In Downtown Mansfield on a rainy spring day, cars are navigating through a one-way street that’s currently under construction. Half of the road is torn up and blocked off with orange cones for a revitalization project that launched in March but was years in the making.
“New sidewalks, we’ll resurface the street, new water mains, new amenities, kind of beautifying it," Mansfield Mayor Jodie Perry said.
Although only in her second year in office, she’s was also closely involved in the effort to further investment in Mansfield previously as head of the Richland Area Chamber & Economic Development.
Mansfield and surrounding communities are hoping to capitalize on Intel's historic $28 billion semiconductor manufacturing facility in Licking County, just an hour south of Mansfield, and it's seeing projects like the one in Downtown come to fruition that helps Mansfield leaders feel certain they are ready for the city's moment.
Once a hub for manufacturing, Mansfield began to see a decline in the 1970s, according to the Greater Ohio Policy Center, a nonprofit that champions revitalization in communities across the state, including Mansfield. The economic turmoil that hit so many Ohio cities during the 2008 recession impacted Mansfield greatly, with the General Motors plant in Ontario, just west of Mansfield, announcing in 2009 it was shutting down, leading to mass layoffs in the area, Perry said.
“The way that Mansfield, everyone across the board in that city and really the county too said, ‘We need to make the Downtown, which is the heart of our city, as strong and vibrant as possible, and we’re going to do everything we can to make that happen,’ and they have. And it has been incredible," Greater Ohio Policy Center Executive Director Alison Goebel said.
That effort began around 2018 when community partners joined together to send 15 residents to the South by Southwest Conference.
"It was just the community kind of I think looking back and saying, 'We've done plans before. Why didn't we see results?,'" Richland County Regional Planning Commission Executive Director Jotika Shetty said. "And I think the answer was there was no ownership from the community."
The group, including Shetty and Perry, came back with dozens of ideas, one of the biggest being the 18 month long Main Street Improvement Plan, with more than $7.4 million coming from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Diversified economy and population growth
"We came out strong in many ways. We diversified our economy quiet significantly," Richland Area Chamber Economic and Community Development Director Jessica Gribben said. "We've got manufacturers of all different types. The healthcare industry is booming here."
Local leaders are working to attract a wide range of new businesses to the area, she said, but their first priority is supporting existing local businesses.
“With Intel, the very first thing we looked at is who do we have here that can serve some of their needs? So, our first emphasis is always our existing employers," she said. "How can we help them grow and be the best that we can be?”
But with plans for more development comes new pressures on housing, which the city has been feeling for a few years already, Perry said.
“It is a demand we’re seeing right now. I anticipate it to grow further," she said. "I cannot explain this, but the change happened during COVID.”
Unlike other Ohio cities like Akron and Cleveland that are still experiencing population loss, Mansfield saw population gain in 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which may start to become a trend in other Ohio cities, Goebel said.
"Even though Akron and Cleveland are continuing to lose population, it's not nearly at the rates that it used to be, right - like it's clear that these cities are starting to stabilize," she said.
That trend has Perry and other city officials looking for ways to attract more housing developers to Mansfield, Perry said. Richland County Regional Planning Commission’s Mansfield Housing Needs Assessment found the number of affordable houses has decreased since 2017, while the number of homes sold for more than $100,000 has increased.
“Everything from affordable housing to more luxury and then middle of the road price points," Perry said, "and again, we kind of need all of it – not kind of. We do.”
One such project is already underway in a housing development south of the city center. Mansfield City Council approved changes to the city’s zoning code last summer to allow for 20 duplexes to be built in the development.
"I feel like we went from talking about tearing houses down and being overbuilt for our population to the exact opposite, of needing to bring housing online," Perry said.
The Mansfield Housing Needs Assessment found that nearly two thirds of the city’s housing stock are single family homes and recommends changes to allow different kinds of housing. The city will be working on a comprehensive land use plan this year, Perry said.
“Nobody can even find the last one," she said. "Let me say it that way, so it was a long time ago though.”
On the whole, Mansfield is ready for a population increase, Perry said, but the city and agencies like the Richland County Regional Planning Commission still have work to do to ensure development goes smoothly, Shetty said.
"They're looking at a study on State Route 13 to make sure the industrial park and its growth and its employees can commute to the city, work and live in close proximity," she said.
"Our time to shine"
Mansfield is a city that feels like it’s on the precipice, waiting for years of hard work across sectors to pay off in a big way. Gribben and other local leaders largely attribute that to their ability to work as a team, backing one shared goal, she said.
“We knew that there was going to be a time when it was our time to shine," she said, "and I think we are really coming into our own.”
Local leaders know the work isn’t over – but they also know they can count on the whole community to continue coming together to better the city.
"The decline of places like Mansfield didn't happen overnight, so the kind of regeneration of them is not going to happen overnight," Goebel said. "But there's demonstrable distance that it has covered."
And Shetty already sees glimmers of this in small projects the community has taken on, like hosting outdoor movie nights in Downtown for families during the summer, she said.
"It's a tiny thing to do, but to see so many families come out into the community and enjoy their evenings - I think that really speaks to that the community cares," she said.
