Continued progress in the effort to replace the Buckeye Lake dam has raised spirits, but it isn’t the only encouraging development in the waterfront community.
Since late 2015, a group of political and business leaders, as well as local residents, has met twice to help plot out the future of Buckeye Lake. Since the dam project was announced, there has been an emphasis on a larger revitalization of the community, and the group is focused on exploring opportunities to that end.
The Columbus chapter of the Urban Land Institute – a national organization that supports smart planning and responsible plan use – has been at the center of the meetings, with Yaromir Steiner, a member of the institute’s governance committee, moderating them.
“We are very interested in the impact of land use policies on quality of life and job creation,” Steiner says.
Steiner is founder and CEO of Steiner + Associates, the real estate and master plan development firm best known in central Ohio for its leading role in the development of Easton Town Center. It has built mixed-use and residential projects across the country, and acts as exclusive leasing agent for the first-floor retail space at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and for the Gateway on The Ohio State University campus.
Steiner, a New Albany resident, has a lake house at Buckeye Lake, and so has a direct interest in seeing that the area develops smoothly moving forward.
“The fixing of the dam is going to create a reliable lake for the long term,” says Steiner. “Getting this dam fixed allows everybody to start taking the long view about the things that are possible along the lake.”
The scope of the dam restoration project has prompted a lot of people to take a long view of the lake, Steiner says, and think about all the Buckeye Lake region can be. It has also prompted them to work together in pursuit of common interests.
“I think the notion (is for) the Buckeye Lake region (to become) a wholesome, family-oriented destination for the state, or even the Midwest, where people would come for vacations of (long) weekends,” Steiner says.
That’s on top of its role, Steiner says, as a community for full-time residents: retirees, families raising children, etc.
Areas of focus for group members include food, hospitality, watersports, agriculture, infrastructure, branding, neighborhoods, even bike paths. Many are looking for the lake’s future to be a 21st-century reflection of its glory days from the 1930s to the 1950s, Steiner says, and to come up with a cohesive plan on which the multiple counties and municipalities on the lake can agree.
The group – which drew some 250 people to its January meeting at Lakewood High School – is expected to finalize its list of community priorities in March, then immediately form working groups to address them.
Dam Progress
As hopes have risen for Buckeye Lake’s recovery, so, too, do officials expect water levels to rise in the near future.
Workers have been out at the lake in shifts to push dam work along with all due speed, and signs have been encouraging, says Sen. Jay Hottinger of Newark, legislative liaison to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources on the dam project.
“The landscape is changing literally daily,” Hottinger says.
Unfavorable weather is often the biggest impediment to construction work, so a relatively mild winter has kept things moving along at a brisk clip, he says.
“Whenever you’re dealing with construction, there are 100 different things that can go wrong, and a lot of those things are weather-related,” says Hottinger.
Phase 1 of the dam replacement project is still pegged for June 1.
“What that means is we anticipate being able to raise the water level once Phase 1 is completed,” he says.
How high the water level may be raised has not yet been determined, but Hottinger predicts it being about 1 foot below summer pool levels – not completely back to normal, but enough to get boats back on the water and return a sense of normalcy, particularly for businesses that struggled this past summer.
“It’s going to really be able to breathe life back into the region and back into a lot of those hard-hit businesses,” says Hottinger.
The next phase of the project, which entails final touches and ongoing work on the dam, will begin shortly after the current phase ends.
Shifting Attitudes
The pace of the dam work has been a source of optimism and excitement for residents and business owners, Hottinger says, as they see a glimpse of the area’s future.
“I think the mood of individuals around the lake has dramatically improved,” he says.
The housing market has picked up dramatically as well, says real estate agent Marnita Swickard, who has been selling in Buckeye Lake since the mid-1990s.
“The most exciting news is we have more buyers than we have inventory,” Swickard says. “I’m desperately looking for sellers.”
After the uncertainty wrought by this past spring’s news of the dam’s problems, buyers are now starting to see Buckeye Lake as a good place to be part of, Swickard says. When she has had properties for sale, she’s seen substantial competition, often with buyers putting down multiple offers.
She compares her first-quarter numbers for 2016 to the first-quarter numbers she had for 2015, prior to the mid-March announcement of the dam project.
The involvement of the Urban Land Institute and, by extension, Steiner, with his extensive experience in development, is a positive factor in and of itself, says Marty Finta. Finta is developer of Snug Harbor, a resort-style waterfront development under way in Buckeye Lake.
“With the state dedicated and working diligently to make Buckeye Lake the crown jewel of Ohio, Yaromir Steiner’s involvement and statements to dream big about what Buckeye Lake can become in the future, the pent-up demand and lack of supply for Buckeye Lake waterfront properties, and the current status of the Snug Harbor Village project, it is clear that the tide is changing for the better,” Finta says.
Garth Bishop is managing editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
Photo courtesy of Steiner + Associates
A Homebuyer’s Perspective
One forthcoming resident of Buckeye Lake is Dr. Ron Garvey.
Garvey already has an acute interest in the lake: He’s a major investor in Snug Harbor via Dublin-based Bridge Street Firehouse Investments LLC and Shoreline Development Group Ltd. He also has a longtime love of lakefront living going back to his childhood.
For the last few months, he has been working with an architect on designs for a wharf cottage in Snug Harbor. He hopes to start construction in April.
Garvey’s initial interest in Snug Harbor was an investment opportunity, but as he learned more about it and Buckeye Lake, he came to realize it was an ideal place to build a cottage.
“We think it will be fun to witness the transformation of that Ohio landscape to that Nova Scotia-style village,” Garvey says. “We’re excited to be part of this renewal of Buckeye Lake.”
It doesn’t hurt that he and his family will be able to walk right out onto the wharf from the cottage, or that it is walking distance from the planned retail stores and village green.
Garvey hopes for the cottage to be finished by fall. It is designed to look like an old commercial building transformed into a residence, he says, complete with signage to that effect.
“We may put something like ‘Garvey and Sons Charters’ on it to make it look like a transformed fishing village,” he says.
