| Clintonville for much of the 1800s was the “empty space” between Old North Columbus and Worthington along the High Street stage coach route. In an attempt to draw others to the area the Bull family built businesses in the center of Clinton Township, along North High Street in the mid 1800s. By the early 1900s, downtown Columbus residents and Ohio State professors built summer homes here. Eventually, with the extension of streetcar lines into the neighborhood, Clintonville filled in. Clintonville never really lost its market strength and luster the several decades after WWII. But High Street and Indianola lost much of their urban fabric due to miss guided auto centric development. Since the 2000s the Clintonville housing market has strengthened even more and now most homes sell in the 300ks and 400ks. Its high market value is due to Clintonville’s strong schools, great parks, large back yards, safety, and convenient access to Dwtn and Ohio State. There are several urban areas for Clintonville to improve including more quality urban infill along its commercial corridors, more density, better bike infrastructure, and more intentional affordable housing. Clintonville residents, while mostly liberal, can be rather Nimbyistic blocking quality urban in-fill and affordable housing projects. |
URBAN STRENGTHS:
| * Okay access to Dwtn but very convenient access to Ohio State, obviously another major jobs center. * Good number of rentals generally at moderate rents. 1-bedrooms btwn 700-$1,000, 2-bedrooms btwn $800 and the low $1,000s, and 3-bedrooms generally in the mid $1,000s. * Excellent tree canopy. * Great park amenities including the Olentangy trail and several large adjacent green spaces, the expansive Columbus Park of Roses, several ravines and sports fields. * Culturally Clintonville includes a nice diversity of restaurants, bars, & cafes, a local movie theater, a handful of art galleries, and the Columbus Civic Theater. * Good neighborhood amenities, although often with more suburban form. This includes several full sized supermarket, a public library, a couple drug stores, several, book stores, a good array of boutiques, and other general retail services. * This is a very safe community with limited blight. * Great array of public/private schools well representing K-12. |
URBAN WEAKNESSES:
| * Bike infrastructure is ok. A couple bike lanes and one dedicated bike station. * For Sale housing is on the high side but still a decent amount of diversity. Good amount of modest SF housing selling in the 200Ks. Most product of 3 & 4 bedroom well maintained homes sell in the 300Ks & 400Ks. L *Larger SF homes sell in the 500Ks & 600Ks. * Ok racial and economic diversity. * The urban form of Clintonville’s business districts is hit or miss. Some nice stretches of urban form along High Street (especially near Como) and a nice node on Indianola. But large primarily auto centric stretches on both streets, especially Indianola. * Limited modern in-fill and what does exist is mostly autocentric. |
Evaluating our Urban Communities [with a focus on America] 