In a month or so, most – or maybe all – of the trees in the old Burns Bottom neighborhood will come down to make room for the Parkview redevelopment.

The city council approved the move during a Tuesday work session at City Hall as a step toward preparing the five-block site east of the Roger Short Soccer Complex for a mixed-use project. In a resolution, the council declared the trees standing there do not constitute a forest and the planned redevelopment’s value to the city far outweighs the loss of the trees.

City Engineer Kevin Stafford said he hopes specialty contractor Hannon LLC starts tree removal no later than May 1.

“It’s going to happen pretty quick,” Stafford said “… The developers are looking to add street trees when everything’s done. … What trees are taken out will be replaced, probably beyond the number of trees that are down there now.”

The Columbus Redevelopment Authority owns the property that makes up the Burns Bottom Urban Renewal District and plans to clear the site, install water, sewer and electrical infrastructure and build streets and sidewalks. After that, the CRA plans to transfer ownership to Friendly City Development for a sale price of $800,000.

Developers are planning to convert the once blighted area to a 52-lot neighborhood of single-family homes and possibly some commercial spaces.

As the Burns Bottom Urban Renewal District sits on 16th Section Land, the city council, as trustees, had to “make sure there is no waste” by cutting the trees, said Jeff Turnage, who serves as general counsel for both the city and CRA. Turnage said Columbus Municipal School District’s board of trustees will need to approve a similar resolution for about eight of the Burns Bottom parcels.

At the work session, Turnage presented a finding from a registered forester that the trees currently standing in Burns Bottom had no marketable timber value.

The volume of dirt work needed in the area likely makes any effort to save those trees moot, Turnage said.

“That’s probably going to kill the trees regardless of whether we want to remove them,” he said.

That doesn’t mean Friendly City Development isn’t willing to at least try.

Nic Parish, a partner with the development company, told The Dispatch on Wednesday he is open to viable options in that regard and is even speaking with Birney Imes III, a member of the city’s Tree Board, to develop a strategy for what can be kept.

Realistically, though, Parish doesn’t believe it will be much.

“There are only two or three (trees developers initially) said maybe could be preserved, but the problem is then the homeowner will own them on the back side,” Parish said. “Then they have a tree in their lot. … It’s not like they’re in the right of way. … Even if we save them, we don’t have any control over them.”

Under those circumstances, the lot owners would almost certainly remove them, Parish said.

“If I’m building a house on a 50-by-100 square-foot lot, I don’t want a tree that has a canopy half that size over my house,” he said.

The redevelopment plan calls for planting 200 street trees in the greenspaces and along the rights-of-way, replacing the nearly 30 trees that will be lost at about a 7-to-1 ratio.

That’s fine and good, said Imes, the former publisher of The Dispatch. But many of the trees being removed are 50 to 75 years old and can’t be replaced overnight.

Still, he said he understands many of them need to go.

“A lot of those trees are hackberry and just not good trees,” Imes said. “… Nic expressed a willingness to hear us out if there are good trees down there worth saving. … Wherever it is prudent to save the old, solid trees, I hope they will.”

Parish said he hopes the site work is complete and the developers can take possession by late this year or early 2027. Eleven lots at Parkview are under contract, according to the developer’s website.

Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.

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