THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
WHERE WE LIVE
Neighborhood goes from downtrodden to trendy
Historical Harrison West's proximity to Downtown and OSU helped fuel its slow but steady upswing
The new Harrison Park that will soon grace the east bank of the Olentangy River just north of Downtown is the latest piece of a plan to complete the Harrison West neighborhood.
The transformation has been years in the making, turning a once-downtrodden area into a trendy neighborhood of renovated, colorful frame houses and immaculate gardens dotting its brick side streets.
The parkland is a perfect example.
"That site was a blighted industrial area that was pulling down the entire area of the neighborhood," said Jacob Sukosd, a Harrison West resident. "No one wanted to live next to an old factory."
Work began last week on the 4.3-acre park between Quality Place and W. 2nd Avenue. It will include a playground, a gazebo with a copper roof, a new lane for the Olentangy Trail and sculptures designed by Columbus College of Art & Design students.
Residents gathered this summer to clean up the riverbank and will do so again on Saturday.
The park will cost a little more than $1 million, paid for with property taxes in the district.
Residents persuaded Wagenbrenner Development to donate the parkland when the company began building 62 brick houses and 138 condominiums, adding hundreds of people to a site where a margarine factory once sat.
It's quite a difference from the Harrison West that Mary Funk once knew. She bought her Pennsylvania Avenue house almost 30 years ago when the neighborhood was plagued by gang violence.
She said the house cost $8,000. The 130-year-old duplex now is valued at $104,200.
"When we moved in, they were shooting out streetlights," said Funk, who works for Mayor Michael B. Coleman.
The neighborhood has become desirable enough that in April photographer Lauryn Byrdy immediately snapped up space at 3rd and Michigan avenues that once housed a yoga studio.
"I wanted to come to Harrison West," said Byrdy, 27, who shares the space with a hair salon, wardrobe consultant and makeup artist.
"It's very neighborhood-oriented. Moms are walking their babies and dogs by every day," Byrdy said.
A number of young professionals are making their homes there as well.
That includes Sukosd, who moved to Pennsylvania Avenue six years ago from the Brewery District.
Sukosd, 30, who works at Worthington Industries, grew up in a small town in Harrison County in eastern Ohio. He and his wife, Julie, wanted an affordable house, "something historic, architecturally significant," he said.
Harrison West fit the bill.
"We thought it was improving greatly. It had a lot of room to go, but we thought it had even more potential," Sukosd said.
The location is one reason Matt Williams, a Harrison West Society member, and his partner moved from Clintonville to one of the new Harrison Park houses.
"We thought it was a better area for us," Williams said, citing the short distance to the Short North and Grandview Heights.
Harrison West Society President Rob Harris calls his neighborhood "the backyard of the Short North."
With Ohio State University just to the north, Lynn Varney's Harrison House Bed & Breakfast on W. 5th Avenue attracts a good number of visitors.
She has owned it for four years and said she caters to Harrison West residents seeking to put up guests as well as visiting speakers and interviewees at Ohio State and out-of-towners heading to the nearby Short North.
Varney said she has no concerns about her patrons wandering the neighborhood.
"I tell people it's safe to walk to and from the Short North area," Varney said.
Professionals often are found drinking coffee or eating outdoors streetside at places such as Caffe Apropos on W. 3rd Avenue and Katalina's Cafe Corner nearby.
Katalina's owner Kathleen Day said the walkable neighborhood appeals to transplants from New York or the West Coast. Day herself likes that, too.
She's a German Village resident who sees Harrison West as an affordable alternative.
Harrison West leaders want city officials to recognize Harrison West as a destination neighborhood, such as German Village, Day said. "They're so passionate about their community."
HARRISON WEST
- Population: 3,191
- Residential properties that are single-family: 67 percent
- Residential appraised value, average: $195,939 (2007)
- High-school graduate: 90 percent
- Bachelor's degree: 55 percent
Source: Community Research Partners
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