If you’ve lived in Columbus long enough, you’ve probably heard at least four different rumors about what might happen to the abandoned Cooper Stadium site. A racetrack. A tech hub. A mixed-use district. A vacant lot forever, perhaps, out of sheer habit.
Now, there’s a new proposal on the table, and this one might actually stick.
Arshot Investment Corp., the developer behind several of the site’s earlier (and unrealized) plans, has submitted a fresh concept to the city: a 47-acre mixed-use project called Cooper’s Outlook, which would combine housing, retail, preserved grandstands, and a splashy parking-garage-turned-rec-deck.
READ MORE: Columbus’ Abandoned Ballpark: The Rise and Fall of Cooper Stadium
What’s actually being proposed?
The plan includes:
- A four-story apartment building with 213 units, tucked behind the old grandstand.
- Two new retail buildings along West Mound Street.
- A multi-level parking garage topped with an amenity deck featuring a pool, lounge areas and courts for pickleball, bocce, and volleyball. (Because it’s not a Columbus redevelopment until pickleball gets involved.)
- Renovation of the remaining grandstand structure for events and open space.
- Shipping containers already on-site would become concession stands
The old playing field would stay open for events or community use, a nod to the stadium’s storied history.
A long history, and an even longer wait
Cooper Stadium opened in 1932 and played host to decades of baseball, including the Columbus Red Birds, the Negro League’s Columbus Blue Birds, the Columbus Jets and, most famously, the Clippers. FDR launched his first presidential campaign here. Aerosmith, Garth Brooks and Billy Graham all took turns on the field. For a place partially held together by rust and memories, it’s seen some things.
The Clippers moved to Huntington Park in 2008. Most of the stadium was demolished in 2014. And since then: crickets (plus a whole lot of shipping containers.)
This new proposal arrives after years of false starts and projects that never made it past the render stage. Arshot previously pitched an auto test track, which neighbors promptly rejected, and several other concepts that quietly faded away.
READ MORE: 6 Ridiculous Things We Could Do With Cooper Stadium
So… could this one actually happen?
It’s possible, and definitely further along than many past attempts:
- Columbus City Council approved mixed-use zoning in 2023.
- Demolition work to prep the site began in 2024.
- Green Lawn Cemetery has already secured rights to a narrow strip of land for its own expansion — a strangely poetic pairing: new housing on one side, a growing cemetery on the other.
But there’s still no construction timeline. Arshot hasn’t commented publicly. And Columbus isn’t committing financial support.
If you’re looking for hope, Indianapolis offers a good example. Their old Bush Stadium was once a decaying mess, too, until it was transformed into the well-loved Stadium Lofts a decade ago. If it can happen there, it can happen here.
Ok, so what now?
It’s been 17 years since the Clippers left Franklinton, and Cooper Stadium has spent most of that time drifting between “eyesore” and “historic heartbreak.” The new Cooper’s Outlook plan is ambitious, genuinely interesting and, at least on paper, totally doable.
Could this finally be the moment the old ballpark gets a new life?
In the immortal words of Field of Dreams: if you build it… well, honestly, we’re all just waiting to see if they’ll build anything at all.
