OSU is sacrificing tradition and memories in order to create a new, gentrified High Street
Ohio State’s campus is losing its identity one block of High Street at a time
As we all know, High Street is transforming before our eyes. Some of it is already unrecognizable, and this is sadly just the beginning. Ohio State’s administration, along with Campus Partners and Edwards Communities Development are revamping the biggest street on campus. Between 16th and 17th streets (on High) will be the site of The Wellington, a six-story apartment complex with a massive Target store at its base planned to open June 2018.
According to The Columbus Dispatch, this Target will contain “a selection of fresh groceries, as well as sandwiches, salads, beverages and snacks; an assortment of dorm and apartment essentials.” At 15th and High, where Long’s Bookstore was, there will be a plaza with a high-rise hotel. The rest of High Street will be filled with chain retail stores and cafés. Oh, and I forgot to mention that there will be parking structures on almost every other block.
The new High Street area is turning into a huge family-friendly town center that just happens to contain a university. Sure, when it’s all finished it’ll look cool to incoming freshman classes, but they’ll never get to experience that college-town aura.
Ohio State administration, you are tearing a part of our hearts out. You need to pull your heads out of your asses and actually use your ears to listen to the students. In the document “A Plan for High Street” by Ohio State and Campus Partners, the first goal of your “mission” is as follows: “The mantra for planning and implementation is ‘start with students’”. We’ve made it clear what we want. This poll shows the last thing we want is more retail. And that’s going to be the number one use of this new High Street?! What was the point of even having the poll?
The administration’s goal of “starting with students” is clearly a load of shit. It’s all about the money to them, which is why they’re bringing in chain retailers and creating so much parking to attract more customers. There’s nothing wrong with making money. I just wish OSU had the decency to be up front with us about their true priorities instead of trying to look good for everyone.
High Street as we knew it will be gone and gentrified before most of us are even alumni. It’s painful to have so much of our campus’ identity bulldozed away by ugly machines. What sets us apart from others is being taken away. Where else can you go to get water thrown on you while you take a shot? Nowhere that I know of.
Where else can you go to get stocked up for the school year? That Target right across the Olentangy in the Lennox Center. It’s alright though, cause there will conveniently be one on High Street too. Where else can you shop for Hawaiian shirts, Woodstock-style shades, block crop-tops, pins with ambiguous lines, or throwback jerseys to wear to beat the clock? Nowhere that I know of.
Where else can you stay in a big hotel on campus? The Blackwell Inn on Tuttle Place Parkway. But it’s all good, cause there will be an even bigger and better one right in the busiest part of High Street. At what other school did thousands of students used to jump in a freezing lake in November? None that I know of. What makes Ohio State special is being snatched away.
Photo Credit: Walker Evans
At the end of the day, our favorite Ohio State memories won’t be shopping in Target, craning our necks observing a hotel, or enjoying close parking. They’ll be of gripping an ice-cold forty at Too’s singing along to Fall out Boy with our friends. They’ll be of tricking our friends from home to get tidal waved. They’ll be of scurrying from that Friday class to The O that has a $2 pitcher with our name on it.
Having worked at OSU’s Call Center, I’ve talked to many alumni about their fond memories, while the majority of answers center around having a good time, as they also shared their disdain for this new and “improved” High Street.
Ohio State, I want to take this time and hand-deliver a special “fuck you” to the administration behind all this. You guys can kiss my ass while the 72% and I enjoy one last dollar-Rolling Rock on a Toosday.