This story is part of Worthington Pulse's coverage of the July 6 joint City Council and Municipal Planning Commission session.
The longest exchange of the evening's joint City Council and Municipal Planning Commission session wasn't about a specific project. It was about what Worthington means when it says a building should respect "historic character." The conversation started with concrete numbers: the draft comprehensive plan's guidance for the Wilson Bridge corridor allows buildings as tall as 10 stories in places. It ended nearly 30 minutes later with consultants agreeing to rewrite sections of the plan and council still divided on how far the city's design oversight should reach.
New heights, and a question about who reviews them
Consultant Michael Curtis, of the firm planning NEXT, walked the group through the corridor's proposed building forms starting on page 140 of the draft. The plan divides Wilson Bridge into three subtypes: a "general" mixed-use area with heights of three to six stories, a "core" allowing six to 10 stories "perhaps greater" depending on site configuration and design, and an "edge" zone closer to existing neighborhoods where heights step down to around three stories. Curtis said residential use can be part of the mix in the general and core areas, but "the emphasis should be on income tax generating uses" that bring a net fiscal benefit to the city. Consultant Jamie Greene added that these forms are meant as "the jumping off point for the updating of the zoning code" rather than fixed regulations. (What the draft recommends for Wilson Bridge and the other four opportunity areas is covered in the Pulse's special edition tour of the plan.)
That framing led Council President Pro Tem Rebecca Hermann to ask whether the city should extend the Architectural Review Board's jurisdiction to cover Wilson Bridge, since the board currently has no authority there. "We don't have a way to guide what we might want it to look like if it's not part of the architectural review board," she said.
Mikel Coulter, who chairs both the Planning Commission and the Architectural Review Board, urged caution. He noted the board has already seen early renderings of what Crawford Hoying (which is bringing its West Wilson Bridge redevelopment concept to the Planning Commission this month) is likely to propose, and said it would not be "all futuristic, modernistic design". But he said he would "rather see us pedal it softly" than expand the board's formal reach, warning that added restrictions "could curtail some of the things that we might want to do". Planning & Building Director Lee Brown said the working assumption has been to build design guidance directly into the coming zoning code rewrite instead, and noted that because the Crawford Hoying project will be processed as a planned unit development, the city already has "the teeth of control there also" through its development agreement. Brown added that Worthington's existing design guidelines are tied specifically to the historic core, "our core, our heart... it's old Worthington", and that extending them wholesale to a different corridor risked diluting what makes the historic district distinct.
What does "historic" actually mean?
What followed was the evening's central debate. Council Member Joy Dong said she wanted the group to talk through how the draft plan uses the phrase "historic character," which she said appears throughout the document without a clear definition. She pointed out that Old Worthington's historic character and Rush Creek Village's are both genuinely historic but look nothing alike, and asked whether the plan should define the term now or leave it to a future update of the city's design guidelines. "Is it as simple as being on a register? Is it as simple as being a specific design... what exactly are we saying when we say we want historic character to be preserved or honored?" she asked.
Greene responded that the intent is less about literal replication and more about form: the relationship of a building to the curb, its scale, the amount of window coverage on its façade. "The architecture doesn't have to look like it was from the 17th century" for a new building to honor its surroundings, he said. He pointed to Neighborhood Launch, a mixed development in downtown Columbus near Gay and Fourth streets, where some buildings evoke Boston's Back Bay and others are contemporary, but all share massing, street relationships, and landscaping. Dong said that explanation helped, but argued the plan's language doesn't currently reflect it. She noted that nearly every character-type example image in the draft features brick, and asked for clearer wording that the city is open to "modern interpretations utilizing similar materials" rather than literal historic replication. Curtis agreed the language could be sharpened specifically for Wilson Bridge, noting that public input during the planning process was largely open to the corridor looking "more contemporary or just not like the rest of Worthington," as long as the design was high quality and well landscaped.
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The McConnell Arts Center and Worthington Jewelers as test cases
Council Member Amy Lloyd offered a local example of successful contrast: the addition to the McConnell Arts Center, which she said was deliberately built to complement the original building rather than match it. Architectural Review Board member Ben Niebauer, who said he designed that addition, agreed enthusiastically and explained why matching wasn't possible: the original building's brick "was comprised of horse hair and mud," a material nobody manufactures anymore, so an exact match was never achievable. A council member also raised the Worthington Jewelers building as another example of successful modern design within the historic core.
Coulter, who said he was one of 11 people who created Worthington's historic district decades ago (personally researching more than 700 houses through Franklin County tax records to determine which properties should count as "contributing" to the district's character), offered the counterweight. He recalled that both the McConnell addition and the Worthington Jewelers renovation drew significant local opposition at the time, including calls to his own home. Looking back, he said, both "came out of" work he ultimately supported. But he cautioned against treating that as license for wholesale change: "Worthington is known for our historic district. It doesn't mean it can't change, but I would just advise be careful," he said, adding that design guidelines, not blanket rules, have historically been the tool the city uses to work case by case with developers and property owners.
Dong also pressed on how the plan should treat aging buildings that aren't architecturally distinctive. "Just because something's old doesn't necessarily mean it has these historic building patterns," she said, asking how the city balances its stated preference for rehabilitating older buildings against the reality that some are structurally beyond saving. Council Member Maria Ramirez said she appreciated a section of the draft that broadens the definition of historic resources beyond Old Worthington to acknowledge places like Rush Creek, but argued the historic core still deserves distinct protection: "Worthington is big enough to have unique areas with unique character that are special" without stretching a single definition across the whole city.
Where it lands
Greene summarized two takeaways for the consulting team: the plan should distinguish between formally defined "historic" properties (those meeting the federal government's standard 50-year age threshold) and buildings that carry emotional or civic significance for other reasons, since age alone doesn't create either. He also said the team would add language explicitly welcoming contemporary design that respects Worthington's underlying patterns of form and scale without requiring it to look old. Curtis and Greene both committed to revising the historic-character language in the Wilson Bridge section before the plan advances.
The Municipal Planning Commission takes public comment on the full draft plan July 23, followed by a return to City Council for another comment period and an adoption vote expected this fall.
This is one of three Worthington Pulse stories from the July 6 meeting. Read the others:
- Worthington's 20-Year Comprehensive Plan Draft Heads to Public Hearings — Here's What It Recommends
- 'It Is Our City': Council Pushes to Give West Worthington and Linworth a Place in the Comprehensive Plan.
Or start with the July 6 meeting recap.