Columbus taxpayers paying $54.6M toward North Market expansion, Merchant Building project
By a narrow 4-3 vote, Columbus City Council approved an amended economic development agreement and other legislation Monday that provides more than $31 million toward renovations and expansion at the North Market and construction of a parking garage and other improvements to support private developers building the adjacent 32-story Merchant Building tower.
Among the spending approved Monday by the City Council: $10.5 million for a 19,000-square-foot expansion of the market that will include a new public atrium, patio and plaza; $8.4 million toward what was a previously proposed 350-space parking garage that will include 80 spaces for market visitors and 200 spaces for public use; $4.7 million for utility relocations underground and $1 million to fund streetscape work.
In addition, the city's amended agreement allocates $7.1 million for removal of a centuries-old graveyard underneath the North Market's existing parking lot where the Merchant Building will be constructed. The funds will go for the honorable removal and care of human remains, including excavation, scientific and historical analysis and reinternment at Green Lawn Cemetery.
Those expenditures are part of a total $54.6 million that Columbus taxpayers are paying toward the North Market expansion and Merchant Building project, a city Department of Development spokesman said Tuesday in response to a Dispatch inquiry.
A representative from Rockbridge, a Columbus real estate investment firm which is developing the Merchant Building tower with the Edwards Co. under a limited liability company, confirmed to The Dispatch on Monday that the developers had asked the city for extra funds because they were “necessary for the project to move forward.”
Council President Shannon G. Hardin and Councilmembers Nicholas Bankston, Mitchell Brown and Emmanuel Remy voted in favor of the amended development agreement spending. Council President Pro Tempore Rob Dorans and Council members Lourdes Barroso de Padilla, and Shayla Favor opposed construction-related funding legislation.
However, the council members did unanimously approve allocating $475,000 — which could be increased to a total of $950,000 — to provide support funding to the market and merchants whose operations will be affected by the construction work. Work is tentatively expected to be completed by late 2026, according to the Department of Development.
Bankston, who chairs the council's economic development committee and took a lead role in negotiations with the Merchant Building developers, said that the project was a good deal for the city of Columbus. He cited construction of affordable housing as part of the tower deal and benefits to minority and women-owned businesses.
"I understand the sticker shock that my colleagues and members of the community may be experiencing. This is a significant public investment," said Bankston. "That said, as a rapidly growing city ... we have the ability to make capital investments such as this one."
Bankston said the money being spent on the project would not come at the expense of the city's neighborhoods. "Simply put, that quality of life that we fight for, and other capital improvements, don't get done if we don't do economic development," he said.
Among the public speakers who urged the council to support the project was Mohamed Hassan, who along with his brother operates Hoyo's Kitchen, a Somali cuisine vendor at North Market. He said the business had jumped at the chance to get a stall in the market five years ago, and credited the exposure with the expansion of Hoyo's business.
"We went from barely hanging on to four other locations in Columbus area," Hassan said. He said the North Market renovations and expansion will help grow local small businesses like his, which "ultimately helps families help themselves."
However, several members of the public voiced their opposition to the project during the council's public comment period Monday.
"This has to be one of the largest pork-barrel projects ever devised in Columbus by local politicians, special interest groups and well-connected lobbyists," said Joe Motil, who is running against Mayor Andrew Ginther in the November general election. "These deep-pocketed developers can afford to help our minority firms and to provide construction job opportunities out of the goodness of their heart, and should do so without an excessive taxpayer subsidy."
Dorans voted against the deal with the private developers, citing inadequate labor protections and assurances that development will have a beneficial impact on taxpayers. Barroso de Padilla, who also withheld her support, cited "nuances" that "made it hard for her to get behind" the project.
The North Market, which has been in existence since 1876, is owned by the city and operated by the nonprofit North Market Development Authority.
Rockbridge and the Edwards Cos., previously announced that the approximately $300-million, 32-story Merchant Building tower would include 65,000 square feet of offices, 174 residences, a 162-room boutique hotel, 44 additional guest rooms in what is called the "Merchant Club," a restaurant with an upper deck patio and bar, event space, café and retail space.
The city's Department of Development reported it expects the North Market project to generate more than 500,000 new annual visits to the market above the more than 2 million it currently generates, boosting sales by $10 million per year. Approximately 60% of current market vendors are women and minority-owned businesses, according to the department.
Michael Stevens, director of the city Department of Development, told The Dispatch that the project overall is expected to have a $200 million tax benefit to the city over 30 years, creating around 1900 construction jobs and 1100 permanent jobs.
As part of the new amended development deal, the city has committed that 30% of construction-related spending will also go to women and minority-owned businesses.
Under the deal with the city, the developers are required to build 50 new units of affordable housing both on-site and off-site, including 25 at 80% of area median income (AMI) and 25 at 100% AMI, according to Stevens.
The early city graveyard upon which the North Market parking lot sat and where the Merchant Building would be built was established in 1813, but became full by the 1860s, according to Tara Rose, an archaeologist at Lawhon & Associates, the firm leading the grave site remediation. Some, but not all, graves were transferred to Greenlawn Cemetery in the 19th century.
The discovery of extant human remains at the site — along with the COVID-19 pandemic — had delayed the new construction project.
Rose said that the firm had initially expected to find "roughly 200 mostly empty graves."
"Instead, we found many multiples more, with a higher percentage of intact graves than anticipated," she said.
Stevens said a total of around 1,000 graves were found.
The buried individuals will be documented and transferred to Greenlawn Cemetery to be reinterred, according to Rose.
The cost of the grave site remediation was originally estimated at around $1 million but has ballooned to $7.1 million.
Bankston characterized the grave relocation effort as righting a wrong that previous generations had created.
Rick Harrison Wolfe, executive director and CEO of the North Market, said he is monitoring sales in the market as the project proceeds.
“We’re feeling good about it so far,” Wolfe said. “We don’t want anybody going out of business during this project."
More: North Market Redevelopment Forces Columbus to Confront the Saga of the North Graveyard
Dispatch reporter Mark Ferenchik contributed to this story.
Peter Gill covers immigration, new American communities and religion for The Dispatch in partnership with Report for America. You can support work like his with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America at: bit.ly/3fNsGaZ.
pgill@dispatch.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Council OKs $31M for North Market expansion, gravesite remediation
