No mention of Columbus sports park in new Ohio state fairgrounds master plan

Four years ago, Columbus city leaders announced they would construct a sprawling array of public recreational fields and indoor sports courts on land at the Ohio Expo Center & State Fair as part of the deal for a new Columbus Crew stadium.

On Thursday, a long-awaited master plan for the historic site released by Gov. Mike DeWine didn't mention the project.

The outline, however, did discuss potentially giving more state land to the Crew professional soccer team for use as a private team practice facility, but conceptual site plans don't show that either.

"At this time, the vision presented today does not include expanding the property lease for Historic Crew Stadium or the City of Columbus," Expo Center spokeswoman Alicia Shoults said in an email.

The presentation appears to further put a nail in the coffin to what Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther once called the most important prong of the lavish city mission to keep the Crew from leaving town by constructing a new Downtown stadium.

Ginther held up the sports park in late 2018 as the main public benefit to the stadium project as if a done deal, when in fact Expo Center officials hadn't even been briefed and hadn't agreed to give the city anything. The city jettisoned the proposal in July for a new site several miles to the north near Westerville.

Despite going on 48 months of deadlock, DeWine wouldn't say Thursday that the city's proposal is officially dead — even as the city moves forward with its new sports facility at Kilbourne Run, an alternate 69-acre tract of open land that already serves as a city Recreation and Parks Department sports park.

Ginther said last summer that the 2018 announcement was based on DeWine's backing.

"We made that announcement based on that commitment," Ginther said. "... The governor made a commitment and I take him at his word."

"I believe him to be a man of his word," Ginther said of DeWine in a statement from his office Thursday. "We are frustrated and have grown impatient at the lag time to fulfill this promise," adding that he stands ready to build the complex if the state grants a lease for the land at the fairgrounds.

A DeWine spokesperson had said last summer that the master plan would guide any potential negotiations on giving state land to the city.

"I'm someone who always tries to get things worked out," DeWine said Thursday. "We have certainly an interest. The Crew does; certainly, the mayor does. And we're trying to figure out a way basically to accommodate everyone."

Asked if he had given Ginther his word the project would happen, DeWine said, "Look, I have a great relationship with the mayor, so we're going to continue to work on things. They have certain objectives; we have certain objectives. But on the fairgrounds, we have so much land right here."

And that land will remain at a premium now that moving the fairgrounds to a new, less urban location is off the table, with the new master plan's major improvements to be made to the Expo Center, including demolishing outdated buildings and constructing new ones around a "village green" theme.

"One of the things this group looked at is, should the state fair be here," DeWine said. "We had offers from Madison County, other discussions about moving somewhere else. The resounding answer that came back was the state fair needs to stay on these grounds. That this was really the best location," being centrally located in the state with good highway access.

"So I think that debate is over with," DeWine said of moving the fairgrounds.

The presentation noted that the mayor's office was one of the stakeholders interviewed for the master plan report.

Also interviewed were the Crew and its owner, Haslam Sports Group. The master plan notes that the team has concerns over parking at HIstoric Crew Stadium, formerly Mapfre Stadium, which is now a practice facility and concert venue. It would like to coordinate events with the Expo Center, and "they would like two more practice fields in the future."

In 2018, Ginther said, "If your top three priorities are neighborhoods, neighborhoods, neighborhoods ... the only way public-private partnerships work and the Columbus way thrives is if everyone benefits."

City Council President Shannon Hardin said at the 2018 sports park announcement that he had only one request of Ginther in return for his support for the Crew stadium project: "that we have a clear community benefit."

"When we started to talk about the repurposing of this facility for this neighborhood who has for so often felt left behind, I said this is it; that is leadership," Hardin said, adding that a sports park for Linden "meets those goals."

Virgil Strickler, general manager of the Ohio Expo Center & State Fair, eventually came out against the plan, saying parking was critical to the Expo Center and fairgrounds' operation. That's something, he said, he would have told the plan's backers had they asked.

wbush@gannett.com

@ReporterBush

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: No sports park envisioned in new Ohio Expo Center and Fair master plan