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Business News

UrbanCincy begins rolling out new website features, announces bi-weekly podcast

For nearly five years, UrbanCincy has strived to keep the region connected with its urban core, and we continue to develop new ways in which to accomplish this. To that end, we will be rolling out some new features to our website over the coming weeks. These features are intended to improve the usability of the site for you – the readers.

Earlier this year, we introduced the Disqus commenting system to improve functionality and interaction between readers. In addition to that, you will notice a number of additional technical enhancements intended to better connect you with our team.


Inside The UrbanCincy Podcast studio where chief technologist, Travis Estell, works to produce the first episode. Photograph by John Yung.

The first of the new features is now live and operational. “Up To Speed” is a new section providing a constant stream of all the news and discussion happening around the world that pertains to Cincinnati.

Another new feature is a bi-weekly podcast that will debut this Friday. The UrbanCincy Podcast will include in-depth debate of contemporary topics by our team. Each episode will focus on one topic and include feature commentary by a national or international expert on the topic.

This Friday, the UrbanCincy team will be joined by Natalia Gomez Rojas, an urban planner from Bogota, Colombia, to discuss the TransMilenio and what Cincinnati can learn from the world’s premier bus rapid transit system.

While we implement more of these new features, you can continue to expect the same original news content from the UrbanCincy team you have come to expect. We hope that these changes will enhance your experience with the website, and make UrbanCincy.com your urban lifestyle website destination. Thanks for reading.

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Business News

After years of work, ambassadors in Over-the-Rhine are finally reality

Last June the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) expanded the clean and safe ambassador service from the Central Business District to historic Over-the-Rhine (OTR). The move came after neighborhood leaders, businesses and residents called for such expansion to help protect the progress made there over the past half-decade.

3CDC partnered with the Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce, Greater Cincinnati Foundation and The Carol Ann & Ralph V. Haile Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation in order to make the $100,000 endeavor a reality.

“This ambassador service will greatly compliment the ongoing development in Over-the-Rhine,” stated Chad Munitz, Executive Vice President of Development & Operations of 3CDC. “With more residents moving into the area and the extra activity in the community it is a great asset to have an extra pair of eyes on the street helping with safety and additional help with the cleanliness of the neighborhood.”

While the ambassadors appear to be a welcome addition to the neighborhood, their presence comes five years after the idea was originally pursued.


An Over-the-Rhine Ambassador cleans up trash along the sidewalk outside of the busy Taste of Belgium Cafe. Photograph by Randy A. Simes for UrbanCincy.

“The whole idea was about jump starting OTR,” explained Michael Redmond, owner of several neighborhood businesses including Neons Unplugged, and former director of the now defunct Vitality Over-the-Rhine that spearheaded initial conversations years ago. “We had ambassadors in the neighborhood about nine or ten years ago, and we thought it was the easiest thing to bring back. It was a way to make an impact through cleaning up the streets.”

The new service includes two teams of ambassadors that walk the streets of Over-the-Rhine. According to 3CDC officials, the clean team works seven days a week focusing on litter, graffiti removal, weed abatement, and pressure washing. The safety team is meant to compliment those services and patrols the neighborhood Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 3:30pm to midnight. Officials say that the safety team is responsible for panhandling interactions, bike patrols and safety patrols.

Initially the ambassador service was only funded through the end of 2011 with the seed funding. The service has since been extended through the end of 2012 thanks to an additional $113,500 in funding as part of the Over-the-Rhine District Management plan, and neighborhood leaders say they are committed to extending the effort indefinitely.

“It’s extremely important for the area, and we will continue to support this program as we seek new ways to fund it because it’s so crucial to the success of the neighborhood,” explained Anastasia Mileham, Vice President of Communications with 3CDC.

According to Redmond, one of the initial hurdles towards making the ambassador service a reality in 2007 was the determination that the property values in Over-the-Rhine would not support a special improvement district like the one that funds Downtown Cincinnati Inc., which is responsible for the Downtown Ambassadors.

Thanks to the new partnerships, that hurdle has been cleared for the time being, but long-term success may hinge upon a future expansion of the special improvement district used in the Central Business District.

“It is a lot cheaper to have the ambassadors out on the streets, than having a trashy neighborhood,” Redmond concluded. “There are more bars today, but the streets are cleaner than they were when everything was closed down. The ambassadors are a big reason for this, along with the new residents moving into the neighborhood.”

Redmond went on the say that the influx of new businesses also helps the neighborhood, and that many of the new businesses, including his own, would be willing to do and participate more in improving the area.

“I had not put much thought into the ambassadors, but noticed them not too long ago,” noted Taste of Belgium owner Jean-Francois Flechet. “I think that it’s a good idea to help keep the neighborhood clean, and it can also add to the perception of safety…it definitely cannot hurt.”

Note: Randy Simes worked with Vitality Over-the-Rhine from 2006 to 2007 on creating a volunteer ambassador program in the historic neighborhood, and studying the feasibility of a special improvement district there.

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Business Development News

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital to construct $180M research tower

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center has confirmed plans for a new uptown research tower. Hospital officials say that construction on the new $180 million, 15-story tower will begin June of this year.

Work at the congested site will be performed by Messer Construction and is expected to be completed by summer 2015. The possibility of such a project was first reported on by the Business Courier last month.

The new tower will be located immediately next to, and integrated with a research tower Cincinnati Children’s completed in 2007. Officials declined to comment on future employment numbers at the new tower, but did state that the adjacent 11-story tower houses approximately 1,100 employees.


The $180 million Clinical Research Building will make Cincinnati Children’s Hospital the largest pediatric research center in the United States. Renderings provided.

In a memo obtained by UrbanCincy, Dr. Arnold Strauss, director of the Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation, stated, “In the five years since Location S opened, our research enterprise has greatly flourished. The construction of this Clinical Sciences Building will provide that room to grow, but will also allow consolidation of research efforts now occurring at the Oak campus, back together with our Clinical & Translational Research Clinic.”

Dr. Strauss believes that the 425,000 square feet of new research space will improve efficiency and increase the scope of the hospital’s patient-oriented research, while also delving deeper into childhood disease issues.

The contemporary tower will include new laboratories, an outpatient clinic, imaging facility, office space, supporting infrastructure, and was designed by a team of architecture firms including GBBN Architects, HDR, Inc., and Geier Brown Renfrow Architects.

“This new space will enable us to attract and retain more of the world’s top-notch researchers, innovators and clinicians who want to be at the leading edge of discovery,” Michael Fisher, president and CEO of Cincinnati Children’s, stated in a prepared release.

Hospital officials say that the project is being financed through a combination of operating cash and investments, future operating cash flows and private donations. The new building is one of six towers at least 100 feet in height UrbanCincy projects to be built over the remainder of the decade in Cincinnati.

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Business Development News Opinion Transportation

Reimagined Brent Spence Bridge alignment could prove to be financial windfall for Cincinnati

On Tuesday April 24 and Wednesday April 25 residents will have a chance to voice their concerns about the preferred Brent Spence Bridge design alternative, currently known as Alternative I at Longworth Hall. The proposal would build a new bridge adjacent to the existing Brent Spence Bridge.

The process, which began in 2004, has a nebulous future ahead of it with uncertainty pertaining to future funding from a new federal transportation bill. Recently, state officials have said that parts of the overall rebuild of I-75 through Cincinnati may be delayed for up to fifteen years. The new funding paradigm has left local leaders on both sides of the river talking about public-private partnerships. Because of this uncertain future, it may be possible to reexamine one of the bridge options not pursued.


More than two dozen new city blocks would be able to generate in excess of $200 million annually in property tax revenue alone, should the new Brent Spence Bridge be shifted west. Rendering from Revive I-75 Study.

In 2010, the City of Cincinnati hired consultants to conduct several workgroups along the Interstate 75 corridor within the city limits. The study, named Revive I-75, addressed ways to mitigate the impact of the expanded highway on the surrounding urban neighborhoods. What also came out of the study was a visualization of the possible configuration of a new bridge for I-75 on the opposite side of Longworth Hall that would have allowed for the expansion of the Central Business District.

At the time there were several alignment configurations under study that would have moved the new bridge west of Longworth Hall, shrinking the amount of land the spaghetti-like on ramps use to connect I-71 to I-75 and the bridge. These alternatives were embodied in Alternatives A & B in the Brent Spence Bridge Corridor study. Yet both alternatives were removed from consideration citing environmental impacts and cost concerns. One of the arguments raised in opposition to the proposal was that that the city would lose valuable tax revenue from the affected industrial businesses in Queensgate.

However; according to urban economists such as Joe Minicozzi and Peter Katz, multi-story mixed use development actually brings in the most tax revenue for local jurisdictions when compared to single use facilities. In their study on Sarasota, Florida, it was found that a local mall generated only $22,000 in tax revenue per acre whereas a 17-story mixed use tower generated $1.01 million in tax revenue per acre. Since the 2010 study, Minicozzi has performed the same study in over fifteen different municipalities with similar results.

In a recent article written by Emily Badger, she summarizes several pertinent studies and surmises that, “We tend to think that broke cities have two options: raise taxes, or cut services. Minicozzi, though, is trying to point to the basic but long-buried math of our tax system that cities should be exploiting instead: Per-acre, our downtowns have the potential to generate so much more public wealth than low-density subdivisions or massive malls by the highway. And for all that revenue they bring in, downtowns cost considerably less to maintain in public services and infrastructure.”


Shifting the new Brent Spence Bridge to the west would allow downtown Cincinnati to be relieved from the existing and proposed entanglement of highway ramps. Rendering from Revive I-75 study.

A land use analysis performed by the UrbanCincy team found that the alternatives presented and illustrated in the Revive-75 documents would increase the amount of new land available in the Central Business District by roughly 33 percent. Approximately 25 new city blocks would be created under the proposal, freeing up land that is currently taken up by the expansive tangle of roadways that connect I-75, I-71 and the Brent Spence Bridge.

This would be accomplished by maintaining the ramps that connect I-71 to the Brent Spence Bridge and extending Fort Washington Way west, becoming the Third Street Expressway. This expressway will later align with the Sixth Street Expressway after connecting to the new bridge alignment west of Longworth Hall. The street grid would then be reestablished and developable real estate could be maximized on the newly reclaimed land. Based on the research provided from Minicozzi and Katz, UrbanCincy estimates that the taxable revenue capture could be more than $200 million from property taxes alone.

Such a move would not only allow for a sizable expansion of the Central Business District, but it would also create available land for a future expansion of the Duke Energy Convention Center. In a time when public agencies are trying to do more with less, this is a perfect opportunity to create more tax-productive property in the heart of the Cincinnati region. Moving the new bridge west is a solution that city, county and local business leaders should all support.

Categories
Business Development News

New Asian-inspired restaurant to extend Vine Street’s veritable restaurant scene north

An Asian-inspired restaurant has signed a lease Fourteenth and Vine Street in historic Over-the-Rhine. The restaurant will be named Hapa, and is rumored to be operated by the same owners as Pho Lang Thang.

The five-year, 1,100-square foot restaurant lease is the first major commercial tenant for the Trinity Flats development led by The Model Group, but builds on momentum moving north along Vine Street where residential property has already reached capacity in recently completed developments.


A new restaurant called Hapa will soon join the diverse collection of restaurants along Vine Street in historic Over-the-Rhine. Vine Street photograph by Randy A. Simes for UrbanCincy.

Trinity Flats was a good mix of rehab and new infill construction, and we’ve only got one more condo left to sell as a result,” noted Bobby Maly, Chief Operating Officer at The Model Group. “The OTR condo market is still hot, and I’m particularly proud of the way we built out two vacant corner lots. The block feels strong and even more walkable than ever.”

The development was a bit of a department for the Cincinnati-based developer. The Model Group has historically focused on rehabs and affordable housing developments. Trinity Flats, however, incorporated new infill construction and included condos averaging $175,000. The results, Maly says, have been better than what could have been hoped for.

“The more dense we can make our main thoroughfares, with high pedestrian traffic and retail spaces, the more life we can give our streets and the neighborhood overall,” Maly explained. “It [urban infill] is the right thing for the community and built environment.”

After Hapa opens there will be just two street-level retail spaces left in the Trinity Flats development which was once viewed as a bold investment in a part of Over-the-Rhine that had yet to prove itself.

Construction work is scheduled to begin on the $53.5 million Mercer Commons development later this year, and officials with The Model Group say to watch for an announcement this summer on a new development in partnership with the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC).