Walnut Hills had a big year in 2013, and it seems as though the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation (WHRF) is only just now starting to flex its muscle.
The Walnut Hills neighborhood and neighborhoods surrounding it like East Walnut Hills and Evanston are beautiful gems in the Queen City’s crown, but they were gems that had not received the attention and care that they deserved. Kevin Wright, a former UrbanCincy team member who left the site in 2011 to serve as WHRF’s executive director, has guided the neighborhood’s recent resurgence.
One of the things the neighborhood has been most effective at over the past two years has been its community engagement and implementing placemaking strategies. The Five Points Biergarten, monthly community get-togethers, annual street food festival and various neighborhood cleanup activities seem to have sparked a renaissance there. In the fall of 2012 we even hosted a couple of story telling events in East Walnut Hills on DeSales Plaza.
Now all of those social events and neighborhood gatherings are being joined by public and private money that’s renovating historic buildings and creating new businesses like Hinge and Fireside Pizza, to name just two.
We are looking forward to what our good friend Kevin and his team have on-tap for 2014, but for now we are proud to look back on the terrific 2013 they had.
