Mark Ferenchik The Columbus Dispatch @MarkFerenchikRick Rouan The Columbus Dispatch @RickRouan

A cash-strapped nonprofit agency that supported development in the city’s struggling Linden neighborhood has dissolved, raising questions about what will replace it.

Those questions likely won’t be answered for months as the city works on its “master plan” for the neighborhood.

“We haven’t even had those conversations yet,” said Carla Williams-Scott, director of the Columbus Department of Neighborhoods. “We’re just trying to work with them and their board as they go through dissolving of the agency.”

The board of the Greater Linden Development Corp. decided in February to fold the agency as it grappled with financial problems that included its mortgage on a building that was meant to be the crown jewel of the neighborhood it served. It also had lost major funding sources.

The nonprofit group was formed in 1994 to support the neighborhood, offering services for businesses and using federal funds to build new houses, among other activities.

It moved into the Clarence Lumpkin Point of Pride building at 1410 Cleveland Ave., which opened in 2007, but that space became a financial burden. Its original loan from the nonprofit Finance Fund was for $1.9 million, but the nonprofit was underwater on that mortgage. The Franklin County auditor listed the market value at about $1.5 million.

“The organization has been challenged financially for a number of years,” said Steve Schoeny, the city’s economic-development director.

Greater Linden had started dipping into its operating fund to make payments, but the mortgage balance was still $1.9 million when the city’s nonprofit development arm, Columbus Next Generation Development Corp., stepped in to buy the building last year.

Next Generation negotiated with Greater Linden’s lender to buy the building for $1 million, said Boyce Safford, Next Generation’s executive director. Next Generation is entirely funded by city taxpayers' dollars.

The building has private tenants, including a Liberty Tax office and a Subway restaurant, that Safford said will remain. The city also plans to move the newly formed Department of Neighborhoods into the space that Greater Linden is leaving.

Next Generation and the city still are negotiating a lease for the building, said Joe Lombardi, city finance director. The building needs updates, such as a new fiber-optic network, before the city moves workers there. Safford said he expects those upgrades to be done in late 2017.

Williams-Scott said her department has about 45 employees, including 311 call-center operators, who will work in that building. 

Greater Linden's operating budget had dipped to less than $200,000 a year, which included pay for two staff positions, board member William Livisay said. Funding from the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which the group had used to redevelop housing, had run out. It also lost $50,000 when the Community Development Collaborative of Greater Columbus decided not to fund it this year. The collaborative provides money and technical assistance to local community development corporations.

"The city didn't ask us to do this, push us to do this," Livisay said of the board's decision to dissolve the agency.

"The whole environment changed," said Bob Long, another board member. "We were getting substantial dollars from various programs for day-to-day operations. Those things dried up."

Donna Hicho, the group's executive director, said Greater Linden served as the city's neighborhood commercial revitalization lender for the Linden area for 20 years, provided assistance and grant funds for local businesses and helped to leverage money for facade improvements. The city has not designated a replacement for that yet.

It also has been involved in home-buyer education, a Block Watch, cleaning up litter and removing graffiti. 

The group that replaces Greater Linden will need to be an “aggregator” that can bring together government, philanthropic groups and business interests, Schoeny said.

“Doing that within the structure of city government isn’t the best way to do it,” he said.

The city kicked off its planning activity in Linden on March 11, but Williams-Scott said it will take most of 2017 to gather public input and assemble a guide to help pull Linden out of problems that have plagued the neighborhood for decades.

Fund-raising for that plan has been underway for months. The city gave the developers of Easton Town Center a 10-year, 100 percent property tax abatement worth about $68 million on new residential development around the mixed-use development in exchange for $5.75 million it could use in Linden.

The city also gave Huntington Bancshares tax incentives as it renovates a former Meijer on Cleveland Avenue for an operations hub in exchange for a commitment to create 1,000 jobs and lend about $300 million in struggling neighborhoods with a focus on Linden and Northland.

Williams-Scott said other community development corporations already have told the city they’re interested in helping. Greater Linden’s replacement will need to be able to evaluate development opportunities, she said.

“You would certainly want an organization that would come in and really understand the community,” she said.

http://www.dispatch.com/news/20170326/greater-linden-development-group-shuts-down-after-23-years