Eric Wobser was the guest speaker for the Economic Club Luncheon in the Life Celebration Reception Center on Friday, Nov. 14. As executive director for Ohio City Inc., Wobser incorporated economic development strategies for Ohio City and as a result, the Cleveland neighborhood experienced significant urban growth.
Wobser now serves as Sandusky’s city manager, and he expects to see the same growth for Sandusky in the coming years.
Since 2009, when Wobser first assumed his position with Ohio City Inc., the city has experienced an urban revitalization. Ohio City has become known to the millenial generation as one of the ten greatest places to bar hop thanks to its trendy nightlife. Ohio City is also home to the West Side Market, where more than one million people from around the world visited just last year.
Chair of the Mansfield-Richland Area Educational Foundation and Mechanics Bank Senior Vice President Nicholas Gesouras described Wobser’s work as responsible for “basically a turn around and a renaissance of that part of the Cleveland area.”
So how did Ohio City do it?
Wobser started his talk from the perspective as an outsider and one who traveled through Mansfield when he would commute from Athens to Sandusky as a Ohio University student.
“It really is a beautiful and a prominent downtown. Certainly it has seen challenges just like every other small city,” said Wobser. “Particularly those in the Midwest and Northeast … they all experienced changes and hit places like Mansfield, Sandusky and Cleveland so hard,” he added.
According to Wobser, individuals are working differently than they did a century ago and they have more choices on where they choose to locate their businesses, and where they choose to call home. He, therefore, encouraged the Richland Area Chamber of Commerce’s Economic Club to harness a strategy that focuses on developing a sense of place.
In order to do this, Wobser made some suggestions. His first: identify what he called “anchor based institutions.” In Ohio City, he identified these institutions as the Lutheran Hospital, the Charter One Bank, Saint Ignatius High School, and the West Side Market.
“There really is an inter-related sense of success or failure between the community and what we call anchor based institutions. It’s creating that plan and investing in that plan together. We were able to do that because we had great leaders in place in those institutions that saw great potential in their neighborhoods,” explained Wobser.
He also advised to start downtown.
“Start at the core of a community and let its success distill out to the rest of the community. Downtown Mansfield is everybody’s downtown,” he said.
He said that nationally, the desire to shop locally is trending. A need exists, therefore, to make a downtown area “walkable.” Wobser cited examples such as rails, bike sharing and other alternative forms of public transportation other than buses. But having a walkable city is not affective if there is nothing to walk to, he said.
“If there is nowhere to go that feels vibrant or safe … ultimately you’ll have the most success in a development plan if you really start in that core of the city,” said Wobser.
“It’s thinking about what that market wants,” he continued. “By making major investments in the school system and public safety forces, the schools in Ohio City are getting better. The neighborhood in Ohio City is statistically much safer.”
Additionally, he emphasized the importance of finding young entrepeneurs and encouraging them. “Entrepreneuralism is back in a big way. I think the 21st century is a response to the 20th-century mom and pop shops. People want to shop locally. Find those local entrepeneurs and celebrate them by empowering them,” explained Wobser.
Finally, he encouraged millenials to get involved. Whether that involvement be in formal ways or not, to get involved with local decisions is important because they (the millennials) will ultimately inherit the city.
“They’re going to inherit the city. So they can either roll up their sleeves and be a part of the change that they want to see, or they can leave. Ultimately that’s up to them,” he said.
President of the Richland Area Chamber of Commerce Jodie Perry said she was encouraged by Wobser’s talk.
“In general my reaction is very positive. I’m encouraged because there are already many of the things he talked about taking place, so we’re accomplishing some of these things. I think we’re on the right track,” she said.
The Economic Club will meet again for a luncheon on December 15 at 11:45 a.m. Jari Luomakoski, PhD will be the guest speaker. The Richland Area Chamber of Commerce advises to mail, fax or e-mail reservations no later than December 9 to: Economic Club, 55 North Mulberry Street, Mansfield, Ohio 44902.
