthly meeting. A letter of recommendation was requested by developers from the commission to allow the future site to be added to Zone In rules, as the property was in the boundaries of the City’s old zoning rules. Zone In is the City’s recent overhaul of zoning codes so to greenlight greater density by going higher if affordable housing is added while stipulating no parking requirements if the developer chooses.
The South Side Area Commission approved issuing the letter of recommendation, and City Council will take a vote to approve. The old zoning rules would have mandated less height and require parking. And as mentioned in a recent Free Press story, Zone In dramatically removes area commissions from the zoning and development process. Area commissions were strictly recommending bodies, but at the very least still gave the community a voice to push back against unwanted development by voting on variances and zoning changes.
The Free Press spoke with an area commissioner from the South Side on their condition of anonymity about the future of South Columbus. This area commissioner says many of his neighbors have concerns over what could happen at The Fort and the Great Southern Shopping Center.
“A majority of people don’t want the congestion and traffic, and everything that comes with it. Whether they’re being over scared, I can see their point. When you go to the Short North, it’s so congested and such a fight to find a parking spot. It seems as if we’re leaning towards this non-automobile lay of the land,” said the area commissioner who’s wary of how Bruce Miller was treated by City officials.
Young people in their 20s and 30s, said the area commissioner, have become very vocal in the Southend.
“They’re not looking at the big picture when they get to be 60 and 70-years-old and trying to bring groceries home,” said the area commissioner. “They’re not speaking to the majority of the neighborhood. Those who want walkable neighborhoods.”
The area commissioner believes there are two types of people these days living on the South Side and Far South Side of Columbus.
“There are people who have homes and there’s people who have houses. The people who have homes are planning on living here and dying here. And the people who have houses are just waiting for their property value to get high enough so they can bounce out of here and sell it for a profit. I don’t know how many of my friends have had to move out of here because they can't afford the taxes,” said the area commissioner
South Side residents have had meetings with Tony Celebrezze, who’s told them Zone In will usher in new businesses up and down S. High Street and Parsons and suggested these businesses don’t have to have parking.
“And I said, ‘Where’s everyone going to park’? He said ‘bikes and Uber, and nobody drives cars anymore’. They’re going to park in the residential neighborhoods, is what I see.
