Franklinton residents seek modernization, but fear gentrification

Yahoo

01-05-2025

This is the third part in NBC4's Columbus 2.0 series, 'The Rise of Franklinton.' Read part one here and part two here. A 30-minute special is airing now on the NBC4 Columbus digital TV app.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — If a city is growing, it's also changing. In Franklinton, Columbus' oldest neighborhood, residents are seeing persistent change. For many of those residents, it's a welcome, but not entirely comfortable, change.
'It just feels like home,' Hakim Callwood, a noted muralist and visual artists who has many of his works on display in the neighborhood, said. 'You go for a stroll around the neighborhood, you know people.'
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'A cozy cove of artists' is how Franklinton Market owner Rasheedah Crawley describes it.
At its core, Franklinton is an artisan community. It's a neighborhood of painters, muralists, sculptors, musicians, poets and creators. Galleries and studios are frequently spotted between older houses and warehouses.
'It's just such a community aspect among the people and the businesses here that just make it,' Joey Aich, a rapper and recording artist, said. 'It makes it cool to a point where there's sometimes, I don't even leave this bubble.'
In fact, you'll find art in places you'd rarely expect it. At the Franklinton Market, Crawley displays local art and jewelry on her store walls and shelves.
'The best way to make friends is to open your doors, bring Franklinton into the store,' she said.
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LaTeef Barrow opened Sonny's Barber Shop last year on Sullivant Avenue, and his space serves many purposes. He's an artist himself and an Ohio State graduate who recently took up hair styling. His building also serves as an event space and an art gallery. The art displays frequently change to give local creators a unique showcase.
'Why not merge all of my different talents and ideas into one space?' he said.
They all add to the creative culture in the neighborhood, but what's also being created is a daily symphony of construction sounds.
'Every day you come here and you're like, 'Where did that come from? There's a building here now,'' Crawley said.
Modernization in Franklinton is a critical part of Columbus' overall plan to modernize and boost housing stock in the city and attract more people to live in the downtown area.
Modernization, however, often runs into an uglier term… gentrification. It's the terminology for reshaping an older neighborhood through affluent investment and potentially displacing the current residents.
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'Displacing people that have been here for a very long time and made the place cool before the developers started to come in and change different things,' Callwood said.
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said the city's plan is to build housing inventory, upgrade utilities and improve safety in the neighborhood.
'We need more units and we know that will help to bring rents down, make things more affordable,' he said. 'We want folks to be able to age in place, especially in a neighborhood like Franklinton.'
To many long-time residents in Franklinton, they're thinking more about the benefits of a more vibrant, safer neighborhood.
'You clearly can't have much improvement without that nasty word, 'gentrification,' but it just happens,' Bruce Snyder of the Franklinton Historical Society said.
There are concerns about how much of the new housing will cater toward residents who qualify for affordable housing, giving people more options to remain in Franklinton.
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'New people are new potential clients and there is no like you can't stop the advancement in technology or the growth of a city or something like that,' Callwood said.
Barrow said the improvements are already changing the neighborhood.
'People have the stigma of the west side; we've had no break ins, we've had no disorderly conduct, no soliciting,' he said. 'It doesn't feel like we're all pushed out, where it's just money, money, money. It doesn't feel like that here.'
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