With no change in the number of property owners along state Route 161 willing to participate in a special improvement district, the effort has been abandoned.

Only 14 of 158 owners of property between Ponderosa Drive and the Worthington corporate limit would agree to be assessed to pay for maintaining landscaping, improving security and making other enhancements to the corridor, according to State Route 161 Task Force chairman Dave Cooper.

That figure held steady even after the proposed total amount to be assessed, based on front footage, was dropped from $246,000 to $100,000, meaning each property owner would have contributed an average of $900 a year.

Even with that reduction, Cooper said, all but those 14 owners either voted against joining a special improvement district (SID) or didn't respond at all.

"We have no choice but to end our efforts at this time in this economy," said Cooper, owner of the Ink Well on East Dublin Granville Road and also president of the Northland Area Business Association.

"The timing clearly is not right and the will at this point obviously is not there," Northland Community Council president Dave Paul said. "We did know going in that it wasn't necessarily going to be an easy proposition. And, of course, we didn't anticipate the economy."

Paul pronounced himself disappointed at the failure to get more property owners on board with the reduced assessment, which he referred to as "SID lite."

"The decision to stand down was a disappointment," said Mark Higdon, membership services director for the Northland Area Business Association. "We've been working on this for the better part of three years. The fact that it didn't sell out there is perfectly understandable in this economic environment. It wouldn't even sell at a scaled-down, discounted rate."

City officials have been notified that formation of the special improvement district will not be going ahead, and letters informing the property owners have been sent out, Cooper said. Those letters also included a card in case some of the property owners, many of them in distant points like Texas and New York, would care to donate to a beautification effort funded through contributions, Cooper added.

"So that's where we're at," he said. "Basically it will be a volunteer effort."

"We are looking at forming the alternative," Paul said. "Exactly how we go about that and the approach we take remains, to some extent, to be decided.

"I think it's a disappointment, speaking for the communities around the 161 corridor. I think it will have an impact on our communities if the things that the SID was going to achieve are not achieved by other means."

Marc Conte, research director for the Capital Crossroads and Discovery special improvement districts in downtown Columbus, helped with some of the efforts to form the SR-161 SID. He said he knew the task force members faced an uphill climb.

"If they were to look a year or even two years from now, if the economy is doing better, I think they would have a good chance," Conte said. "A lot of it comes back to the economy. This is an extremely tough year."

The State Route 161 Task Force will continue to exist, with meetings scaled back to once a month, Cooper said.

These meetings will be held at 8 a.m. on the first Thursday of the month in the Heritage Day Health Center at 1700 E. Dublin Granville Road.

The task force has "plenty of momentum," in Higdon's opinion.

"We'll keep moving forward, keeping the corridor tidy and mowed," he said. "The SID won't happen, at least for now, but there's still work to be done and we'll keep on doing it."

Cooper will focus his efforts on coordinating beautification projects, such as the 22 planters in the SR-161 median, with "business owners, not necessarily the property owners, because they're the ones who have to care about the appearance about their property in the corridor."

"Obviously they would like to participate, the businesspeople, but often these are national chains and the local person doesn't have much control, if any, over what they can spend," he said.

Cooper spoke last week with Judy Harding, chairwoman of the NCC Beautification Committee, about trying to get business and commercial property owners to adopt the remaining 15 of the decorative planters not currently being maintained by residents.

"That will be one of the primary efforts in the coming year," Cooper said.

An all-volunteer effort is going to be difficult to sustain, compared with a regularly funded nonprofit organization doing the work, Conte said.

"I think the biggest thing is going to be the consistency over time," he said.

Nevertheless, that's how it will have to be, Cooper said.

"I really feel that those of us who do business on 161 are going to have to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and fend for ourselves," he added. "That's what it's going to take, is a team effort."