Author: Travis Estell

Travis joined UrbanCincy in 2009 as a contributor, and quickly took over technical responsibilities for the site. After growing up in Cincinnati’s east side in Goshen, Travis earned an Electronic Media degree from the University of Cincinnati in 2009. Since then, Travis has been working throughout the United States as a web development consultant. After living in Clifton Heights, Northside, and Over-the-Rhine, Travis now resides in Cincinnati’s Central Business District.

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Month in Review

Month in Review – September 2013

In September, we released two episodes of The UrbanCincy Podcast, discussing recent developments in the urban core and talking to Alex Ihnen about St. Louis’ urbanism movement.

Our  top 5 most popular stories for September were:

    1. Dîner en Blanc – A Social Experiment
      This editorial from Paige Malott generated a lot of conversation about the Dîner en Blanc event held this year in Washington Park.
    2. Metro Art Shelters Project to Transform Eyesores into Literary Canvasses
      City Council’s vote to ban advertising in public right-of-way was supposed to rid the city of eyesores, but it unintentionally degraded the appearance of Metro bus shelters. A new ArtWork project seeks to remedy the situation.
    3. Public Meetings Set for $200M Western Hills Viaduct Replacement
      The City’s Department of Transportation and Engineering is studying replacements for the iconic art deco viaduct.
    4. Construction Work Picking Up Steam on Streetcar’s $133M First Phase
      As you can see from our photo gallery, construction of the Cincinnati Streetcar is well underway on Elm Street, and the first rails are scheduled to be set into place in about two weeks.
    5. Mayor Mallory, Agenda 360 Hosting Transit Oriented Development Workshops This Week
      In an event held last week, experts gave a presentations on aligning transportation investments with long-term goals of growing a city.

 

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Month in Review

Month in Review – August 2013

5th Street Exterior - Image Provided by ImageFiction.

During the month of August, UrbanCincy covered several new developments and events in the city’s urban core. We also published two editorials that generated much response from our readers and the local community. Our  top 5 most popular stories for August 2013 were:

    1. Final Designs Revealed for $125M Dunnhumby Centre Tower
      The long-awaited renderings for the Dunnhumby Centre at Fifth and Race have been released.
    2. It’s Time to Consolidate Local Governments in Hamilton County
      This editorial by Randy Simes has generated over 100 comments on UrbanCincy. Randy was also invited onto 700 WLW to discuss the idea with Scott Sloan, and the Cincinnati Business Courier also provided their own analysis of the idea.
    3. Over-the-Rhine Impresses More Than 30,000 Spectators for LumenoCity
      Paige Malott and John Yung provide photos from the event that attracted over 30,000 visitors to Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood.
    4. Cincinnati Eliminates Center City Parking Requirements, Neighborhoods Next
      Randy Simes analyses the city’s move to deregulate parking within the urban core.
    5. Greg Landsman: Riding the Cincinnati Streetcar to Success
      In this editorial, City Council candidate Greg Landsman explains why he supports the Streetcar and why it should be extended to Uptown.

 

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Month in Review

Month in Review – July 2013

Mayor Mallory Addresses the Crowd

This month, UrbanCincy covered new developments in the Central Business District, Over-the-Rhine, and Evanston. Contributor  looked at how the city’s parking modernization plan relates to similar programs in other cities. We also released two new podcast episodes, discussing Cincinnati’s transportation history and the role of craft beer in our city, and posted a video of contributor Jake Mecklenborg’s bike ride from Cincinnati to Columbus.

Our  top 5 most popular stories for July 2013 were:

    1. Cincinnati To Grow Taller in the Coming Years
      Cincinnati is now poised to add 15 towers to its collection this decade, putting it dead even with how many the city added in the 1970s. Since many of these will be completed within the first half of this decade, it may be safe to assume that the city will add even more by decade’s end and approach the 1980s rate of tower construction.
    2. Industry Experts Believe a ‘Parking Revolution’ is Sweeping America
      Cincinnati’s recently approved Parking Modernization & Lease Program appears to apply these top trends by moving toward technologies that improve access control, payment automation, and real-time communication of pricing and availability to user’s mobile devices.
    3. Grandin Properties Completes $1.6M Renovation of 135-Year-Old Hummel Building
      The Hummel Building is the second of seven projects to be completed during the fifth phase of 3DCDC’s redevelopment work in Over-the-Rhine. The building is now home to a 1,900 square-foot restaurant space and four condominiums priced from $270,000 to $375,000, is also the first Over-the-Rhine project for Grandin Properties.
    4. Demolition of Evanston’s Long-Troubled St. Leger Place Begins
      The apartment building known as St. Leger was built in 1905 and is situated at the intersection of Gilbert Avenue and St. Leger Place. The building has long been known as a problem property in the city, but is now being redeveloped by The Model Group.
    5. Promise of Streetcar Driving Occupancy Rates at Hanke Exchange
      The owners of The Hanke Exchange – a collection of five buildings in Over-the-Rhine between Reading Road and Michael Bany Way – have announced that Teach for America will open their Cincinnati office at the Jupiter Building at 1110 Main Street.

 

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Up To Speed

Millennial cohort will have over-sized impact on retail, real estate

Millennial cohort will have oversized impact on retail, real estate

The Millennial Generation, also known as Echo Boomers or Generation Y, is roughly defined as people born between the early 1980s and early 2000s. As members of this generation start to make up a bigger portion of the workforce, and eventually become a bigger force in politics, a number of changes are bound to take place. In addition to preferring urban living in greater numbers than Baby Boomers and Generation X, Millennials also have different preferences when it comes to media, technology, shopping, transportation, and politics. More from Urban Land Magazine:

Over the last two to three years, echo boomers have been fueling the demand for rental housing in urbanized areas. Since 2009, there has been a steady increase in multifamily construction, climbing from 109,000 units in 2009 to 245,000 units in 2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The new multifamily rentals are not limited to coastal cities. For example, from January to September 2012, Houston’s multifamily housing development rate increased 70 percent over the same period in 2011.

Demand for rental units has increased most dramatically in tech centers such as San Francisco and the Silicon Valley area; Austin, Texas; Denver; Boston; and New York City. But even without the tech industry serving as a catalyst, the sheer size of the echo boom demographic has fueled demand for apartments—particularly those located in high-amenity cities and suburban agglomerations.

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Up To Speed

Media Bridges to close by the end of 2013

Media Bridges to close by the end of 2013

Media Bridges, “Cincinnati’s Community Media Center,” will be shutting down this year due to a lack of funding. The organization currently operates Cincinnati’s public access television stations, a radio station, and provides training and equipment to allow members of the community to create video and audio productions for these outlets.

Up until 2011, the organization was funded by Time Warner Cable, as required by the state of Ohio. After TWC lobbied the state to end this requirement, the City of Cincinnati stepped in to provide temporary funding for one year. However, funding was eliminated in the most recent budget. Officials cited feedback from the city’s “priority-driven” budgeting process, where residents ranked the organization as a low priority. More from CityBeat:

The city’s budget cuts were originally considered in December, but City Council managed to restore some funding to keep the organization afloat. Prior to the partial restoration, Bishop told CityBeat the cuts would be a “meteor” to his organization’s budget.

City officials back then defended the cuts to Media Bridges, citing city surveys that ranked the program poorly in terms of budgetary importance. For the surveys, the city used meetings and mailed questionnaires to gauge public opinion.