Since 2000, Mayor Coleman has leveraged incentives to create and retain more than 30,000 jobs and bring $3.2 billion in private investment to Columbus.  The City is business friendly, where growing companies enjoy an educated workforce from 18 regional colleges and universities.  Columbus is centrally located to national markets and a growing transportation, distribution and logistics hub.  The City, currently the 15th largest in America, is also growing as a retail hub, an industry that makes up some 20% of the economy:

• Bringing new life to downtown with investment in parks, housing and commercial development.  Since launching the downtown business plan in 2002 with a team of area corporate leaders and concerned citizens, the Mayor has used incentives to help get more than 5,000 new housing units built or under development.  The City is also welcoming nearly 2,900 new jobs downtown, including jobs at local companies’ headquarters like Ohio Health, Nationwide Insurance and Huntington Banks. 
• With 50% of the U.S. consumer market and 80% of all U.S. corporate headquarters within the distance of a 12 hour drive or one hour flight, Columbus continues to emphasize its prime geographic location for logistics and distribution.  The City is working with local, state and federal partners to drive millions in new investment into the Advanced Logistics Hub at Rickenbacker Airport.  The City has also entered into a Joint Economic Development agreement in the area to help create 69,000 new jobs and $9 billion in private investment over the next 20 years;
• The City of Columbus continues to play a vital part in the expansion of the healthcare industry in Central Ohio. Through use of city incentives, Mount Carmel Hospital will redevelop the former Lucent Technologies manufacturing facility into an innovative medical campus on Columbus’ eastside. Mount Carmel will develop seven new medical/business office buildings on the site, retaining 500 and creating 1,000 new jobs.  Ohio Health’s Grant Hospital opened a new surgical and heart center in downtown, and the system moved their corporate headquarters to downtown in 2006.
• With assistance from Mayor Coleman, the City played a major role in launching Skybus, the city’s first hometown airline in spring 2007. Skybus will create 1,200 direct jobs, 10,000 indirect jobs and $600 million in new private investment bringing an estimated 5.3 million new visitors and Skybus passengers to the city.
• Created the Columbus Urban Growth Corporation to drive public-private development deals with the City to create new housing and jobs, including:
  • Gowdy Field a successful public/private partnership to redevelop a former contaminated landfill site into commercial office space for Time Warner Cable. Located just outside the central business district, the development brought $20 million dollars in private investment. Time Warner Cable will retain 450 jobs and create an additional 175-200 new jobs by 2008.  Once completed the site will have 260,000 total square feet of commercial office buildings.
  • Four Corners – continuing work with the Greater Linden Development Corporation to develop the “fourth corner” of the intersection as the Clarence Lumpkin Point of Pride complex. There is currently $20 million of new investment and approximately 400 people working at South Linden’s new “village square,” which replaced one of the City’s most blighted neighborhood intersections. The fourth corner was completed in October of 2007 with five retail store fronts and a community center.
  • West Edge Business Center - a $60 million office/light industrial park, will bring approximately 1,000 jobs to the economically-challenged Franklinton neighborhood.
  • Northland Mall - rehabbing a former regional retail mall site into mixed-use commercial retail development. The former Northland Mall site contains approximately 40 acres of developable retail space. The City invested $28 million dollars in strategic infrastructure in the neighborhood along Morse Road. The Ohio Department of Taxation and Huntington Bank have relocated offices to former mall site. New efforts to redevelop the Northland Mall with a project called “Northland Village” are currently underway, to include office, retail and green space.
  • South Parsons Avenue - Upon hearing the concerns of the south-siders, Mayor Coleman and City Council allocated $80,000 to complete the Parsons Avenue Vision plan.  The plan outlines the residents’ vision for a thriving community along the Parsons Avenue of the future.