Can former foundry bring new life to the South Side?

Try to picture the South Side of Columbus from the 1880s through the 1900s — a place far different from the struggling urban decline that has marked the neighborhoods known collectively as Columbus’ Southern Gateway redevelopment project.

This area birthed Donatos and the Crane Group, two of central Ohio’s most successful companies. Its early landmark was an iron works factory that evolved to become known as the “largest steel foundry in the world.” With the right focus and attention, the site has an opportunity to rise to prominence again.

Buckeye Steel Castings began producing castings in 1881, then grew when it switched to a new product for its day — automatic couplers for railroad cars. Ohio History Connection offers an instructive backgrounder on the company that is now a demolition site.

Buckeye Steel was a model employer in its day, offering a dispensary, hospital, washrooms, kitchens and locker rooms. It sponsored a company baseball team and gave employees life insurance in 1917. It kept workers satisfied and avoided labor strikes.

During its heyday, it was run by Samuel Prescott Bush, grandfather of President George H.W. Bush and great-grandfather of George W. Bush, a footnote to its proud past.

But in this century, Buckeye Steel was not able to continue evolving and eventually closed two years ago. It had employed more than 2,000 in the 1950s; about 800 were laid off when it closed for good in August 2016 and was sold out of bankruptcy shortly thereafter.

Now Reich Brothers Inc., current owner of the 90-acre site on Parsons Avenue north of Frank Road, is tearing down buildings and preparing the land for redevelopment. What it will become is yet to be determined. Areas north, east, west and immediately south of Downtown have seen strong redevelopment while the Southern Gateway’s comeback has been more sporadic.

City and community leaders are encouraged to bring the same drive and creativity to the south anchor of the Southern Gateway as is rejuvenating Parsons Avenue just south of Nationwide Children’s Hospital and which has turned a vacant school into the vibrant communitybuilding Reeb Avenue Center.

Advantages of the Southern Gateway are proximity to Downtown as well as to Rickenbacker International Airport, part of the Rickenbacker Inland Port. As one of the world’s only cargo-dedicated airports, Rickenbacker continues to attract new carriers, including its fifth international freight operator, AirBridge Cargo Airlines. The Moscowbased carrier offers weekly service from Russia.

With speed-demanding markets increasingly moving goods through the air, Rickenbacker’s cargo tonnage grew 27 percent in 2017 and was already up another 22 percent through February.

Columbus is known for involving government, corporate, philanthropic and community interests in collaborative approaches to solve local challenges. That model won Columbus the federal Smart City challenge in 2016, put a Columbus-ChicagoPittsburgh route among the final 10 routes being considered for the Hyperloop One high-speed transit system, and has Columbus competing as one of 20 potential locations for Amazon’s HQ2.

Can the former foundry site once again provide thousands of good-paying jobs? That should be a primary goal, especially if some of those jobs can be filled from the surrounding neighborhood.