John joined UrbanCincy in 2011 and immediately established himself as a key member of the UrbanCincy team. A native of Chicago, transplanted to Lebanon, Ohio in his teenage years, John currently resides in Cincinnati’s historic Mt Auburn neighborhood. John earned a Masters of Community Planning degree from the University of Cincinnati in 2013.
Demolition and reconstruction of the old Tower Place Mall, now named Mabley Place, began December 16 with the installation of construction fencing around the perimeter of the old mall at Fourth and Race Streets.
Demolition of Pogue’s Garage, however, will not begin until the conversion of the mall is complete. Once the parking garage is removed, it will clear the way for construction of the 30-story apartment tower planned for the site.
Tower Place Mall, which was purchased by the city early last year for $8.5 million, came attached with the deteriorating eight-story Pogue’s Garage. Originally constructed to serve as parking for the namesake department store across the street at the intersection. The department store closed and was replaced by the mall in the 1980’s.
The mall building also supported its own parking expansion that currently is only accessible via a skybridge from the Pogue’s Garage. The parking spaces above the old mall will remain open during construction.
“The 525 parking spaces that currently exist above Tower Place Mall must be able to be accessible by other means prior to the demolition of the Pogue’s Garage. Right now, the only way to access those spaces is through Pogue’s, so the interior ramping at TPM must be completed first,” explained Stephen Dronen with the city’s Department of Trade and Development.
City officials expect the $5 million Mabley Place project to take six to nine months, and are optimistic that the parking structure will open by June. In addition to the parking, the project will include 8,400 square feet of street-level retail. One retail space has already been leased.
From there, developers of the Pogue’s Garage site can begin the laborious task of taking down the parking structure.
Due to its close proximity to other buildings, and the fact that it does not have a basement, engineers say that the garage cannot be imploded and must rather be demolished conventionally. The city estimates the demolition will take about four months and should begin this summer.
Flaherty & Collins is the lead developer on the new 300-unit apartment tower that will also include 1,000 parking spaces and 16,000 square feet for an independent upscale grocery store.
Construction is expected to commence immediately following the demolition of the garage, with the potential for a tiered opening of the garage prior to the residential tower above. Under such a model, the grocery store and parking garage components could open in early 2016, while the high-rise residential tower would open near the end of 2016 or the beginning of 2017.
Although the redevelopment project was originally planned to be funded through the long-term lease of the city’s parking assets, the deal evolved to no longer require funding from the now cancelled lease. As a result, the project is being funded private financing and a $12 million forgivable loan that, city officials say, is contingent on the satisfactory completion of the project and completion and operation of a first-class grocery store on the ground retail floor of the project for at least five years.
As any frequent Cincinnati Metro rider knows, it seems like the bus stops at almost every block in the city. Would reducing the number of bus stops help make bus transit more efficient? A recent study released done by researchers at George Mason University looks at a hypothetical 43% reduction in bus stops in Fairfax, Virginia. Their results are worth checking into. More from Governing:
When bus stops are frequent, not only do buses have to stop more often to pick up and drop off passengers, they also use value time accelerating and decelerating. Those two factors alone can take up to 26 percent of total bus travel times. All that stopping and starting can also increase emissions.
Nationally, most bus riders — about 75 percent to 80 percent of them — walk less than a quarter mile to bus stops. But Zolnik’s study assumed that, in this case, most passengers could walk half a mile to stop, since many of the riders are young, healthy students.
We’re back for the new year! The first URBANexchange of the new year will be this Thursday at the Moerlein Lager House. This month’s event is dedicated to looking forward for 2014.
What are some of the things you’d like to see accomplished in Cincinnati during this new year? Drop by and lets talk about it over a drink!
As always, the event will be a casual setting where you can meet others interested in what is happening in the city. We will gather in the biergarten so that each person can choose how much or little they buy in terms of food or drink. Although we do encourage our attendees to generously support our kind hosts at the Moerlein Lager House.
Our team of researchers and writers will also occasionally dive further into the topics and publish the information and ideas on the website.
URBANexchange is free and open to the public. This month we are giving away two $25 gift cards from the Lager House as door prizes so be sure to drop your name into the raffle.
We will be situated in the northwest corner of the biergarten (near the Moer To Go window), but you can also ask the host where the UrbanCincy group is located and they will be happy to assist.
The Moerlein Lager House is located on Cincinnati’s central riverfront and is located just one block from a future streetcar stop. Free and ample bike parking is available near our location in the biergarten outside by the Schmidlapp Event Lawn.
Streetcar Supporters Gather Outside City Hall to Announce the Start of a Charter Amendment Petition Drive. Photograph by John Yung for UrbanCincy.
In the latest twist of the ongoing Cincinnati Streetcar saga, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Administrator, Peter Rogoff, sent a piercing letter to Mayor John Cranley (D) and all nine members of City Council informing them that the FTA is planning to act quickly on what they perceive as a material breach of contract.
“The Cincinnati City Council passed eleven ordinances on December 4, 2013, that have the effect of suspending progress on the Cincinnati Streetcar Project, an unprecedented action to suspend a federally funded transit project while it is currently under construction and after the City committed approximately $116 million in expenditures and contractual agreements,” Rogoff wrote.
“The Council’s action is a material breach of the FTA Master Agreement and the separate Grant Agreements executed between FTA, the City, and the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority to fund the project. As such, I write to inform you that unless this action is reversed and I receive not later than midnight on December 19, 2013, unequivocal assurances that the City will proceed with the project to completion on the current FTA-approved schedule, FTA will immediately terminate all of its grant obligations for the project and initiate a debt collection action to recover money owed.”
Strong words. It is no wonder Mayor Cranley jumped out in front of the media early on Facebook Friday morning to spin the letter as a positive development for his administration.
But what it also means is that the City of Cincinnati must complete its third financial audit of the project, with KPMG, no later than that date and should make a decision FTA finds satisfactory in order to avoid the loss of $40 million from the Federal government and debt collection on another $5 million of Federal money already spent.
“The City understood FTA’s position before it decided to suspend the project,” Rogoff emphasized with regard to ongoing claims by some streetcar opponents, contrary to what FTA has directly told them, who believe the $45 million in Federal funding could be reprogrammed to other area transportation projects.
Those activities happened on Friday and continued to evolve over the weekend. Meanwhile, the group fighting Mayor Cranley on this matter held a press conference on the steps of City Hall Monday morning announcing the start of a petition drive that would place a Charter amendment forcing the administration to finish the project according to its contractual agreements.
Streetcar supporters will need to gather 5,970 signatures in order to have the Charter amendment placed on the ballot, but say they are striving to collect 12,000 within five days in order to send a message to City Hall. Should they get the necessary signatures, it would be placed on the ballot for voters within 60 to 120 days according to state law.
“We are confident that this [the city’s ongoing financial audit] will show that the cost to stop the streetcar is more than the cost to continue,” Ryan Messer, unofficial spokesman for the ‘We Believe in Cincinnati’ organization, told the crowd. “We hope at that point City Council will remove the pause button and hit the restart button, so we can continue to see the growth and development that has already come as a result of the Cincinnati Streetcar.”
At the same time, Mayor Cranley has gone on the record and stated that he would potentially veto any majority vote by City Council to restart construction and complete the project. Such a move would require the Charter amendment or a 6-3 super majority vote of City Council to override the mayor’s veto.
Following Monday’s press conference, the ‘We Believe in Cincinnati’ organizers say they will host a signature gathering training session tomorrow evening at First Lutheran Church at 1208 Race Street in Over-the-Rhine from 6pm to 8pm. Organizers say all are welcome to attend and that they expect hundreds to show up for what will be the first of a five-day blitz to collect thousands of signatures.
In order to get to the super majority vote, streetcar supporters need both Vice Mayor David Mann (D) and Councilman Kevin Flynn (C) to side with the four existing council members supporting the project. While both Mann and Flynn have stated, and campaigned on the fact, that they would consider the facts and figures before making a decision, both have shown indications that their minds may already be made up even before the latest audit is completed.
“I’m not against the streetcar because I’m against streetcars,” Flynn, who prior to being elected had been a prominent streetcar supporter, told The Enquirer on Monday. “I’m against it because I don’t think it makes economic sense for the city right now. I don’t think the numbers are going to come back supportive.”
Whether Flynn and Mann were sincere in saying that they would reasonably consider the facts and figures associated with taking “unprecedented action” to cancel a project already under construction, or not, is yet to be seen. But in either case it appears that streetcar supporters have a tough road ahead of them.
Portland is often cited as the “go to” city for rail transit and good planning initiatives. As someone who had ridden a fair share of streetcar, light rail and subway systems, I traveled to Portland with a dose of skepticism. TV shows like “Portlandia” showcase the quirky and often times absurd hipster culture that has blossomed in the city despite chronic problems with homelessness.
For a Cincinnatian, downtown Portland is a showcase of what could have been for downtown Cincinnati. A brief detour into Pioneer Place mall shows the potential of the failed Tower Place mall in downtown Cincinnati. A block away there is a downtown Nordstroms, something downtown Cincinnati failed to land in the 1990’s. A few blocks away, there is a downtown Target and TJ Maxx. The city’s retail scene is vibrant and its eclectic arrangement of food trucks and bicycle infrastructure add to that vibrancy.
It seems strange that these similarly sized metropolitan regions have realized two very different fortunes. One is of success through investing in transit infrastructure, the other struggling to make gains so far without it. This is why the construction and success of the Cincinnati Streetcar project is so vital.
Twenty-five guests of the Alliance for Regional Transit, spearheaded by John Schneider, toured Portland last month to ride the various modes of transit in the city and tour the different areas along the city’s expanding streetcar system. This is the 30th group Schneider has led out to Portland and also the largest.
Schneider has not always been a fan of rail transit. Citing the availability of bus transit, he was often critical of the need for rail in cities like Cincinnati. After the formation of Downtown Cincinnati Inc. (DCI), however, a survey was conducted where rail transit was found to be the top priority for downtown residents and visitors. He was assigned as the head of the Transportation Committee and tasked with bringing rail to the region, something he scoffed at at the time.
When recounting this story, he told the group in Portland that he had ridden several systems until one day he was riding a train in St. Louis and it finally clicked. The self-identified Republican has been a supporter ever since.
The $1.6 billion development started in 2004 and is home to thousands of residents. An aerial tram serves as a direct connection between the South Waterfront and the hospital. The tram also offers dramatic views of the city and the surrounding Cascades mountain range.
The east side of Portland, opposite the Willamette River, is primarily dominated by auto-oriented developments, however there is evidence that the recently opened Central Loop (CL) Streetcar line is having a positive impact on development in the area. A $250 million upscale apartment development has already begun construction at the junction between the streetcar and light rail lines at NE 7th Avenue and NE Holladay Street in the sleepy Lloyd District.
The next phase of the Portland’s streetcar system will connect the end of the CL Line in the east end to the end of the NS Line near the South Waterfront. To accomplish this the city is building a $134.6 million cable-stayed rail, bike and pedestrian only transit bridge that will open in 2015.
Portland Streetcar
CL Line Streetcar arrives
CL Line Streetcar runs down four lane one way streets
Phase V of Streetcar project includes this rail only transit bridge
Transit Bridge is under construction
South Waterfront from Aerial Tram
Streetcar runs by in Pearl District
New construction in Pearl District
Portland small business embraces streetcar
South Waterfront at south end of NS Streetcar line
Streetcar stop at South Waterfront
The tour also took the group through the Pearl District, which is the oft-touted renovated warehouse distinct in Portland.
While there are many comparisons to Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, it would be an unjust assumption because Over-the-Rhine features a greater amount of remaining abandoned and underutilized mixed-use multi-family buildings than the Pearl District. The Pearl District has seen over $2 billion in development, but it has largely been new construction built on sites that once were once occupied by rail yards and warehouses.
During the tour the group was introduced to different leaders who shared their perspective of Portland’s progress on its streetcar system. People like Paddy Tillett, Principle at ZGF Architects, who is with the firm that helped spearhead the effort to establish the transit mall in downtown Portland.
“People were calling it a toy train and saying that we already had light rail,” Tillett told the group. “Even TriMet didn’t want to operate it.”
However Portlanders soon came to embrace their streetcar system, which is now in its fifth phase of construction. Tillett continued, “The streetcar helps extend peoples walking distance, it is not supposed to serve as point-to-point transit. Today it has a dedicated ridership and is helping demonstrate how streetcars can play an important role in public transit around the country.”
The tour was capped off with a meeting with Portland Mayor Charlie Hales (D). Hales told the group, “We no longer have to provide subsidies for downtown development.”
Mayor Hales also stated that it took fifteen years for developers to begin reducing the size need of parking structures for development.
Portland is a beautiful city with vibrancy and life. However, this vibrancy was hard fought over the last three decades. The construction of the transit mall, TriMet light rail and the streetcar were huge gambles that ultimately paid off, and took Portland from a sleepy waterfront lumber town to a place where people move to even if they don’t have jobs lined up. Portland’s problems are ones born from success, not failure and even those problems are good to have.
At today’s council meeting, Cincinnati’s new political leadership will be making decisions regarding the continuation of construction of the Cincinnati’s streetcar system. The new mayor and city council will have to decide whether to continue the same hit or miss approach to development in the urban core, or decide to embrace a system that has a proven track record of success in many cities throughout the country and the world.
Cities like Portland are where the future is headed, Cincinnati’s new leaders should take heed.
