Columbus 2025 Goal: A Stronger City

VisitColumbusGA

Even though Columbus has nearly 210,000 residents and is the second-largest city in Georgia, many people don’t know about this growing community. That is hopefully changing with a Columbus 2025 initiative now in place.

Columbus 2025 is a plan to establish a more competitive and prosperous Greater Columbus region by creating jobs and capital investment, attracting and retaining talent, and putting Columbus on the map with other top-tier Southern cities.

“Some people who even live in Georgia actually have never heard of Columbus, or they think it’s a one-stoplight town or just home to the Fort Moore military base,” says Tabetha Getz, executive director of Columbus 2025. “We are going big on marketing Columbus from this point forward. There is something for everyone in Columbus, and we have been too quiet about it – until now.”

Getz says Columbus 2025 has created a tagline called “Move to Meaningful,” hoping to attract a target market of young professionals ages 25-40 who might want to relocate to a different energetic city.

Flowing Forward

One highlight of the marketing campaign occurred in October 2023 when Columbus hosted the 2023 International Canoe Federation Freestyle World Championships. The five-day event attracted 300+ of the world’s best freestyle kayakers from 30 countries who competed at RushSouth Whitewater Park along the Chattahoochee River. RushSouth is billed as the longest urban whitewater course in the world.

Along with the excitement of the kayaking whitewater world championships, Columbus staged an accompanying riverfront RushSouth Music Fest & Outdoor Games during that same October weekend to draw even more people to the city.

“Now we want to attract more big events,” Getz says. “When we get these types of opportunities in the future, we want to roll out the red carpet and show people a really good time – and the great quality of life that Columbus has to offer.”

Guiding Principles of Columbus 2025

The guiding principles to increase prosperity, reduce poverty and enhance quality of life, with a continual commitment to equity and economic mobility, are realized through these five action areas:

» Cohesive Image and Identity: Promote the region as a unified community – branded as an amazing place to live, work, visit and play.

» Enterprising Culture: Foster an enterprising spirit and innovative culture to support startups and creates a thriving entrepreneur ecosystem.

» Talented, Educated People: Attract, retain and develop top talent to strengthen the workforce pipeline.

» Targeted Economic Growth: Build greater economic mobility by supporting new and expanding businesses and public-private community investment.

» Vibrant and Connected Places: Enhance the quality of life by creating vibrant and connected neighborhoods and corridors.

Getz says one of the reasons Columbus 2025 will reach its goals is because of the community buy-in.

“In the past, organizations formed their own plans and executed those plans themselves,” she says. “We now have common goals and objectives that we can work on collectively and are used to help form strategies that align with organizational missions and help us all move forward together.”

– Val Hunt Beerbower contributed to this article.