Downtown Columbus growth can be measured by the numbers

You can see it as you walk through downtown Columbus: there is a new coffee shop here, a new restaurant there. There are also condos and dorm rooms. Retail stores, selling clothes, running shoes and candles are finding their way into this mix.

It looks like growth.

But to understand that growth and its impact, you have to look at the numbers. Last week, the Uptown Columbus Inc., Board of Directors got what President Richard Bishop terms a “vibrancy report.”

What it is, simply put, is numbers — a lot of numbers that appear to tell a positive story.

It measures the residential, retail and restaurant growth since 2010 in large part through the city’s total gross receipts, which is the revenue generated by downtown businesses and reported to the city for tax purposes. It is not broken down by individual establishments, but rather by blocks in the roughly 15-square block area that was designated from Ninth Street to 14^th Street and the Chattahoochee River to Second Avenue.

Here is a look at some of those numbers:

▪  The most interesting number is 43.21 percent. That is the growth in the gross receipts from 2010 to 2015. In 2010, $31.4 million was spent in downtown businesses compared to $45 million a year ago.

▪  The growth in gross receipts is accelerating as new restaurants and additional retail come on line. The jump is gross receipts from 2014 to 2015 was more than 18 percent.

▪  Another interesting number is $16.1 million. That is the 2015 gross receipts generated in the 1000 block of Broadway. More than a third of the revenue came from one block. But there are 28 businesses in that block ranging from the Columbus State University bookstore to traditional bars to restaurants.

▪  How much of that money in the 1000 block was the result of alcohol sales? Want to guess? Try more than $4.8 million. That makes some sense, because 17 of those 28 businesses serve and sale alcohol. There was $7.1 million in alcohol sales in the 15-block area.

▪  You can see the jump of revenue along Bay Avenue, the street closest to the river. In 2014, businesses generated nearly $529,000 in gross receipts. There are only three businesses in that stretch — Whitewater Express, 11^th and Bay restaurant and the Chattahoochee River Club — and last year they generated more than $3.2 million in gross receipts. That is an increase of more than 500 percent year to year and the result of two businesses opening and growing.

▪  Two areas that were measured saw a decease from 2014 to 2015. Gross receipts in the 1200 block fell more than 15 percent to $1.45 million and the five-block First Avenue area fell more than 16 percent to $705,288.

It is not just the gross receipts numbers that tell the story of what is happening in downtown Columbus.

▪  In 2010, there were 118 rental housing units in that area. Last year, there were 196.

▪  The average apartment occupancy rate was 94 percent in 2010 and it was 98 percent in 2015.

▪  There has not been a similar growth in condominiums. There were 109 in 2010 and there are 104 now. Some of that decrease can be attributed to the combining of units at the Eagle & Phenix riverfront complex.

▪  While there has not been an increase in the number of condos, the occupancy rate has soared. In 2010, it was 64 percent, and that increased to 97 percent in 2015. Again, looking for a reason, see Eagle & Phenix.

▪  The total number of downtown non-student residents has grown from 282 in 2010 to 445 in 2015.

▪  In 2010, there were 97 CSU student apartments downtown, compared to 143 in 2015. Those apartments always have been at 100 percent occupancy.

▪  The total number of students living downtown has grown from 360 in 2010 to 451 in 2015.

▪  The square footage of office space in the measured area has decreased from 475,760 in 2010 to 462,060 in 2015. With that decrease, the occupancy rate for office space has gone from 83 percent in 2010 to 89 in 2015.

▪  In 2010, there were 22 downtown restaurants ranging from fine dining to cafes. Last year there were 29. The restaurant growth has been in the casual dining category, going from 10 to 18 eateries.

▪  There were 15 new businesses in 2015. In that same year no existing businesses were lost.

This story was originally published October 5, 2016 at 9:14 AM with the headline "Downtown Columbus growth can be measured by the numbers."