Talking points handed out by Crew stadium backers showed the project creating a total of 885 new residential units near the stadium, with "a minimum of 20% affordable units." But during negotiations over the next half-year, the number of units the team agreed to build has dropped by more than half, to 440 units. Meanwhile, the affordable-housing requirement was replaced in the development contract with the "developer's good faith efforts to comply."

When a deal to build a new Downtown stadium for Crew SC was unveiled in early December, officials said it was about much more than professional soccer — it was also about a larger development that would bring jobs and affordable housing.

“Soccer and the stadium are important, but that’s not what’s most important to me,” Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said Dec. 5 at Mapfre Stadium during the project rollout.

"If your top three priorities are neighborhoods, neighborhoods, neighborhoods, any public-private partnerships that we enter into has to help us with our public-policy goals," which include affordable housing and jobs, Ginther said. "If it's not for all of us, then it just isn't Columbus."

Video: Mayor cites real costs of stadium

But internal city documents obtained by The Dispatch show that as Crew SC pressed the the city to pay more than double its initial taxpayer contribution — from $50 million to $113.9 million for what Ginther says includes costs related to additional development around the stadium in the Arena District — the "Confluence Village" affordable-housing component and the projected jobs number were quietly reduced.

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Talking points handed out by stadium backers in December showed the project creating a total of 885 new residential units near the new stadium with "a minimum of 20% affordable units." The "memorandum of understanding," or MOU, approved by the Columbus City Council days later called for approximately 850 residential units with "at least 20%" affordable housing.

But during negotiations between the city and team over the next half-year, the number of total residential units the team is to build dropped by about half, to 440. And the requirement for affordable housing was negotiated out of the contract, replaced with the "developer's good faith efforts to comply."

"The MOU expressed intent, established expectations for the overall development, but was not legally binding," said interim city Development Director Mike Stevens. "The (development contract) outlines specific commitments made by all parties, and is a binding agreement, which was the result of months-long discussions and negotiations with the Crew."

City officials originally had demanded affordable units in early versions of the contract with the Crew. But that requirement for roughly 177 new affordable units transformed into an "effort" to build 88, documents show.

The city never publicized the change, or that the number of non-construction, full-time jobs projected to be created had dropped from 1,500 jobs in the December memorandum of understanding to 775 in the final contract, a 48.3% drop.

Other jobs will be created but can't be attributed directly to the development, so they are not included in the total, Stevens said, "because the Crew cannot commit to create jobs they do not control."

The jobs directly related to the project include the equivalent of 580 permanent, full-time jobs at the new stadium, 70 at a new sports park and training facility adjacent to Mapfre Stadium on the north side of the Ohio Expo Center, and 125 at the mixed-use development at Confluence Village.

What was once billed as a commitment by the team's owners to construct 270,000 square feet of new commercial space is now listed as 120,000 square feet of office space in the final contract signed by city officials in late September.

"It's obvious that the affordable housing is important to the city, and we are going to make our best effort to include it in the project," said Peter John-Baptiste, a spokesman for the Haslam Sports Group, the developer of Confluence Village.

"The city fully expects developers to maintain the affordable housing limits," Ginther spokeswoman Robin Davis said in an email when asked by The Dispatch about the change.

At the time the project to build a stadium and surrounding development was unveiled, the new affordable-housing initiative was fresh on city officials' minds, having been created just months earlier by City Council. The goal was, in part, to give clarity to developers about what they needed to do when asking for taxpayer incentives, Ginther said at a Franklinton news conference in July 2018.

"Abatements and incentives are public resources," Ginther said at a July media event on affordable housing. "It has to be done for the public good. While the city cannot control development, we know that we can influence it. And it is our responsibility to ensure that these public resources are being used for the public good and to advance our community's goals."

To receive city incentives, the workforce housing guidelines call for 10% of new housing units built in certain areas of the city to be rented to those who make 80% or less of the area's median income, and another 10% must go to those who make 100%.

Another major Downtown-area project must meet that requirement: The massive Scioto Peninsula mixed-use project west of COSI, which, like the Confluence Village project, involves the use of city-owned land for private development.



When developers submitted proposals, "they understood this would be a requirement," said Amy Edwards Taylor, chief operating officer for the Columbus Downtown Development Corp., which is coordinating the Scioto Peninsula project.

bbush@dispatch.com

@ReporterBush