Columbus Dispatch USA TODAY NETWORK
A Columbus company is taking another run at developing almost 40 acres in the heart of Worthington, one of the most-contentious pieces of property in central Ohio.
Lifestyle Communities this week submitted a 473-page plan to build 730 residences on the property, which once housed the United Methodist Children’s Home.
This is Lifestyle’s second effort to develop the 38-acre site, on the west side of High Street just north of downtown Worthington. In 2015, the company presented a plan to build about 350 apartments, and about 250 patio houses, town houses and larger single-family residences on the site.
Lifestyle withdrew the plan after considerable opposition from residents who thought the development was too dense and contained too many apartments. Residents also successfully opposed an earlier plan to put a grocery store on the site, which has sat largely unused for a decade, after the United Methodist Church closed the children’s home.
With its new plan, Lifestyles ups the ante, proposing 540 apartments instead of 350, and attached two- and three-story town houses instead of patio homes.
In a note accompanying the proposal, Lifestyle said the plan addresses a need for more housing options in Worthington, especially for newer, maintenance-free options. The company noted that Worthington’s housing stock and its residences are older than many other central Ohio suburbs.
“There is considerable need for attached and multifamily housing choices designed for empty-nesters, active adults and boomers who want the option of leaving their traditional single-family homes.” Lifestyle wrote.
“Many other central Ohio communities are providing such options and accommodating the changing needs of long-time residents. The proposed development provides Worthington residents the ability to downsize in their own community.”
In addition to the apartments, Lifestyle’s plan calls for: h A ring of large lots for 24 single-family homes on the west and north edge of the property. h Inside that ring, 9 acres would contain 94 two- and three-story attached town house condominiums for sale. hSouth of that, another 5 acres would include 72 attached townhomes for rent. hThe apartments would sit on 11 acres off High Street, along with 60,000 square feet of commercial space and 25,000 square feet of medical offices. Possible tenants for the commercial space include stores, restaurants, pharmacies, banks, assorted professional offices and other medical offices, Lifestyle said. hA 6 1/2-acre strip along a ravine would be left as green space on the property’s southern edge.
Lifestyles presented the plan as a dynamic, modern mixed-use space.
“New single-family homes, town homes, apartments, medical/office and retail spaces with integrated green-spaces and activity centers are designed to serve the changing demographics and economic needs of the community,” Lifestyle said in its proposal.
The plan is almost certain to again attract opposition from residents seeking more green space and less density on the site.
“I don’t see the community supporting this, I just don’t,” said Andy Hutter, a co-chair of Project Community Park Worthington, which in August presented a plan calling for the city to purchase the site and sell some of it for commercial and residential development while keeping 31 acres as a park.
Hutter said the proposal ignores all the objections to Lifestyle’s first plan.
“After that plan was rejected outright, they come back and increase the residency count by almost 50%?” Hutter said. “What LC’s proposal makes clear is that this is a development for them, and it prioritizes their moneymaking, not the community. ... It’s really difficult to find anything redeeming about the proposal.”
Residents will soon have opportunities to speak on the plan. Lifestyle is seeking to rezone the property from specific uses to a planned unit development, a process that will be public. jweiker@dispatch.com
@JimWeiker