Upper Arlington, OH

Upper Arlington’s newest civic gathering place sits amid shops and housing at Kingsdale. The Bob Crane Community Center opened on April 6, 2025, within the mixed-use development on Tremont Road. Its five floors and mezzanine contain over 165,000 square feet, combining an indoor pool, two gymnasiums, a running track, classrooms, an indoor playground, an art gallery, meeting rooms, an event center, and a lounge for older adults. A south-facing balcony extends the upper-floor event center. Entry requires a membership, day pass, program registration, or Ohio State University patron status; tours are available on request. The university’s Wexner Medical Center leases 33,400 square feet on the second and third floors for cancer-survivorship, orthopedic physical-therapy, and integrative-medicine services, joining recreation and health care in one building.

The city itself began as a deliberately planned suburb. In 1913, brothers King and Ben Thompson bought 840 acres of the Miller farm and began developing land bounded approximately by today’s Fifth Avenue, Riverside Drive, Lane Avenue, and Northwest Boulevard. Streetcar access connected the new community to downtown Columbus. Upper Arlington incorporated as a village in 1918, became a city in 1941, and reached north through later annexations. The streetcar ended in 1936. Today Lane Avenue remains the city’s most prominent entry from the Ohio State University side of Columbus.

Different eras remain visible across Upper Arlington. South of Lane Avenue, Old Arlington entered the National Register of Historic Places in 1985 for its twentieth-century American Colonial and English Revival houses. Bronze paw-print markers and larger signs on the Upper Arlington History Trail identify sites from the original development and later civic history. Commercial life expanded north as the city grew. The first phase of Lane Avenue Shopping Center opened in 1949, and Tremont Center followed in 1951; Lane Avenue now mixes shops, restaurants, offices, hotels, and residences. Farther north, Kingsdale’s redevelopment placed the community center beside housing and retail. The city’s older planned streets remain concentrated in the south, with larger mixed-use districts along northern commercial corridors.

Annual events use those civic and commercial settings in distinct ways. Upper Arlington’s Fourth of July parade marked its 100th year in 2026, traveling south on Northwest Boulevard before an evening gathering at Northam Park. Since 1966, the Labor Day Arts Festival has brought artists, live music, and hands-on art to the grounds between Northam Park, the Tremont Road library, Tremont Elementary School, and Tremont Pool. The September 7, 2026 festival lists about 120 artists and a Reading Garden stage inside the library. The community center added another venue when Arts on the Block used its indoor gallery, outdoor areas, and performance spaces on July 24, 2026; the free event opened the building to attendees regardless of membership. Festival activity extends from park lawns into the library’s Reading Garden and the adjoining school-and-pool grounds. In Upper Arlington, the civic cluster around Northam Park becomes an art district each Labor Day.