The center of urban Columbus is without a doubt High St (specifically N High). Businesses routinely open here all the time since it’s assumed that it’s more popular and safer. In just over a week, Kickstart was robbed (see the older post), Blue Nile was robbed (the owner was filling out a report of some kind when I was there for lunch), someone stole my rear red light on my bike which was parked on High between 4th and 5th (I should have known better) and the night after that I see a police car parked on Park St from Mojoe Lounge and a helicopter with it’s search light flying around nearby. Petty crime (not so when it happens to you, it’s anything but “petty”) occurs all the time on High St and routinely affects visitors and businesses, yet it remains extremely popular.
So with that in mind, why wouldn’t another currently less popular urban street be a viable, even preferable option? High St is not only a more obvious target, but since other streets like W Broad or Parsons are off of the radar, there is less competition from nearby businesses and parking is also much easier to find and free (at the time being) compared to what you’ll find on High, and crime isn’t significantly higher (of course, that varies since Cleveland in Milo-Grogan, for example, isn’t the same as Cleveland in South Linden). In fact, a market study which focuses on Parsons Ave shows that not only is crime comparable to the rest of the city, but other areas of town including the Near East side and Franklinton are also comparable or even preferable in some instances to Downtown and the Short North. This demonstrates once again, that although crime is a real factor to consider, it is exaggerated in some neighborhoods to a much greater degree than what occurs.
Of course, some are going to be better than others and your business might work great on one street, but not on another. Needless to say, there is plenty of research to be done and quality destinations which can draw visitors are well suited for bringing some vitality. One factor is walkability. W Broad in Highland West has without question the densest collection of urban commercial buildings outside of the Short North and Old North Columbus. Another factor is location. That dense collection of buildings is over 3 miles from Downtown, so it may be harder to draw visitors, especially if you’re not a business that serves as a city-wide destination. Then there is traffic volume and you can see for yourself what these are even on various stretches of the same street thanks to the MORPC Traffic Count Database System. There you can see, for example, where on Parsons has a high traffic volume and also where crashes have occurred (including severity of the crashes) and where pedestrians have been hit to see how pedestrian-friendly a particular stretch of road is.
So if you’re keen on opening shop on N High, especially a destination, at least consider one of the many streets other than High just outside of Downtown. Even better if you can convince other entrepreneurs that would compliment your business to open next door and form a lively block where each business benefits from the synergy they create together.With a current “city” population over 750,000, double that when you include the burbs, there are definitely enough people out there to support more major urban streets than just High, but they need a reason to come there. And getting word out is now much easier than ever with the existence of Columbus Underground to immediately attract patrons.
