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PHOTOS: Construction Continues to Transform Cincinnati’s Central Riverfront

Early phases of The Banks and Smale Riverfront Park have changed people’s perceptions of Cincinnati’s waterfront. But ongoing construction of more apartments, office space, retail and park land is adding an exclamation point to the effort.

The changes early phases of The Banks and Smale Riverfront Park brought to Cincinnati’s central waterfront were remarkable to many lifelong Cincinnatians. In fact, when UrbanCincy showed those dramatic changes through Google Street View imagery last year many were stunned.

Those changes, however, were just the beginning. Work has progressed rapidly on the subsequent phases of work at The Banks and Smale Riverfront Park. The structures and final look of this work is now taking shape and is easily visible.

Much of the work at Smale Riverfront Park will be complete within the next month or so; then the next wave of activity will begin and continue to push the park westward toward its ultimate completion several years later. The second phase of The Banks, which includes 60,000 square feet of street-level retail, 300 apartments and General Electric’s 340,000-square-foot Global Operations Center, is scheduled for completion at the end of 2015. The complete build out of GE’s new $90 million office building will not be fully finished until sometime in 2016.

EDITORIAL NOTE: All 15 photographs in this gallery were taken by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy on April 12, 2015.

By Jake Mecklenborg

Jake Mecklenborg joined UrbanCincy in 2009, contributing original articles, photographs, and videos. He grew up on Cincinnati’s west side and graduated from St. Xavier High School in 1996. Jake went on to study at the University of Tennessee and Ohio University. His book, Cincinnati’s Incomplete Subway: The Complete History, was published by The History Press in 2010. He currently lives on Mulberry Street overlooking Over-the-Rhine.