The Community's Conversation

This week’s CMC forum looks at turning corner offices into condos in downtown Columbus, Ohio. Can empty skyscrapers be adapted into residences to help bring downtown Columbus back to life and provide new housing? Some developers are trying to do just that. It’s a transformation loaded with risk but with the potential to turn Columbus skyscrapers into the city’s newest residential neighborhoods.

Marc Conte, Executive Director, Capital Crossroads and Discovery Special Improvement Districts, provides introductory remarks on the state of downtown Columbus.

The panelists are:

Philip Aftuck, Director of Investments, The Bernstein Companies

Tracy Hadden Loh, Fellow with The Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking, Brookings Metro

The host is Sam Rosenthal, Principal, CEO, and Architect, Schooley Caldwell 

This forum was sponsored by The Capital Crossroads & Discovery Special Improvement Districts, The Edwards Companies, Marker, and The Robert Weiler Company, and was supported by the Grange Insurance Audubon Center. The forum livestream was supported by The Center for Human Kindness at The Columbus Foundation and The Columbus Dispatch.

This forum was recorded before a live audience on March 1, 2023.

We look into the future…Licking County, Ohio’s ideal future as it prepares to welcome two massive Intel semiconductor manufacturing plants - and much more growth. With Intel’s arrival imminent, parts of Licking County, Ohio will be unrecognizable 25 years from now.

Can its planners and leaders provide the right mix of housing…control and manage sprawl…maintain green space…and create transit solutions that go beyond just more pavement for more cars?   

With the help of today’s speakers, we envision what Licking County’s “Ideal Intel Future” looks like. 

The panelists are: 

Jamie Greene, Principal, planning NEXT  

Rick Platt, President & CEO, Heath-Newark-Licking County Port Authority 

Jennifer Roberts, Executive Director, The Thomas J. Evans Foundation, and FRAMEWORK Convener  

The host is Benjamin Lanka, Business Editor, The Columbus Dispatch  

This forum was sponsored by Bricker & Eckler, Huntington, and The City of New Albany, and was supported by The Columbus Dispatch and The Grange Insurance Audubon Center. The forum livestream was supported by The Center for Human Kindness at The Columbus Foundation and The Columbus Dispatch.

This forum was recorded before a live audience on February 22, 2023.  

Ohio State University will soon be home to a ground-based copy of a space laboratory planned for a new commercial space station. The Ohio-based lab will be a replica of the George Washington Carver Science Park, a key science component of the “Starlab” next-generation space station.

The replica laboratory, or “analog,” will allow researchers to test experiments on the ground while identical experiments are conducted aboard Starlab in Earth orbit. The Carver Science Park, established by space tech leaders Voyager Space and Nanoracks, will be a core element of Starlab, the companies’ planned future commercial space station.

The project is now underway with a facility at OSU’s College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and this year, the partners will break ground on a stand-alone facility on the Ohio State Air Transportation & Aerospace Campus.

This CMC forum takes an in-depth look at how this new facility landed in Ohio and what it promises for the state and for researchers.

The panelists are:

Dr. John M. Horack, The Neil Armstrong Chair in Aerospace Policy, The Ohio State University

Jeffrey Manber, President of International and Space Stations, Voyager Space Holdings; Founder, Nanoracks

Dr. Scott Shearer, Professor and Chair, The Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, The Ohio State University

The host is Dr. Frederic Bertley, President & CEO, COSI

This forum was sponsored by Kroger and AECOM. It was supported by the Grange Insurance Audubon Center. The forum livestream was supported by The Center for Human Kindness at The Columbus Foundation and The Columbus Dispatch.

This forum was recorded before a live audience on February 15, 2023.

According to a study by the Pew Research Center, some 78% of Ohioans identify with a particular religion. With a panel of Columbus religious leaders, we discuss the role of religion in shaping society in Central Ohio, and how religion responded to the pandemic and was changed by it.  The forum also examines what happens in a diverse democracy when religion and politics mix.

The speakers are:

Victor M. Davis, DMin, Pastor, Trinity Baptist Church

Earl K. Fernandes, Ph.D., Bishop, Catholic Diocese of Columbus

Hillel Skolnik, Senior Rabbi, Tifereth Israel

Abdurrahman Justin Wood, Youth Director, Noor Islamic Cultural Center 

The host is Jerry Revish, Retired Television News Anchor, WBNS-TV, and Pastor and Co-Founder, Unity Temple Church of God in Christ.

This forum was supported by the Grange Insurance Audubon Center. The forum livestream was supported by The Center for Human Kindness at The Columbus Foundation and The Columbus Dispatch.

This forum was recorded before a live audience on February 8, 2023.

Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor completed her term on Ohio’s Supreme Court on December 31, 2022. Her time on the court ended in the middle of Ohio’s ongoing battle over gerrymandered electoral districts. O’Connor holds the record as Ohio’s longest-serving statewide elected woman.

This forum features:

Maureen O'Connor, Retired Chief Justice of The Supreme Court of Ohio.

The host is Yvette McGee Brown, Partner, Jones Day, and Former Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio

The forum partner was The Matriots, with support from the Grange Insurance Audubon Center. The forum livestream was supported by The Center for Human Kindness at The Columbus Foundation and The Columbus Dispatch.

This forum was recorded before a live audience on February 1, 2023.

Few events in U.S. history impacted education like the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic erased years of progress, 

Recently, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the nation’s report card, revealed losses in educational attainment across the county, with the biggest drop in math scores ever reported. Reading scores fell to their lowest levels since 1992.  

This CMC panel explores the damage done by the pandemic to education and the ways we can close the COVID learning gap in Central Ohio. 

The panelists are:

Amy Gordon, Executive Director and CEO, Communities in Schools of Ohio

Dr. Stéphane Lavertu, Professor and Director of Doctoral Studies, The John Glenn College of Public Affairs, The Ohio State University

Cheryl Ward, Vice-President, Success by Third Grade, United Way of Central Ohio

The host is Dr. Eric Karolak, CEO, Action for Children 

This forum was sponsored by Columbus State Community College and PNC, with support from the Grange Insurance Audubon Center. The forum livestream was presented by The Center for Human Kindness at The Columbus Foundation and by The Columbus Dispatch. 

This forum was recorded before a live audience on January 25, 2023.

In 2019, Ohio elected officials enacted a law to provide more than $1 billion in bailouts for private nuclear and coal-fired power plants with ratepayer money. Federal Justice Department officials later linked the law to more than $60 million in bribes. Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, who along with others was implicated in the scandal, is expected to stand trial beginning in January 2023 for his alleged role in the scheme.

Meanwhile, House Bill 6 remains on the books in Ohio and sits at the center of the largest corruption case in the state’s history, allegedly fueled primarily by so-called “dark money” from Akron-based electric utility FirstEnergy and current or former affiliates.

This CMC forum untangles the ongoing HB6 scandal in Ohio, unpacks the impact on ratepayers and the environment, and examines what can be done to mitigate the damage done to Ohio’s energy policy by “dark money.” The panelists are:

Ashley Brown, Former Two-Term Commissioner, Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, and Founding Executive Director, Harvard Electricity Policy Group

David DeVillers, Partner, Barnes & Thornburg, and Former U.S. Attorney, Assistant U.S. Attorney and State Prosecutor  

Kathiann Kowalski, Journalist, Eye On Ohio and the Energy News Network  

The host is Jo Ingles, Journalist, Producer, Statehouse News Bureau

The forum sponsor was Barnes & Thornburg, with support from the Grange Insurance Audubon Center.

This forum was recorded before a live audience on January 18, 2023.

We started the Democracy in Crisis series looking at America’s long history of polarization. We continue it by trying to look into the future. Given our current trends what does America look like in ten years? Will we come together, or will we continue on our polarized paths? Will we split into new political parties?

The panelists are:

Kyle Kondik, Author and Managing Editor, Sabato's Crystal Ball

Catherine Turcer, Executive Director, Common Cause Ohio

Dr. Herb Asher, Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, The Ohio State University

The host is Karen Kasler, Bureau Chief with the Statehouse News Bureau.

CMC’s Democracy in Crisis series partner is WOSU Public Media. The forum partner was The League of Women Voters of Metropolitan Columbus with support from the Grange Insurance Audubon Center.

This forum was recorded before a live audience on January 11, 2023.

What’s in store for Central Ohio’s economy and our region in 2023? While the immediate economic impacts of COVID are subsiding, inflation has been setting records in the U.S. and energy prices are rising around the globe. Will Ohio’s workforce be able to keep up with growing demands by newcomers to Ohio like Intel? Hear what the year ahead looks like for Central Ohio’s economy.

The panelists are:

Kathy Bostjancic, Chief Economist, Nationwide Mutual

Dr. Bill LaFayette, Owner, Regionomics

The host is Mark Williams, Business Reporter, The Columbus Dispatch

This forum was sponsored by BDO, Delta Airlines, Fifth Third Bank, and Ian Alexander Photography.

This forum was recorded before a live audience in Columbus, Ohio on January 4, 2023.

You can thank Ohio farmers for the beginnings of one of the state’s business powerhouses and one of Columbus’s top philanthropic supporters.

Nationwide Insurance, one of the county’s largest property and casualty insurance companies, was created in 1926 by the Ohio Farm Bureau as the Farm Bureau Mutual Automobile Insurance Company to help the state’s farmers insure their vehicles. By the 1930s, the company’s offerings had expanded to other states and added property and life insurance coverage.

Today, Nationwide is a Fortune 100 company that has helped put Columbus, Ohio on the map, while agriculture remains Ohio’s top industry, supplying one in seven Ohio jobs.

Hear from the current leaders of both the Ohio Farm Bureau and Nationwide Insurance as they share perspectives on Ohio’s economic future and the power of lasting partnerships in a changing world.

The panelists are:

Adam Sharp, Executive Vice President, The Ohio Farm Bureau Federation

Kirt Walker, Chief Executive Officer, Nationwide

The host is Colleen Marshall, Anchor, NBC4

This forum was sponsored by The Columbus Partnership and The Ohio State University. It was recorded before a live audience in Columbus, Ohio on December 14, 2022.