Category: Development

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Business Development News

PHOTOS: $80M Mixed-Use Development Nears Completion in Clifton Heights

W. McMillan Street

Since 2000, the University of Cincinnati’s surroundings have changed dramatically – many homes and a few landmark buildings were demolished for construction of Stetson Square, McMillan Manor, University Park Apartments, and 65 West. U Square at the Loop, a 161-unit, $80 million midrise situated between McMillan and Calhoun Streets, has been under construction for more than a year and is scheduled for occupancy on August 1.

The development includes over a dozen street-level commercial spaces, an office building that has been rented by the University of Cincinnati, and a site fronting McMillan Street where a hotel is planned. Apartment prices range between $695 for studios to $2,350 for penthouses with balconies.

U Square at The Loop

Reserved parking spaces in the development’s two garages will cost $95/month. Unlike other new apartment complexes in the area, units at U Square at the Loop can be rented by non-students.

In the early 2000s the site where U Square at the Loop is being built was partially cleared for a very different development – a 360-unit condo midrise dubbed McMillan Park that had been in planning since 1999. The two phases of the development were planned above two underground parking garages totaling 900 spaces, and planned units ranged from $160,000 for a one bedroom to $800,000 for a penthouse.

That project was to be financed by the University of Cincinnati, the site assembled by the City of Cincinnati through eminent domain, and the project managed by the Clifton Heights Community Urban Redevelopment Corporation (CHCURC). Demolition of properties began in 2003, but litigation involving the owners of Acropolis Chili, Inn the Wood, and two fast food restaurants was not resolved until 2007, a year after the university withdrew its funding.

In 2008 Towne Properties became the project’s developer, and the long-vacant Hardee’s and Arby’s that had been the subject of eminent domain litigation were demolished that summer.

Renderings depicting a development similar to what is nearing completion in 2013 were published that fall, and the project was dubbed Uptown Commons in 2009. The project’s name changed again to U Square at the Loop in 2010 and construction began in 2012.

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Business Development News Transportation

Cincinnati Proposes Eliminating Parking Requirements in Downtown and Over-the-Rhine

The City of Cincinnati will hold a public conference this evening about proposed amendment to the zoning code that would deregulate parking requirements throughout the center city.

According to city officials, the amendment would create new ‘Urban Parking Districts’ and remove the current regulations that mandate how many parking spaces must be provided for any new development or for any project that is modifying the use of an existing structure.

The efforts to get rid of the parking requirements throughout the center city have been ongoing for years.

In June 2010, city officials moved forward with new legislation that allowed for a 50% parking reduction for residences located within 600 feet of a streetcar stop. Then in March 2012, Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls (C) introduced a motion, which was co-sponsored by six other council members, to eliminate all parking requirements throughout the Central Business District and Over-the-Rhine.

Over-the-Rhine
Over-the-Rhine’s existing historic fabric is at risk of further demolitions, due to current parking requirements, as investment continues to pour into the neighborhood. Photograph by Randy Simes for UrbanCincy.

Last March, UrbanCincy examined just how these off-street parking mandates are stifling growth and investment in the center city, which was largely built before the advent of the automobile. The requirements have led to not only increased costs for small businesses, but they have also led to an excess of parking in these neighborhoods.

The parking regulations also make it particularly difficult to redevelop smaller historic buildings like the ones found throughout Over-the-Rhine.

“Requiring parking for historic structures that have never had parking is incentivizing their demolition. This puts the property owner in a really difficult position; he must either find parking for the building, demolish it or let it languish in perpetuity.” Nashville city planner, Joni Priest, told UrbanCincy last March. “If a property owner wants to rehab an historic building – a building that marks the character of a neighborhood and contributes to the fabric of the city – all incentives, including the elimination of parking requirements, should be considered.”

Parking requirements have also contributed to the increased costs of redevelopment in these historic neighborhoods.

Last April, Chad Munitz, Executive Vice President of Development and Operations of the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC), estimated that existing parking mandates cost developers, on average, $5,000 for one surface parking space and $25,000 for a structured parking space. The increased cost associated with that parking, Munitz says, is then passed on to the consumer and raises the price of a residential unit by as much as $25,000.

The City of Cincinnati’s Planning & Buildings Department will host the public conference this evening at 5:30pm at Two Centennial Plaza, which is located at 805 Central Avenue downtown, and is well-served by a number of Metro bus routes (plan your trip). City officials say that the meeting will take place on the 7th floor, Suite 720 in the Martin Griesel Room A.

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Business Development News Opinion Transportation

Portland Aims to Replicate Streetcar Success on East Side of Willamette River

Six months ago Portland celebrated the opening of a 3.3-mile extension of their modern streetcar system across the Willamette River.

The $148.3 million Portland Streetcar project represents a significant expansion of the existing six-mile system, and city leaders hope it will find similar success in the Lloyd District, Buckman and Hosford-Abernethy neighborhoods as it has in the Pearl District and Northwest District.

At the time when Portland built its first streetcar leg, the Pearl District was a rundown industrial district in search of new life, and the Northwest District was looking to build on its existing stability.

Pearl District Buckman Neighborhood
Portland’s Pearl District [LEFT] has seen a massive transformation over the past decade, and many hope the streetcar’s recent extension will do the same for the city’s Buckman neighborhood [RIGHT]. Photographs by Randy Simes for UrbanCincy.

The story is not all that different on the east side of the river where the Buckman and Hosford-Abernethy neighborhoods are looking for the streetcar to breathe new life into its underutilized land and lingering industrial users, and the Lloyd District is trying to build on its successes and possibly reinvent itself with a lesser focus on the automobile.

While the streetcar extension is operating daily, the investments are not quite finished. Transportation officials are waiting on an additional six streetcar vehicles to roll off the production line so that service frequencies can be improved for the system’s four million annual riders.

TriMet officials are also overseeing progress on the construction of the new Portland-Milwaukie Bridge which will provide a river crossing for bicycles, pedestrians, streetcars, and light rail from Hosf0rd-Abernethy to the South Waterfront District as part of a the 7.3-mile Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Project.

The $134 million bridge project is expected to open in September 2015 and buoy both new and existing ridership on the city’s light rail and streetcar systems.

Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Bridge South Waterfront District
Construction progresses on the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Bridge in November 2012 [LEFT], which will connect the Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood with the South Waterfront District [RIGHT]. Photographs by Randy Simes for UrbanCincy.

The verdict is still out on whether or not the new east side streetcar extension will have as big of an impact as it did on the west side of the river next to downtown, but the possibilities are there.

The streetcar’s alignment through Buckman and Hosford-Abernethy heads south along Martin Luther King Boulevard and north a block over on Grand Avenue. To the west of MLK Boulevard is the river with a large collection of warehouses in between. To the east of Grand Avenue is an in-tact neighborhood that has become increasingly popular with young creative types over the past several years.

In between the two streets one will find a collection of aging car dealerships and associated service businesses that date back to the mid-twentieth century.

These large parcels, combined with the large warehouse properties immediately to the west, offer a unique opportunity for large scale redevelopment. Such massive real estate investment might not be plausible without another real estate bubble.

The prospects are there, however, and if Portland can pull off even a fraction of the investment in Buckman as they saw in the Pearl District, then the city will add billions of dollars to its real estate value and create a secondary downtown in the city center for the 2.2 million person region.

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Business Development News

PHOTOS: Historic Glencoe-Auburn Place Row Houses are Being Demolished

After more than a decade of failed redevelopment plans demolition of the 129-year-old Glencoe-Auburn Place Row Houses began on March 19.

Known colloquially as “The Hole” for its dramatic hillside setting in historic Mt. Auburn, the multi-building complex abuts Christ Hospital and has long been eyed in its expansion plans. The complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in December 2003, at the request of architect Tom Hefley and developer Pauline Van der Haer.

Christ Hospital Expansion
This aerial photograph from September 2012 shows both the Christ Hospital Expansion [CENTER-LEFT] and the historic “Glencoe Hole” [MIDDLE RIGHT]. Image provided.

Van der Hear, through her development company named Dorian Development, planned to renovate the complex into 68 market-rate condominiums during the early 2000s housing bubble. The “Condos Available” sign, still visible after today’s demolition work, has been in place since at least 2004, when the project was featured prominently in Cincinnati Magazine.

The large-scale modification of the old buildings (the original apartment units all have three very small floors connected by unusually narrow staircases) and the need for a multi-deck parking garage made the creation of a viable project impossible without large subsidies from the City of Cincinnati. Since the early 2000s Van der Hear has been involved in several high profile attempts to win awards from the City.

COAST attacked the project in 2008 after it received a $300,000 grant from the city, but in 2009 Christ Hospital took advantage of the collapse of the condo market and moved to acquire the complex from Dorian Development. Van der Haer sued Christ Hospital in 2011, claiming “tortious, deliberate, intentional and malicious interference” in her development plans, but the Ohio Supreme Court and an appellate court ruled in the hospital’s favor, citing the lack of a written contract between the City and Dorian Development.

The arrival of bulldozers adds to a growing list of historic properties uptown that have faced similar fates in recent years as a surge of private investment has moved in to construct hundreds of new residences and hundreds of thousands of square feet of new commercial space.

The following 12 images were all taken by Jake Mecklenborg at the site on Tuesday, March 19 – just five days after a demolition permit had been granted.

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Business Development News

Private Investment Continues to Flow Uptown to Corryville and Short Vine

The Short Vine Business District is starting to show signs of a revitalization that has been a long time coming.

Uptown generally is seeing a wave of real estate investment and concurrent transportation investment. City and State officials are working to put the final pieces of  funding together for a new $70 million MLK Interchange that may also include upgrades to the Taft/McMillan interchange. Current estimates foresee project completion sometime around 2016.

Further helping accellerate the reinvestment uptown is the growing number of high-wage jobs in the area. Corryville’s neighborhood business district, for example, is surrounded by the University of Cincinnati, six major hospitals, and is within one mile of two interstates.

Short Vine Master Plan_2007 Update
Short Vine’s master plan was updated in 2007 through a partnership between the City of Cincinnati and Uptown Consortium. While much of the plan has not been adhered to, significant change is taking place along Short Vine and its surrounding streets.

The last few years saw the introduction of a handful new businesses, such as Island Fridays, Dive Bar, and Zipscene, a startup company. Recent openings include Mio’s Pizza, a third Beelistic Tattoo location, Caribe Carryout and new eateries Hang Over Easy, Smoke, and Taste of Belgium will open in the near future.

The rehabilitation of these structures capitalized on the historic charms found therein; Smoke and Hang Over Easy used reclaimed doors, chalkboards and windows from the recently demolished Schiel School. The edgy interior designs employed by all of these businesses show a remarkable congruence to the unique character that has always been represented on Short Vine.

Bogart’s, the 36-year old concert venue and an anchor establishment in the business district, just underwent renovations upwards of $100,000 as it seeks to attract more national performers.

The Old Schiel School, which closed in 2010, was torn down and is being redeveloped into a $20 million structure that will include 106 apartments and street-level commercial space. The previous owner of the site, Fifth Third Bank, has already signed on as a tenant for one of the street-level retail spaces. As noted, Taste of Belgium will also grow their footprint and open their first uptown location at the site.

The project with the most potential to be truly transformative, however, might be the redevelopment of University Plaza.

Vine Street Flats
One of Short Vine’s newest buildings, Vine Street Flats, sits immediately next to one of the business district’s long-time structures. Photograph by Luca Acito for UrbanCincy.

Although there were original hopes of reconnecting Vine Street with Short Vine, the plaza site will not change but the current structure will be demolished. Kroger and Walgreens are the only current tenants expected to remain.

The Uptown Consortium thus far has served as an effective catalyst for business attraction, retention and investment in the area.

The community development corporation was awarded $40 million in tax credits in 2012, with 90% of the funds going towards the redevelopment of University Plaza and the former Schiel School site.

Additionally, last month Cincinnati City Council approved the Uptown Consortium’s application for a Community Entertainment District (CED) to cover 77 acres and 150 properties on Short Vine, thus allowing the distribution of 15 new liquor licenses within the CED.

New streetscaping will include buried utilities, wider café-style sidewalks, street narrowing, new street trees and reconfigured parallel parking are all part of the improvements approved by City Council in 2011.

“Within a few years, this area will have been transformed,” asserted John Pedro, co-owner of Dive Bar, Smoke and Hang Over Easy.