COLUMBIANA, Ohio – While most communities in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys struggle to attract new residents, Columbiana has cracked the code.
And city Manager Lance Willard wants to share it. He created a PowerPoint presentation outlining steps the city followed.
“We’ve been really successful at this, and we’ve been trying to help other communities all throughout the Valley, the state, Pennsylvania, and then – not to get melodramatic – the whole world,” Willard says.
The Rural Communities Assistance Program, or RCAO, asked Columbiana city officials to host a webinar where they reviewed their story with 45 mayors in Moldova.
“And we were just teaching them our simple [plan],” he says. “It’s pretty simple. There’s no big secrets here. A lot of it’s common sense.”
Main Street Focus
In 2019, Willard attended a Main Street Now conference and returned with a lot of ideas.
RCAP also proved pivotal in helping the city map its course for growth, providing steps for the city to follow to realize change.
“Since 2017, we’ve been really focusing on our downtown vibrancy – so Main Street,” says Willard, who’s been city manager since 2013. “If you show me a healthy community, I’ll show you a healthy main street. And vice versa – it’s really important. If I show you a community that’s struggling, go look at their main street. You’ll have a lot of open storefronts.”
And he says there’s a direct correlation between a vibrant main street and growth.
“Property values increase when you have an active main street, a vibrant main street,” Willard says. “It’s all interlocked.”
In 2018, Columbiana City Council implemented the city’s community reinvestment area tax abatement program, allowing for a 100% property tax abatement for 15 years on new construction and renovated structures. Willard expected the residential, commercial and industrial growth that followed.
“But what I didn’t know is that the residential was going to positively impact the industrial and the commercial,” he says. “I just never even put it together.”
Willard recalls site selectors from Texas visiting the city, scoping it out for a potential project. He didn’t know what company they represented.
He and about 15 other community representatives picked the group up from the airport in a bus. The plan was to take them on a tour and share information about the CRA.
One of the site selectors asked Willard where they were going and when the city manager said they were headed to industrial sites, the selector wanted to see something different.
“He goes, ‘I don’t need to see it. I’ve seen lots of industrial sites. I want to go see the residential growth,’” Willard recalls.
The bus snaked through some neighborhoods and then to Main Street.
“And he said, ‘Look, if I can have a community that is thriving, and the main street’s great and my workers can afford to work here, this is the place.’”
That company was R&L Carriers which invested $20 million to expand its Heck Road shipping hub.
“We ended up finding out it was actually an expansion,” Willard says. “We didn’t know it was a business that was already here.”
Trending Upward
Since 2018, Columbiana’s population has increased by 2.8% to about 6,900 residents. The population of Fairfield Township, which surrounds the city, is 9,935. The numbers have been trending upward for the last several years.
That makes them an anomaly. Communities in much of the Mahoning and Shenango valleys have seen their population decline over the last several years.
John Garwood, a Fairfield Township trustee, points to the community’s rural setting. The portion of the township zoned agricultural-residential requires a 4-acre plot on which to build a house. Garwood calls it an excellent place to call home.
“The amount of the property values are up and people would like to move into that area,” he adds.
The township trustee points to the traffic at routes 7 and 14 as evidence of growth. He also lists as contributors the quality of the Crestview Local School District and the work of the township’s road department in maintaining roads.
New Housing
Master Plan Builders, based in Beaver Township, is building several housing developments in and around Columbiana.
“If you visit Columbiana, you very quickly get the feeling and the sense of community they have there,” says Adam Campesi, Master Plan Builders marketing director. “A lot of us around here refer to it as the modern day Mayberry. It’s a nice community. The people, the leadership, the business owners – just the general sense of community – really led us to believe that we could develop something there that would grow, prosper and serve the community and its residents.”
The developments span single-family, townhomes and villas to appeal to a range of demographics. Old Saybrook is a mix of townhomes, villas and single-family homes while the Back Bay at Arrowhead Lake is a mix of leased villas, cottage and single-family homes. The company has finished both of those projects.
“And we also just wrapped up our community, Arrowhead One, which was 19 homes for lease and they were solar home sites,” Campesi explains. “They’re luxury homes with modern amenities and incredibly energy efficient as far as how they operate.”
Arrowhead is the first solar-powered development in the nation. On its website, Master Plan calls it “a groundbreaking achievement in sustainable, high-end living and the first fully operational nanogrid residential community in the United States.”
Master Plan Builders also plans a housing project at the Links at Firestone. Crown Ridge at Firestone is kicking off phase one, which will include about 30 homes in what Campesi calls a lifestyle community. He says the company is developing the infrastructure and working with homeowners to buy lots.
The company is also developing the Arrowhead Park community at the former Lake Front golf course.
“That’s a mixed-use community we’re doing,” Campesi adds. “We have various different products within there, but currently we have quite a few leased properties going in there. They’re very, very, very beautiful high-end lease products, both townhomes and villas and we can’t seem to build them fast enough, so there’s definitely a demand for that…”
He says people moving to the new homes range from those moving to Columbiana from outside of the region to those relocating from other parts of the Valley and to people moving from other areas in the city to the new developments.
“I’d have to say that it is a wide swath of different situations,” the marketing director says.
Willard, Columbiana’s city manager, says the city also worked to streamline the building review process for commercial projects in the city.
“We saw an opportunity where commercial and industrial permits at the state level [makes] the process of getting construction done in a timely manner very difficult,” he says.
Columbiana and Salem joined to work with a third-party contractor for commercial building projects The state’s review process can be lengthy. The city’s takes six days. It’s a benefit for companies that want to build in the community, Willard explains.
The city implemented several other strategies to prepare for growth. It ensured redundancy in its electric department with two substations. One is fed from the north and one from the south. In 2013, Columbiana secured $11 million in grants and built a $21 million water plant, something the city manager says was needed for 40 years.
And plans call for a new water tower to be built in the city within the next few years to improve water pressure, he says.
Columbiana has also focused on youth engagement, working with the Columbiana Exempted Village School District. The high school’s entrepreneurship class has producted student-led initiatives including an alleyway downtown converted into a pedestrian-only walkway with outdoor furniture, flowers and bistro lights.
Willard points to the RCAP for providing the plan the city used to facilitate its growth. That plan called for working with business owners and engaging youth, among other steps. The city went with it.
“We weren’t afraid to try anything and one of our secrets is that we fail quickly and we know that,” Willard says. “So if we try something and it doesn’t work, we just move on.”
That’s a culture cultivated among City Council, the Park Board and the Planning Commission and Willard believes it’s served the city well.
“A lot of people, it takes them five years to figure out that something’s not working,” he says.
Columbiana officials worked with Town Center Associates of Beaver, Pa., to make improvements and its 2019 designation by Reader’s Digest as the Nicest Place in America helped elevate its notoriety too.
Part of the attention to Main Street that proved crucial to the city’s rebirth was offering events downtown to bring people in. Pop-ups in formerly vacant storefronts is one way the city worked to revive the downtown.
“We’re trying to create this experience and we really started concentrating on the events,” Willard says. “In 2019, we had nine open storefronts. By the end of 2019, we had five open storefronts and right now we have zero open storefronts.”
Business Owners’ Views
Downtown business owners appreciate the change.
Patty Roller is the owner of the Main Street Shop, a home decor store on Main that includes antiques, handmade jewelry and other items made by local artists. Her shop has been on the street for 43 years and she also owns Legacy Fine Furnishings on the other side of Main. She’s seen a lot of change.
“Columbiana is different now,” Roller says. “Downtown is different now. Right now, there are 20 retail shops downtown between the circle and the post office.”
She points to the city’s residential, commercial and industrial growth, adding that it’s helped her business.
“A lot of people are moving to Columbiana, because you know they have that 15-year tax abatement, where you don’t have to pay tax [on new construction] and that has really helped,” the shop owner explains. “And I couldn’t tell you how many people come in my shop and say, I want to move to Columbiana, and I’m moving to Columbiana and I’m looking for a house in Columbiana.”
Several years ago, downtown was stagnant, Roller says. The merchants there now are working hard to make it successful and she also credits Willard.
“He’s always creating ideas, getting funding, making things happen,” she says, pointing to events downtown.
And Roller says business owners are waiting to get into the city. “People come to me all the time and say, ‘Do you know of any buildings where I could have a business in Columbiana?’”
Shane Miller’s Olde Clutter’d Corner Antiques is next to Roller’s shop. He moved his store to the city about six years ago from East Palestine. Carla’s Corner Cafe, breakfast, lunch and sweets spot, is tucked in the rear of the store.
He says business has been going well and he appreciates downtown events that draw people.
“We’ve been through a lot in this area with Covid and then the train derailment, right? So lots and lots of stuff to slow business down, but we’re still all kicking and surviving,” Miller says.
While the store sees its share of local regulars, the majority of its customers come from out of town. Miller likes that the downtown business owners in Columbiana work together and support each other and that city leaders help businesses.
Residential growth accompanied the downtown revamps.
“If you plot our housing starts from 2009 to 2018, it’s pretty flat,” Willard says.
Since 2019 when the RCAP plan took off, more than 380 new residents have moved into the city.
“That’s 387 units that we didn’t have before,” Willard says.
Pictured at top: Lance Willard, Columbiana city manager, stands in a lot in the city’s downtown that’s being transformed into an outdoor dining and gathering place. The Garden of Eatin’ mural was designed by students from Columbiana High School.
