Report suggests ways Akron can grow through housing
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Photo by AKRONSTOCKDowntown Akron's skyline
Just as Akron sets out on a new initiative to rebuild its population, two of the state's leading nonprofits focused on urban planning and economic development have unveiled some suggestions for revitalizing the city's housing stock.
The Akron-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Columbus' Greater Ohio Policy Center on Thursday, Feb. 16, released their Build Akron report.
Based largely on interviews with local residential developers, all of whom have been active in and around Akron, the report is meant to follow up on the city's own Planning to Grow Akron report that came out earlier this month, said Torey Hollingsworth, manager of research and policy for GOPC.
"I think the city has indicated, through their own report release and broader conversations, that they're really interested in tackling this issue," she said. "And I think there are a lot of doable concrete things that can be done to spur more conversations about what will work in Akron."
The Build Akron report draws on strategies that have worked in other cities in Ohio and the Midwest. That includes Cleveland, where strategies to convert office buildings to downtown residences have worked well — and could be duplicated in Akron to rebuild the downtown rental market, the Build Akron report finds.
Other suggestions include creating additional mixed-use districts to make urban living more attractive; using tax abatements as incentives for targeted development; working with hospitals and health systems on community development issues; and working with lenders to enable new homeowners to not only buy, but improve, houses with loans and investments that go beyond a home's initial purchase price.
While Akron's downtown is probably the most-mentioned neighborhood in the report, it is not at all the only subject of the research, said Kyle Kutuchief, Knight Foundation program director for Akron. Similar to the approach taken by city officials in recent years, the report's authors focused on downtown but also neighborhoods like North Hill, Highland Square, West Akron and others.
"So often, Akron is described as one place, but we have 24 different neighborhoods … and each of them needs something a little bit different," Kutuchief said.
The report was somewhat careful to suggest ways that the city can spur investment, without requiring large investments of capital by the city itself. That's in part because Akron, like most Midwestern cities, is not awash in cash, but also because the goal is to spur and favor private investment, said Kutuchief and Hollingsworth. Toward that end, the report suggests mostly strategies for cooperation, coordination and private/public partnership, with the possible exception of tax abatements.
Akron, which has seen its population drop from a peak of more than 290,000 in the 1960s to fewer than 200,000 today, needs more residents, city leaders recognize, to provide not only tax revenues but also employees for the city's businesses.
"I want to be the mayor that grows Akron's population again," Mayor Dan Horrigan said in announcing the city's own report on Feb. 6.
While the city has a long way to go, it has made some strides in recent years, and Akron is far from the blighted and abandoned shell of a city that it was in the 1980s and early '90s.
Developers have begun to invest in the city as well, including with new apartments and other housing stock.
Demand, so far, has outpaced the supply of available units as well, at least in and around downtown, as Crain's recently reported.
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