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Business Development News Opinion

Large vacant buildings should be transitioned into urban community centers

Could the Bartlett Building be transformed into something completely different? Photograph by Thadd Fiala for UrbanCincy.

Throughout the United States there are cities that have large vacant buildings and spaces in their central business district that could be utilized in a new efficient way.

In Cincinnati, the old School for the Creative & Performing Arts was recently auctioned off and is slated to be turned into apartments. In the CBD the Bartlett Building, Tower Place Mall, and Terrace Plaza Hotel remain empty or nearly empty and take up about one-fourth of a city block each.

Some think these buildings could be prime residential properties, but they could be that and more. A large vacant building, for example, could be developed into a mixed use community center.

My inspiration actually came from the Up To Speed story on UrbanCincy about a rock climbing gym in St. Louis. I thought to myself that Cincinnati can have something similar and better. Downtown Cincinnati and OTR/Pendleton are becoming destinations for young adults and families for both restaurants and bars.

Turning a large vacant building into a destination point for physical and social activity would add a whole new dimension to the city. The following ideas are what could go collectively into a large empty building:

  • Rock Climbing Gym – With the exception of the UC recreation center, all of the rock climbing centers are on the outer edge of the city.
  • Paintball Arena – This would be an extremely unique idea for the area as there are minimal indoor paintball facilities and could be a draw for different work or teambuilding groups.
  • Exercise Gym/Running Track – The gyms downtown are mostly old and do not offer enough space or have odd floor plans. Renovating a vacant building would allow plenty of space with tall ceilings and large windows that could allow natural light and have a large open space for exercise equipment. A downtown gym with enough space can offer a full menu of classes including Crossfit, spinning, yoga and Zumba, to bring in a broad range of people looking to exercise. A running track a fraction of the size of an outdoor track could be installed for those that do not like treadmill, but want to run indoors.
  • Basketball Court/Indoor Soccer – Large office buildings could utilize a few stories to carve out a basketball/indoor soccer surface and hold leagues and practices for area schools and AAU teams.
  • Batting Cages/Pitching Tunnels – The basement of a building could be an ideal area for batting cages and pitching tunnels for baseball and softball practice during the cold months. These cages and tunnels are easily moved and can be repositioned to make room for more activities inside the building.
  • Golf Simulators/Nets/Putting Green – This would be another unique addition to an urban area with little green space for golf. Workers could play a quick round during their lunch break or warm up before they go out to one of Cincinnati or Hamilton County’s public courses. This would also allow for urban dwellers a space they could walk to for golf lessons.
  • Offices – With additional amenities a building would become more attractive to businesses.
  • Apartments – To make the building a true mixed use development, apartments could be added as this would be a true “luxury apartment” with a real gym (unlike those found at too many apartment complexes that only have a treadmill and Bowflex and call it a gym) and the ability to walk to some of the most popular dining destinations in the city.

To compare a potential community center downtown with other recreational centers, the Recreation & Physical Activity Center at Ohio State University has a total of 570,000 square feet of space including the pools, while 25,000 square feet is fitness space for weights and treadmills. By contrast, the Campus Recreation Center at the University of Cincinnati has 202,000 square feet including its pools.

The options of what to include in these large, empty spaces are endless, but a truly mixed use development would be better suited for the community than simply offices, apartments, and art studio space. The gyms downtown are old and do not offer enough space, or have odd floor plans. Rock climbing and paintball would draw younger crowds, and the students in the area could benefit from having additional practice facilities.

A neighborhood needs young families as well as young professionals. This would be a good start to try and draw them to the core and keep them there.

Brian Valerio grew up in Cincinnati’s College Hill neighborhood and graduated from St. Xavier High School and Ohio State University where he studied finance and real estate. He currently works at Fifth Third Bank and lives downtown. Those interested in sharing their thoughts can submit guest editorials to UrbanCincy by emailing urbancincy@gmail.com. Please include a short bio with any submissions.

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Business Development News

Why more and more companies are setting up shop in Over-the-Rhine

Color Building photograph by Randy Simes for UrbanCincy.

It’s not even close to being one of the biggest corporate relocations in town, but for Over-the-Rhine it could be a game-changer.

Core Resources Inc., a fast-growing Anderson Township construction management and development company, is pulling up its suburban stakes and moving 31 employees to the Color Building at 14th and Vine streets. It’s goodbye to four-minute commutes, hello inner city.

Core joins many other, generally smaller, businesses that are migrating back to Over-the-Rhine. Two law firms, Keating Muething & Klekamp and Barron Peck Bennie & Schlemmer, have opened satellite offices this year. Other recent arrivals include Four Entertainment Group, the operator of Keystone Bar & Grill and other urban eateries, which just moved from Mount Adams; Northpointe Group, a real estate development company; and the Brandery and other startup-related ventures.

“There’s a demand that didn’t exist before,” said Bobby Maly, chief operating officer of Model Group, a residential developer that considered moving its headquarters to the Color Building from Walnut Hills. “I think you’re going to see an increase in commercial activity over the next five to 10 years.”

If other businesses follow Core’s lead, it could mean that Over-the-Rhine’s decade or so revitalization is entering a whole new phase.

Nobody seems to keep count, but Core looks to be the largest for-profit business to move into Over-the-Rhine within recent memory. Many businesses are attracted by nearby clients, including Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC), but for decades almost any movement by private business was in the other direction – out.

Barron Peck moved into a rented storefront on Vine Street in September, just a few doors down from Core’s soon-to-be new headquarters.

“We just wanted to be closer to all the action,” said lawyer Jonathan Bennie, whose main office is in Oakley. “We’ve managed to develop a lot of new relationships that hopefully will last a long time. It’s been a worthwhile investment so far, and we suspect it’s just going to get better.”

Businesses are definitely part of OTR’s master plan, and there are many buildings suitable for larger commercial users, said 3CDC spokeswoman Anastasia Mileham.

“We don’t necessarily have any in the pipeline at the moment, but it makes sense. It’s certainly going in that direction,” she said. “The plan is that it will be a true mixed-use neighborhood.”

‘Certainly gratifying’
Scott Stiles, the city of Cincinnati’s assistant city manager, said Core’s CEO Paul Kitzmiller approached him months ago, and he assured Kitzmiller the city would work with him.

“It’s important that a company like his is willing to look at Over-the-Rhine. Hopefully that validates some of the investment we’ve made down there. It’s certainly gratifying,” Stiles said.

Core is getting a tax break from the city – an investment reimbursement based on 55 percent of the earnings taxes paid by its employees for five years. It’s worth an estimated $114,000, still to be approved by City Council.

Not that Core Resources is venturing into unknown territory. It has worked on many downtown restaurant projects, and for the past year it’s been renovating the Color Building for 3CDC, now its landlord.

“The more we got involved with the project and got to know this building, we saw how special it was,” said Kitzmiller, who is co-owner of Core with his brother Dave Kitzmiller, its chief operating and financial officer.

“A company like ours coming to Over-the-Rhine validates what 3CDC has been trying to do – that it’s OK to be in Over-the-Rhine,” Paul Kitzmiller said. “We also felt the move would enhance our relationship with 3CDC.”

This story was originally published in the December 7, 2012 print edition of the Cincinnati Business Courier, and was written by Jon Newberry. UrbanCincy readers are able to access this story in its entirety through our exclusive partnership with the Business Courier. Those interested in accessing all of the Business Courier‘s premium content can do so by subscribing through UrbanCincy‘s discounted rate.

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Business Opinion

Downtown Cincinnati’s retail future probably not the shopping mall

[This is a guest editorial written by Eric Douglas in response to Episode #9 of The UrbanCincy Podcast which focused on urban retail planning – Randy.]

Do people visiting downtown do so to shop at a mall?

That’s the question I ask myself regarding Tower Place and downtown Cincinnati shopping. Across the region, the standard indoor shopping malls along I-275 that we have come to know, Tri-County Mall, Northgate Mall, Cincinnati Mall/Cincinnati Mills/Forest Fair Mall, and Anderson Towne Center/Beechmont Mall, all have had their struggles (if the rebrandings alone aren’t enough to prove that).

When architect Victor Gruen invented what we now know as the indoor mall in a 1952 and subsequently opened his first prototype in 1956 in Edina, Minnesota, it was not a totally original concept. Shopping galleries had existed in European cities, Cleveland’s Arcade, and Chicago’s Merchandise Mart well prior to the 1950’s.

Do urban shopping malls like Cincinnati’s Tower Place Mall still make sense?. Macy’s Fountain Place photograph by Randy A. Simes.

Though the region’s suburban shopping malls modeled after Gruen’s are different from the European Galleries and Tower Place in that they have two or three department stores anchoring the smaller stores and are within large seas of parking – something even Circle Centre Mall in Indianapolis and Water Tower Place in Chicago have. But what is also a commonality between Tower Place and other regional malls is that the post-1950’s indoor shopping mall experience is no longer desirable to consumers.

Now Kenwood Towne Center is thriving, and this does not include the decaying Kenwood Towne Place, the indoor shopping mall is not a complete and total failure in most markets, especially those more affluent like Kenwood, West Palm Beach, Troy, MI, etc., and most developers have acknowledged this by making malls outdoor “lifestyle centers”, but who’s to say that’s a viable alternative that will last half as long (30 years) as the indoor mall lived.

All this background sets the stage for the original question: do people visiting downtown want to shop at a mall?

Looking at the recent notable large-scale projects in and around downtown, all of them hearken back to traditional urban areas or city-led development: Fountain Square, obviously with its square or piazza, the Gateway Quarter’s shopping, and The Banks grid street layout. From these successful examples, the city should continue to not to try to reinvent or retrofit itself in order to compete in a form similar to the suburbs, it should in fact continue to try to be the exact opposite of the suburbs and their shopping experiences. It should strive to be what only cities and traditional neighborhoods can and have been for 200 years in America: true organic places that provide genuine experiences that shopping malls and strip malls cannot provide simply by their nature.

Strive to be New York’s Fifth Avenue or Chicago’s Michigan Avenue where shopping for Christmas presents is such an enjoyable experience, even in winter, it’s romanticized in movies and attracts people from other states just to shop. Don’t strive for another mall that any municipality with a highway interchange can attract. Be different.

If you have something on your mind, please send your thoughts to us at urbancincy@gmail.com. The UrbanCincy team will then review your submission and get back with you for further details about your guest editorial.

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Business Development News

City’s latest CED designation supplies Northside with creative new growth tools

This post originally ran on CincyVoices, and was written by guest contributor James Heller-Jackson.

With its eclectic mix of locally-owned businesses, the Northside neighborhood is already known as a prime Cincinnati food, retail and arts destination in the region. Empty storefronts that would also make great restaurants have remained largely empty because of the lack of liquor license availablity- until now. On February 29, the Cincinnati City Council voted to give Northside “Community Entertainment District” status after a unanimous vote the day before by City Council’s Livability Committee. The neighborhood joins Price Hill and Pleasant Ridge with CEDs. Once the designation is in place it allows new restaurants to open with a liquor license, thus reducing startup costs by an estimated $30,000.

This is a huge win for Northside. For the last couple of years, Northside’s business district, while hanging in there in the midst of the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression, has had to turn away small businesses wanting to open in the neighborhood, merely because of the lack of liquor licenses available and the premium $30,000-plus cost of the very few licenses that were available on the open market.

The new designation changes that game. The Northside Community Entertainment District designation gives creative tools to the Northside neighborhood to enable new growth. Rather than a business having to reach out to a broker to maybe, just maybe, find a license at a relatively huge cost, a process that often takes years, they can now call the State of Ohio directly. In Northside’s new Community Entertainment District, up to 15 additional liquor licenses are immediately available to food establishments, all at a dramatically reduced cost of $1,500, and all directly available from the State with no outside brokers involved. These licenses are not transferable. If the business with the new license were to move out of the Northside district, they would forfeit that license. These licenses are not available to a business that only wants to open a bar; these are licenses that are available only to food establishments. This is helpful for Northside and small businesses.

The original 2005 Community Entertainment District legislation was not initially geared towards anything but for-profit developers to obtain. Last year, the not-for-profit Pleasant Ridge Development Corporation could not the CED’s original application fee of $15,000. Many thanks go to Cincinnati City Councilmember Laure Quinlivan, who worked hard to change the Cincinnati municipal code to make the fee downwardly flexible, thus opening the possibility of designation to not-for-profits. This change to the fee structure allowed Pleasant Ridge to apply for the status without outside funding, making Pleasant Ridge the first Cincinnati neighborhood to apply for and win the designation.

Already, Pleasant Ridge has new businesses that wouldn’t be there if not for that designation. As well, the neighborhood of Price Hill recently won CED status, and several new businesses have either already opened or they are about to open. So far, the two neighborhoods that have won the designations have benefited immensely. Over-the-Rhine, Madisonville and Westwood have also applied for Community Entertainment District status but have not yet received it.

Northside Entertainment District Map

Northside’s new Community Entertainment District covers not just the traditional business district, it also targets a wide area south of Blue Rock Street.

The Northside Business Association (NBA) first started working with Laure Quinlivan’s city council office early last year after hearing of the possibility of Northside applying for and winning this important designation; the designation would not have been possible without Laure and her staff’s efforts. Also, Berding Surveying needs to be thanked, as they donated their services to the effort to produce the required survey and map. Once Northside’s required application package was completed, as a matter of transparency, the plan was presented at open Northside Community Council and Northside Business Association public meetings for comment. Community support was widespread, and the package was sent along to the city council’s Livability Committee for consideration.

NBA president Isaac Heintz has this to say about the designation: “The Northside Business Association pursued the entertainment district designation to provide Northside with another tool to help retain existing businesses and to attract new ones. The designation of the entertainment district can only help to continue the positive trajectory of the neighborhood and the growth of the Northside community.”


Northside’s “South Block”, along Spring Grove Avenue, is ripe for redevelopment. The Landman Building, right, was recently stabilized and environmentally remediated and is ready for build-out. The building just to the left is now a LEED Silver building with several newly-occupied residential and business condos.

The new district covers much of the existing Northside business district along Hamilton Avenue from the Ludlow Viaduct in the south to just below the Northside Library in the north. In the southern end of the district, Blue Rock Street and Spring Grove Avenue are both included, roughly from Colerain Avenue on the west side, to Crawford Avenue on the east.

There are currently a lot of existing empty storefronts and industrial spaces in the new entertainment district’s map. Residents and small business owners in the area would love to see that change. Imagine once-forlorn Northside blocks now teeming with urban life. By enabling these new licenses, the hope is to see more development in the district. This new development will include not only the new food establishments benefiting from the designation, but additional retail, arts, office and residential spaces, all serving to increase the vibrancy, diversity and uniqueness of all that is Northside.

James Heller-Jackson is a Northside resident and a member of the board for both the Northside Business Association and Northside Community Council. Pictures provided by the Northside Business Association.

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News Opinion

The Triumph of Downtown Cincinnati

The following editorial was published in the Cincinnati Business Courier on January 6, 2011. UrbanCincy shared this story with its followers, and received a slew of requests to share the story in its entirety.

Typically, premium content in the Cincinnati Business Courier is only available to paid subscribers, but thanks to our exclusive partnership with the weekly publication, UrbanCincy readers can read the story in its entirety below. Readers who would like to view all premium content from the Business Courier are encouraged to take advantage of a new subscription discount being offered to UrbanCincy readers.

Who would have figured, 10 or 20 years ago, that downtown Cincinnati would ever be described as “interesting” or “appealing”? A more oft-repeated characterization was that “they roll up the sidewalks at 6,” once the workday crowd headed off.

But local hotel and tourism officials are much more cheerful these days, according to our Insight focus on travel and hospitality this week. Senior Reporter Dan Monk writes that hotel occupancy in the central business district has jumped more than 20 percent since its low point in 2001, and convention business is booming.

And that’s because downtown Cincinnati isn’t what it used to be, in a good sort of way.

“There’s just more going on here,” says Wayne Bodington, general manager of the Westin Hotel, in Monk’s column.


Thousands crowd onto Fountain Square on December 31, 2011. Photograph by Thadd Fiala for UrbanCincy.

But while tourists seem to think that downtown Cincinnati is pretty lively, quite a few residents of Greater Cincinnati still cling to the notion that downtown is a dark and forbidding place, with empty streets, boarded-up buildings and flying bullets.

While the “empty streets” part once was true, at least in the evenings, downtown never was the desolate place some suburbanites envision; the number of Fortune 500 headquarters has always kept things humming, at least during the day.

And the business about high crime is illusionary – downtown has had exactly zero homicides in the past year, according to Cincinnati Police statistics. More likely people confuse downtown with the more crime-ridden neighborhoods of Over-the-Rhine and the West End, but even there, crime is decreasing.

In fact, according to the police department’s District One statistics, which include all three neighborhoods, violent crime is down 15 percent over the past two years, and property crimes have fallen 9 percent.

Cincinnati’s government is an ongoing magnet for insults, but the city deserves credit for what it’s done for downtown in the past 20 years. It kicked off the downtown living trend in the early 1990s, when it subsidized Towne Properties’ apartment projects on Garfield Place. And the formation of the public/private Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) speeded up the downtown living process, turned Fountain Square into an entertainment and restaurant venue, and began gentrifying large chunks of Over-the-Rhine.

Now, in the evenings, you can see people walking their dogs, crowding into bars and dancing to music on Fountain Square. That is, if you dare to come downtown.

It is the fate of Greater Cincinnati, and every sprawling American urban area, that some people live so far out in the suburbs that the city is nothing more to them than a mailing address.

And grumbling is part of Cincinnati’s culture, but why trash the city you call home, especially if you haven’t seen the center of it since the fountain was in the middle of Fifth Street and your mother took you Christmas shopping at Mabley & Carew and Pogue’s department stores?

Cincinnati will be hosting the World Choir Games this summer, bringing thousands of people into downtown and its environs. That would be a perfect time for entrenched suburbanites to make the day trip and see what Mr. Bodington is talking about, as well as participating in the festivities.

Or come down now, while you can ice skate on Fountain Square, and see what a difference a couple of decades can make.

The Business Courier offers a weekly print publication to its premium subscribers, and UrbanCincy readers have been offered an exclusive subscription discount. Those who do not wish to receive the weekly print edition can elect to become a premium digital member for just $49 through this exclusive offer being extended to UrbanCincy readers.