Travel & Leisure::Destinations

After 4 previous tries, Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment to allow casinos to operate in the state’s 4 largest cities. Three years after that 2009 vote, casinos began operations in Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo, with Cincinnati’s casino opening the following year in 2013.
The Columbus casino was originally supposed to be built Downtown in the Arena District. Specifically, it was supposed to be built where the Crew’s new stadium now sits. There was quite a bit of opposition to this plan given that casinos provide little to no external business traffic, and the thinking was that it would’ve caused more problems for the neighborhood than what it was worth.
So, the following year, a second statewide vote allowed for the Columbus casino to change locations to the West Side. The site that was chosen was the former Delphi plant, which had been closed since 2007. A bit of hypocrisy and irony was not lot in the demand to move the site, though. The West Side and Westland area were already in late state decline at that point, and proponents of the move claimed that the casino would help the area improve. This claim was made despite the fact that the move was initiated with the idea that it would’ve hurt the Arena District.
Still, the West Side seemed to be all for the move, as a new business- even a casino- was still better than a closed and deteriorating industrial plant.
Columbus’ Hollywood Casino opened on October 8, 2012 after about 2 years of site clearing and construction. While visions of the West Side raking in the benefits never really materialized in reality, the casino itself has gone on to great success in terms of revenue.

Initially, Cleveland- whose own Jack Casino was located in the heart of its downtown- was the highest earner by revenue in the state, Columbus passed it by 2016 and has been the state’s leader ever since.

All the casinos saw a 2020 drop as they were closed for 2 months and had hour restrictions into early 2021 due to the pandemic. Curiously, though, all of the casinos saw a huge increase in revenue over where they were in 2019. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.

In the Spring of 2021, I wrote about Amtrak’s proposal to bring passenger rail back to Columbus as part of its ConnectUS plan. That original plan included Columbus in just one route- the long-sought-after Cleveland-Columbus-Dayton-Cincinnati route, otherwise known as the 3-C Corridor. In my article, my view was that this plan was far too limiting for Columbus. That its growth and location suited the city for much better local and regional connections. Now, Amtrak is calling for Columbus to be a rail hub, complete with multiple routes and connections that rival those found in Chicago.

Here is the original map from last year:

And here is the updated version, recently released:

In the new plan, the Cleveland-Columbus-Dayton-Cincinnati route is maintained, but the following routes would be brand new:
Columbus-Chillicothe
Columbus-Athens
Columbus-Toledo-Detroit
Columbus-Pittsburgh
Columbus-Fort Wayne-Chicago
Louisville-Nashville would be an extension of the Columbus-Dayton-Cincinnati route.
So overall, Columbus residents would have direct connections to 12 different cities. Of course, many of those cities would have their own routes, so Columbus residents would have rail access to large parts of the country under the plan.

The timeline for completion is tentatively for 2035. Most of the proposed routes already have existing rail lines, so it would come down to funding any necessary upgrades along with buying the trains, etc. Whether any of these routes are ever actually built and opened remains to be seen, though. Passenger rail, unlike in most of the world, is politically controversial in the US, and public transit remains deeply underfunded and underbuilt in every part of the nation arguably outside of the New York and Northeast Corridor.

All Columbus Data

The Ohio Capital Supersite

Category Archives: Travel & Leisure::Destinations

Columbus Casino Most Successful in State

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Columbus to be a Rail Hub

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