Columbus artists put colorful paint on soon-to-be-demolished Whitehall houses

Mandi Caskey carefully navigated through overgrown grass beset with insects and who knows what else as she made her way through the abandoned row of houses off of Midcliff Drive, a road in Whitehall long closed to the public.

Wire fencing around the massive property on the northeast corner of Broad Street and Hamilton Road serves as a barrier to keep people away, but Caskey was by no means trespassing. As she reached her destination, Caskey, 28, pulled out her camera phone and began to make her way from one house to the next to document the colorful paint job that days earlier, she and a team of about 15 other volunteer artists applied.

The line of vacant houses along Hamilton Road was once like the other 100 or so buildings in the shuttered condo complex: drab and derelict, left to crumble and decay until such a time as the city of Whitehall is able to demolish them. The city purchased the 50-acre property, once the long-troubled Woodcliff condominiums, three years ago to make way for a $250 million mixed-use development that will include residences, shops, restaurants and offices.

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But rather than allow the most visible of the houses to remain eyesores near the highly trafficked eastern entrance to Whitehall, Caskey had a better idea.

Why not splash some bright colors on them, adding back some life to the deserted area while sending a message to Whitehall residents that rejuvenation is on the horizon?

“I imagined a gradient going down the road,” said Caskey, a resident of the King-Lincoln Bronzeville neighborhood on the city’s Near East Side. “I thought it could brighten up the area and make something that is pretty ugly into something that is interesting and conversation-worthy.”

More on the plans for site of Woodcliff condominiums: Demolition to start soon for major Whitehall redevelopment

Catalyst Columbus, the nonprofit foundation that Caskey and real estate investor Brian Suiter co-founded in 2019 with the mission of facilitating the creation of large-scale murals and other public artwork, had agreed with the city of Whitehall to commission an artist to create a permanent sculpture at the new development.

Before Caskey and Suiter could envision such an art piece, the pair decided to visit the site themselves where someday soon, an outdoor amphitheater, a green space and ponds that blend into the adjacent 80-acre Whitehall Community Park will also be featured.

But construction has stalled as the city awaits word of whether it will receive funds through the Central Ohio Community Improvement Corp. to help offset the estimated $6 million demolition cost.

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Unable to suppress her creative spirit, Caskey didn’t want to wait to infuse the area with art.

She was thrilled when Whitehall city leaders indicated they didn’t want to wait, either.

As massive development projects have proliferated across Whitehall, its leaders have sought to embrace and grow its art scene by incorporating public art throughout the city, said Megan Meyer, Whitehall’s deputy director of public affairs. That effort began when a mural on South Yearling Road was recently finished in Whitehall, and Meyer said the city hopes that artists like Caskey will continue to see Whitehall as a blank canvas ripe for their creativity.

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Caskey took inspiration from Whitehall’s logo, which incorporates colors of red, green and blue, to create what became a much more- colorful palette for the houses. It took a team of about 15 volunteers for Catalyst Columbus three days of painting before the project was complete, wrapping up hours after the start of the Whitehall Food Truck Festival on July 30.

No surface nor object was spared from the hues of purple, blue, green and red that were spray-painted along the fronts of a row of 23 houses facing the bustling Hamilton Road: The nub of a broken tree branch on top of a roof. The back of a tan couch pushed up against the busted-out front window of a purple home. The backside of a child's pirate action figure was left lying face-down on a spray-painted stoop.

Caskey and her team didn’t even spare the windows.

'Created a little beauty out of decrepitness'

Caskey’s plan for the houses may be temporary, but Meyer said the colorful row of houses has already left an indelible mark on passersby.

“Some people love it, some people are like, ‘Why?’ but it’s art,” Meyer said. “The idea was to give this area life one more time as it is in transition … It’s a last hurrah for this public infrastructure that will be coming down.”

Aside from vandals and the occasional visit from the city and other municipalities that use the site for public safety and fire training, the houses have largely sat unused and undisturbed for three years behind wire fencing.

And in that time, nature has begun to reclaim the land.

Startled by the presence of people on Thursday, a group of deer nesting in overgrown grass scatter and run. Another smaller unidentified animal scuttles quickly out of sight into one of the painted buildings.

Dying smoke detectors intermittently beep, crying for fresh batteries to give them life.

Caskey and Suiter are no strangers to creating vibrant art in seemingly-abandoned or empty spaces.

Previous Catalyst Columbus project: Columbus artists adorn abandoned I-70/I-71 overpass with giant mural

Not long after moving from her hometown of Lima to pursue a fine arts degree at the Columbus College of Art and Design, Caskey dropped out to focus on creating street art.

Caskey began collaborating with businesses and working at Columbus-area festivals such as the defunct Independents’ Day. In the years since, she’s established herself as a muralist of international renown who has traveled the globe to places such as Israel, Australia and Spain to create public artwork.

It’s through Caskey’s passion for infusing public spaces with vibrant art that she connected with Suiter, a Columbus-based real estate developer and investor who has often advocated that development projects include such artistic flair.

After founding Catalyst Columbus, the pair took on their first largescale project in the summer of 2020: a 400-foot mural reading “We are stronger together” that covered an abandoned I-71 overpass near West Whittier Street and the Scioto Audubon Metro Park.

Like the houses on Hamilton Road, the artwork on the overpass in a construction zone was not intended to last. Rather, in their evanescent nature, Caskey and Suiter believe such projects can persist long enough to create an impression.

“(The houses have) created a little beauty out of decrepitness,” said Suiter, 44, who lives with his wife in German Village. “The fact that people are talking about it is much better than talking about rundown houses that are taking up a major stretch of road.”

The fleeting but profound nature of such artwork is a theme that intrigues Caskey, who will take it one step further on Saturday. With the assistance of the Whitehall Division of Fire, Caskey will paint two murals on the sides of two houses facing one another at the Woodcliff site before one of them is set alight and burned down around 6:30 p.m. that evening.

While one burns, the siding of the adjacent house will melt. The public is invited to attend the event, which will include food trucks and live music, Caskey said.

“I’m not really sure what the murals will end up looking like in the end, which is the interesting part,” Caskey said. “I think it’ll be quite beautiful.”

elagatta@dispatch.com.

@EricLagatta

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Artists put colorful paint on Whitehall houses facing demolition