Scioto Mile Fountain repairs are delayed
Major work likely won’t be done until 2022-23
After getting emergency approval last winter to spend more than $189,000 toward an estimated total of $920,000 for repairs at the Scioto Mile Fountain in Bicentennial
Park, major reconstruction never began – and won’t begin for at least another year.
The entire project initially was to be completed this year, according to the justification listed for requesting that Columbus City Council provide the initial funding as an emergency measure so that work could start.
Instead, the city opted to do temporary repairs that got the leaking fountain flowing and reopened on Aug. 2, while pushing off the bigger repair project. The city hopes to keep the 15,000-squarefoot fountain in working order through next summer, after which the plaza site across the Scioto River from COSI will be dug up and undergo extensive repairs and replacement of numerous major components, according to the new schedule.
“When we adjusted our strategy so the fountain could open this summer, the department shifted its focus to other department projects for this winter,” said Kerry Francis, spokeswoman for the city Department of Recreation and Parks.
“We did make some initial repairs to get the fountain open for the 2021 season,” Francis said. “We did just do some of those repairs so we could quickly get that open for about five weeks or so at the end of the season, because it was
really important for us to have a little bit of the season.”
But the major repair project remains unfunded, either publicly or privately, through the Columbus Downtown Development Corporation, which the city has asked to pay for the project.
“That funding will have to be introduced in separate legislation once the (Recreation and Parks Department) determines final cost and timing,” Council President Pro Tempore Elizabeth Brown said in an email. “Council will consider it then.”
All work on the fountains, which stores 110,000 gallons of water in an underground reservoir to shoot water up to 75 feet in the air or through hundreds of ground nozzles and “fog nozzles,” now is expected to be completed in time for summer in 2023, Francis said.
The CDDC said it provided $20,000 for the temporary repairs earlier this year, but it didn’t respond to questions about funding the bigger project. The city and CDDC “are just beginning to plan, so we don’t have any other details,” Francis said.
The Dispatch reported in March that the intricate fountain features, which are popular with children and parents, were akin to an exotic sports car and have needed frequent, and often expensive maintenance.
“That fountain is a Porsche, and you can’t maintain a Porsche the same way you do a Buick,” Keith Myers, formerly a principal with MSI Design, the Columbus-based
landscape architecture firm behind the creation of the $40 millionplus Scioto Mile project, said earlier this year.
“After a certain period, they are highmaintenance items,” said Myers, now vice president of planning, architecture and real estate with Ohio State University.
In 2015, Thisweek Newspapers reported that five years after coming online, wear and tear on the fountain required about $30,000 worth of improvements. And in 2016, the Columbus City
Council approved another $150,000 to fix leaks in the piping system, requiring parts of the plaza surface to be removed and replaced.
That was followed by about $40,000 the city spent in 2017 to address a waterpooling issue that occurred when wind caused water to flow away from the fountain’s drains.
Some residents have raised concerns about the cost of keeping city fountains flowing.
Former city council candidate Joe Motil said last March that Columbus taxpayers are constantly fixing fountains, citing the $2.2 million spent in 2019 to fix the Franklin Park Cascades after a $583,000 upgrade didn’t work, and another $474,000 on fixing the leaking pond and elephant fountain at Goodale Park between 2012 and 2019.
The Scioto Mile Fountain came with an initial warranty from its manufacturer that covered pumps and other equipment, but that firm, Fantastic Fountains, went out of business shortly after the park opened, voiding the warranty, the city has said.
wbush@gannett.com