Maintaining regional hub status key to city success

LANCASTER – Historically, Lancaster has been the regional hub for Fairfield County, and one of the goals of governmental, business and health officials is to see that it remains so in the future.

“Drawing others into our community, whether it is for retail, medical services, professional services, tourism, meals, etc., raises the standard of living for all of our community and provides our local government and schools to improve their sectors as well with improved roads, new school facilities, better emergency services, and better teachers,” said Lancaster’s economic development director, Mike Pettit.

But with the completion in recent years of the Lancaster and Nelsonville bypasses and the soon-to-be-completed Carroll interchange, it is much easier to go from Columbus to Athens and beyond to the Ohio River using U.S. 33, and vice versa.

The keys to maintaining Lancaster’s regional hub status is to continue to grow to meet the retail, medical services, cultural, and industrial needs of the community, particularly south and east of Lancaster.

Travis Markwood, president of the the Lancaster-Fairfield County Chamber of Commerce, said the development of the bypasses and interchange at Carroll is actually important to the future of business growth in the region, especially with industry and manufacturing.

“Transportation and location are one of the first things that attract future businesses to an area,” Markwood said. “We are sitting pretty good for the future and future growth.”

Columbus is already a national hub based on its location.

“With the improvements in the U.S. 33 corridor, it will increase the viability of our area and our industrial parks,” Markwood said. “And because of the traffic that remains on Memorial Drive, it remains an attractive area for businesses to set up shop.”

Medical services also are an important part of keeping Lancaster as a regional hub.

“The medical community in Lancaster, with the FMC expansion and growth of services, is a tremendous advantage for Lancaster, and it draws people to Lancaster for the wide range of services and quality of care they provide,” Petitt said.

According to figures provided by FMC, 48 percent of its patients come from Lancaster, with 19 percent coming from outside Lancaster but in Fairfield County, and the remaining 33 percent of their patients coming from outside Fairfield County.

“While we understand the importance of our role as the largest employer in Fairfield County, we are just one economic driver in our region. FMC is a strong advocate of business development and the growth of Lancaster and our surrounding communities,” said Jack Janoso, CEO of FMC. “Ultimately, growth in our area equals growth for FMC, and we will continue to expand to meet the health care needs of our community.”

Janoso said collaborating with other health care providers is important in the present and in the future.

“Our goal is that you never have to leave our community for the care that you need. For highly specialized care, we work in collaboration with various regional health care providers to enhance the services we provide locally,” Janoso said. “For example, we partner with Nationwide Children’s Hospital to ensure our community has access to the best pediatric care available. We also have a joint venture with Mount Carmel Health System to provide emergency services through the Diley Ridge Medical Center in northern Fairfield County.”

Cultural hub

The Decorative Arts Center of Ohio in Lancaster is one of the city’s many museums — along with The Georgian, Sherman House, and the Ohio Glass Museum — that have historically worked together to draw visitors from outside the city.

“I’ve always looked at it this way, that our museums represent a community’s culture,” said Brian Hill, executive director of DACO. “You are always greater when you band together in numbers. We might have someone coming for one event, like our Edith Head exhibition last year, but they might stay to see six other museums or events in the community. We tell people who come to our museum about others, like the Sherman House, that they may want to see.”

Hill said the community needs to continually strive to work together and help make Lancaster a destination spot, a regional hub for community culture.

“I only recently came to the community, but it is an amazing community with many things to offer,” Hill said.

The museums might have been working together for a while, but even restaurants are getting into it, Hill said.

“I recently ate at Diamond Jim’s for pizza, and the owner came out and started talking and asking if we had eaten at Table 1 and we should try them as well,” Hill said.

Challenges for the future

Markwood said one of the challenges in the future is marketing the Lancaster area more aggressively and advertising it as a stopover spot.

Greg Eyerman, executive director of the Fairfield County Visitors and Convention Bureau, said one thing the agency is doing is launching a new promotional campaign that will encourage people to spend two days in the area to visit the county’s museums, parks and recreational areas.

“We have over 8,000 acres of parks and we have four museums within a block of each other,” Eyerman said. “We have 18 original covered bridges. There is the Lancaster Festival and all the other festivals around the county during the season.”

As for medical services, Janoso said, one of the keys is personnel recruitment.

“One way to keep outstanding care in our community is to continuously recruit candidates to our Graduate Medical Education Program through our partnership with Ohio University’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine,” Janoso said. “Our residency program draws medical students from across the globe who train at FMC, and ultimately, a majority of which stay in our community to practice. In fact, 80 percent of this year’s graduates chose to practice in our community.”

Janoso said strategic planning is a key to the future of FMC remaining a regional hub for health care.

“Our surgical tower is a great example of how we are expanding to meet the needs of our community. And it doesn’t stop there; we also are in the midst of a strategic planning process that will be completed this summer,” Janoso said. “This process will allow us to identify key areas of importance for our staff to focus on in order to better serve our patients as an independent, nonprofit, high-quality health system.”

Pettit said transportation will continue to be a key in the future for Lancaster to remain a regional hub for business and industry activity.

“One improvement that must continue is transportation. We need all lights to be removed between Columbus and Lancaster and the path to Interstate 77 to be maintained and improved for best access to southern markets,” Pettit said. “Rail also needs improved. The Columbus-Logan short line can only handle loads of 80 percent of normal rail. Continuous improvement in retail, downtown, residential, industrial, transportation, support services, government services, education, medical, and workforce development all must happen to stay the regional hub we are.

“We are a great community but we must continually focus on improvement.”

cburnett@lancastereaglegazette.com

740-681-4346

Twitter: @CarlBurnettJr

Five to Thrive series

This package is a part of our yearlong look into the five most pressing issues for Fairfield County. It details what the community is doing to ensure it keeps its place as a regional shopping and medical hub despite the drive to Columbus getting easier.

Other installments of this series are:

•Closing the skills gap (ran in March).

•Creating a drug-free workplace (ran in May).

•Develop the next generation of leaders.

•Promoting a positive community self-image.

Find all of our content for this series at www.lancastereaglegazette.com/future.