Workers install siding on a duplex on Carpenter Street being renovated by Nationwide Children's Hospital. Since 2007, the hospital has spent $733,000 to fix up 11 of its houses.
When the plan changed, Children's found itself in the landlord business.
The hospital is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to renovate the houses near its campus on the South Side.
"We want the community to thrive," said Angela Mingo, Children's community-relations director.
The hospital's $800 million expansion to the west is to be completed by 2012.
In all, the hospital owns 61 rental units, 40 of which are occupied. Most were purchased by 2001, when the hospital signed a good-neighbor agreement that said it would strive to have houses ready for occupancy within six months of purchase.
Hospital officials signed the agreement after community members complained about the run-down condition of the houses.
The hospital maintained the properties and began renovations in 2007. Since then, Children's has spent $733,000 to fix up 11 rental houses with 14 units, all on Carpenter Street. It plans to spend as much as $400,000 next year.
Most of the remaining rental houses are being maintained but have not been renovated. At least four are vacant -- a duplex on Livingston Avenue that the hospital bought in 2004; another on S. 18th Street, owned since 2005; one on Carpenter, since 2005; and a duplex on Livingston, owned since 2008.
It's those vacant, boarded-up houses that concern some neighbors.
Mingo said the "program of home repair and maintaining property has grown exponentially beyond the (2001) agreement. It's not a one-step fix."
She did not know why the hospital bought the four houses that are now vacant.
"Our decision to purchase is based on current economics as well as fit within our home ownership/rental strategies," she wrote in an e-mail. "In an effort to make the highest impact, we have focused renovation efforts on Carpenter Street for rental properties."
In the meantime, the hospital has continued with other beautification efforts such as providing 8,000 flowers and nearly 400 bags of mulch to area churches and community groups this past spring.
It also participated during the summer in a cleanup north of the hospital.
Mary Black, who rents one of the renovated homes on Carpenter, said the hospital is doing the best it can.
"They can't do them all at once," Black said.
Michael Aaron, chairman of the Livingston Avenue Area Commission, said he's meeting with Children's representatives this week for an update.
"To my knowledge, as properties become vacant, Children's is renovating them," Aaron wrote in an e-mail.
City Council spokesman John Ivanic said Council President Michael C. Mentel is confident the hospital is living up to the good-neighbor agreement.
Councilwoman Charleta B. Tavares, who criticized the hospital when it demolished some houses to make way for its expansion, said she also believes that the community is satisfied with the hospital.
A year ago, the hospital pledged as much as $5 million to buy and renovate as many as 50 houses south of Livingston Avenue for resale. So far, the hospital has acquired 12.
It was part of a pledge by the hospital and Columbus city government to concentrate on existing programs and create ones to improve housing, health, education, safety and job opportunities in the struggling area around the Children's campus.
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