This article is part of a Worthington Pulse special edition on the city's draft comprehensive plan. Start with the Resident's Guide to the draft plan, which links the full series.
"Economic vitality in Worthington is not primarily a story of growth. It is a story of reinvestment" (printed p. 49). That sentence from the draft comprehensive plan's economic chapter explains more of the document than any other, and it sits at the center of the tension running through the whole planning process: how a landlocked city preserves what residents love about it while paying for the services they expect.
The math the plan starts from
Municipal income taxes provide about 72 percent of the city's revenue (p. 54). Collections grew from about $23.5 million in 2014 to $35.1 million in 2024, but the draft calls the inflation-adjusted growth "modest at best" (p. 50).
The structural problem: Ohio assesses income tax where a person works, not where they live, and 93 percent of Worthington residents work outside the city. The draft's conclusion is blunt: residential land "does not pay its own way".
A fiscal study commissioned for the plan quantifies that (pp. 56-57). Per year, in net impact on the city budget:
- A suburban single-family home costs the city roughly $3,200 more in services than it generates. Attached and multifamily housing also run negative per unit.
- Class A office space nets the city about $4,900 per 1,000 square feet, or roughly $54,000 per acre.
- Retail runs negative too, roughly $17,000 to $28,000 per acre depending on format.
- Light industrial and flex space nets about $21,000 per acre.
The same study estimates that redeveloping the Wilson Bridge corridor to the plan's target mix would raise its net fiscal impact from about $43,000 to about $141,000 per acre per year (p. 57).
The draft is careful to add a counterweight: "Fiscal outcomes must be balanced against non-fiscal priorities, including environmental stewardship, housing affordability, quality of life, and a range of services. The goal is an appropriate mix of land uses, not fiscal optimization alone" (p. 54).
The asset that's aging out
Worthington has about 2.5 million square feet of office space. The majority is Class C, less than 11 percent is Class A, and less than 1 percent was built after 2000. Current office vacancy is 21.7 percent (p. 52). The introduction chapter calls modernizing this inventory "a fiscal priority, not just an economic development goal" (pp. 16-17).
The constraint is space. Only about 63 acres of undeveloped land remain in the city (p. 21), so the plan's growth strategy is entirely about reusing what exists: aging office parks, underperforming commercial strips, and industrial parcels. This is where the economic chapter and the land use chapter meet, and where community disagreement tends to concentrate. Redevelopment intense enough to matter fiscally means taller buildings and more activity in the five opportunity areas, which is precisely what some residents see as a threat to Worthington's character and others see as the only way to keep the city solvent without leaning harder on residential taxes.
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What the plan proposes to do about it
Pursue one "trophy" mixed-use development. The plan calls for prioritizing a single catalytic project soon after adoption: premium office space with flexible floor plates in a walkable, mixed-use setting, benchmarked against Bridge Park in Dublin and Grandview Yard (pp. 43-44, 59-61). Since Worthington's 2005 plan, the draft notes, peer communities have delivered projects like these while Worthington has not; to compete for employers, it "must demonstrate that it can deliver high-quality mixed-use environments" (p. 43). Funding structured parking is flagged as a key obstacle (p. 61). The draft does not name a site, though its opportunity areas chapter identifies Wilson Bridge, North High, and Forge Fields as the major project pipeline (p. 68).
Keep Old Worthington healthy. The historic core is treated as a niche Main Street district of locally owned, destination businesses. More than half of event visitors come from outside Worthington, and the recent parking study found utilization moderate outside peak events (pp. 62, 160).
Fill in, don't build out. With no greenfield left, the plan recommends patient infill redevelopment of underutilized commercial and industrial sites, supported by infrastructure investment rather than speculative construction (p. 62). At Forge Fields, the Northeast employment district, it encourages modernizing aging flex and office buildings for target industries including life science supply chain, advanced manufacturing, and R&D (pp. 63-66).
Build the city's deal-making capacity. The plan calls for capitalizing the Community Improvement Corporation, the city's economic development nonprofit, positioning it as the primary tool for shaping outcomes as major projects advance at Wilson Bridge, North High, and Forge Fields (p. 68). It also suggests assessing staffing (peer suburbs often carry two full-time economic development staff, p. 69) and expanding the small business toolkit, broadening the existing facade program to cover accessibility upgrades and tenant fit-out costs like fire suppression and grease traps (p. 69).
Formalize the incentive rules. Before the big projects arrive, the plan wants clear incentive policies: "but for" tests to confirm a project actually needs public help, hold-harmless guarantees protecting school district revenue on tax-increment financing deals, clawback provisions, and pre-negotiated agreements with Worthington City Schools for residential tax abatements (pp. 70-71).
The work-from-home wrinkle
One quiet opportunity the plan highlights: when a Worthington resident works from home, the city captures income tax it would otherwise lose to the city where their employer sits. That ties quality-of-place investments (parks, walkability, housing variety) directly to municipal revenue in a way that wasn't true when the 2005 plan was written (p. 54).
The economic vitality chapter starts on printed page 49 of the draft plan PDF, including the full fiscal-impact tables on pages 56-57. The Municipal Planning Commission accepts public comments on the draft on Thursday, July 23.
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