Category: Development

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Development News Opinion Politics Transportation

Looking to LA: Could a Rail Transit Tax Transform Cincinnati?

America’s anti-tax zealots assert that local taxes are prime motivators in the relocation of people and businesses from one part of the country to another. By their reasoning, the Cincinnati region should be flooded with newcomers, as Cincinnatians enjoy lower rates of taxation than the citizens of nearly any major American metropolitan area.

Case in point is Los Angeles, where LA County voters have approved three separate .5% sales taxes since 1980 to support public transportation and road improvements above and beyond what is budgeted by Caltrans, California’s DOT. This 1.5% combined sales tax funds an enormous bus system and construction of a rail transit network that will soon surpass 100 route miles. Meanwhile in low-tax Cincinnati, we operate a threadbare bus system which in its entirety carries just one-third the daily ridership of Los Angeles’ Red Line subway.


The 23rd Street Station is part of the Expo Line Phase 1 segment which opened earlier this year. Construction work progresses on the Phase 2 segment, and will be completed by 2015. Photograph by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.

The revival of rail transit in Los Angeles is an important lesson to Cincinnati: if new rail transit lines can be successful in the city where the world’s largest streetcar system was scrapped and replaced by the world’s largest expressway system, it can certainly be successful here. Moreover, if a city can attract millions of newcomers while taxing them at a higher rate than the places where they originated, the anti-tax argument prevalent in the Cincinnati area is revealed to be a fraud.

Propositions A, C, and Measure R
Public transportation in Los Angeles County is funded by three .5% sales taxes approved in 1980, 1990, and 2008.

Although these three taxes total 1.5%, only .85% can fund rail transit construction projects. Of that sum, .1% is restricted to commuter rail, and only .25% can fund subway tunnel construction. This bizarre stipulation came into effect when the electorate approved the Act of 1998, which prohibited the use of Proposition A funds for subway construction. This act is still effect, but after passage of Measure R in 2008, construction of subway tunnels could resume.

Of the three taxes, Measure R is the most important as it pertains to Cincinnati’s current situation. The additional funds made available by Measure R allowed Los Angeles to accelerate its construction schedule – since 2008 two new light rail lines have opened, the south branch of the Gold Line and the all-new Expo Line. An extension of the Expo Line to Santa Monica is currently under construction, the all-new Crenshaw line broke ground in June 2012, and the long-awaited extension of the Wilshire Boulevard. subway might begin in 2013.


An Expo Line train waits at a recently opened station. Photograph by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.

Future Transit and Quality-of-Life Ballot Issues for Cincinnati
Most metropolitan areas around the country are now introducing taxes larger than the half-cent sales tax MetroMoves proposal voted on in Hamilton County in 2002. Such a tax would have generated an estimated $60 million annually split equally between improved bus service and rail construction and operation.

Should Cincinnati use Los Angeles as a model, the $120 million generated by a one-cent tax could fund much more, much faster than the 2002 MetroMoves plan which would have required 30 years to build out the system envisioned.

What’s more, with excess revenue, the FTA federal match process could be bypassed and Cincinnati could break ground quickly on the sort of construction appropriate for our city. Specifically, subway tunnels that might not win federal matching funds could become a reality in just a few years instead of enduring the decades-long struggles seen recently in New York City, Seattle, and elsewhere.

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Business Development News

Group Health moves into new $27 million tower in Clifton

Group Health Associates is celebrating the opening of their new $27 million medical office building in Clifton today. The eight-story tower is connected to Good Samaritan Hospital at Clifton Avenue and Dixmyth Avenue. The existing building, located approximately a half-mile down the street at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Clifton Avenue, is scheduled to be imploded this September.

Both Group Health Associates and Good Samaritan Hospital are divisions of TriHealth, and TriHealth President and CEO, John Prout, reiterated the company’s’ commitment to servicing the urban core and contributing to Uptown’s vibrancy.

“This investment is part of TriHealth’s ongoing commitment to Uptown as a vibrant community, business center, education center, and medical hub for the region,” Prout told UrbanCincy. “And I add my thanks to all the private and public partners who helped make this a reality.”


Group Health’s new Clifton facility sits next to Good Samaritan Hospital along Dixmyth Avenue. Photograph by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.

The 67,000-square-foot facility had been under construction since early 2011, and is considered to be state of the art. Individuals passing on the street will notice that the medical tower sits atop a five-story parking garage, but individuals using the facility will reportedly experience better access to physician specialists, a full service pharmacy and more integrated services as a result of being located on the Good Samaritan campus.

According to Group Health officials, the medical group will also begin offering neurology as a specialty and plans to add ten more physicians to round out the facilities services in September.

Construction of the new medical facility was made possible by low-cost financing from the Uptown Consortium through its Uptown Partners’ Loan Pool.

The land, however, was not readily available until the $4 million realignment of Dixmyth Avenue in 2006. Previously, the street had been located further south, with homes along its northern side. The street’s realignment made Good Samaritan Hospital’s recent expansion possible, along with the construction of the new Group Health facility.

The controversial road realignment eventually took 28 residential properties through the use of eminent domain, and was upheld in court against one hold out, Emma Dimasi. The project was seen as controversial at the time because while city officials claimed the realignment was for safety purposes, others speculated that it was to free up additional land next to the then constrained Good Samaritan Hospital site.

Just one year after the realignment of Dixmyth Avenue, in 2007, Good Samaritan commenced construction on a ten-story patient care tower.

Health care professionals say that the rapid expansion of health facilities is a response to the growing demand placed on the region’s health care system by an aging population. The issue of aging and expanding health care has been the subject of numerous studies highlighting this trend on the national and global scale. Regionally, it has justified the expansion of the hospitals in Uptown’s “Pill Hill”, including expansions at Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center and University Hospital in Corryville, and Christ Hospital in Mount Auburn.

The expanding local hospital system is offering improvements in health care services for the region’s aging population, and creating thousands of new high-paying jobs. At the same time, however, it is coming at the expense of historic neighborhoods and entire blocks of residential housing.

Such a tradeoff might be good for city coffers, but it will certainly do nothing to directly help Cincinnati’s ongoing struggle with population loss.

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Business Development News Politics

Blue Ash City Council spurns COAST during airport vote

The Blue Ash Municipal & Safety Center was the scene of high political drama Thursday night. After 90 minutes of public comment, with zero Blue Ash or Cincinnati residents speaking in favor of Blue Ash rescinding its 2006 agreement to purchase 130 acres of the Blue Ash Airport from the City of Cincinnati, by a 6-1 vote Blue Ash City Council did just that.

Ordinance 2012-41 authorizes Blue Ash’s city manager to rescind the 2006 transfer of title of the Blue Ash Airport from the City of Cincinnati. On August 29, that title will be briefly transferred back to the City of Cincinnati and Cincinnati will return approximately $6 million in payments it has received to date from Blue Ash. After appropriate paperwork is signed, Blue Ash will immediately return the $6 million to Cincinnati and title will be returned to the City of Blue Ash. After the airport operations cease on September 1, Blue Ash will gain full possession of the property and can commence construction of a long-planned park.


COAST leader Chris Finney takes notes as the City of Blue Ash voted against his personal wishes. Photograph by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.

This unusual procedural step is necessary because after the cities of Blue Ash and Cincinnati signed their 2006 agreement, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) restricted Cincinnati’s use of the proceeds. Specifically, the FAA prohibited Cincinnati from using any of the $37.5 million for non-airport capital improvements. Since 2007, Cincinnati has planned to use $11 million of the Blue Ash Airport sale to fund construction of the Cincinnati Streetcar, with the remainder programmed for roadwork and other capital improvements.

At Thursday’s meeting, Blue Ash City Council scolded the local media for not having informed the public that it was the FAA who suggested that Blue Ash rescind the sale as a way for both parties to achieve their goals on schedule. The paperwork to be filed on August 29 allows for the avoidance of an estimated two years of litigation in federal court, meaning Blue Ash’s annual payments to the City of Cincinnati can continue uninterrupted. Cincinnati can use those capital funds however it sees fit, and Blue Ash can proceed with converting 130 acres of the Blue Ash Airport into a park.

The planned park was promised to Blue Ash voters who approved a .25% city earnings tax in 2006. Revenue from this tax has already paid for construction of a new city recreation center and the new Cooper Creek Event Center adjacent to the municipally owned Blue Ash Golf Course.
The facts of the situation as described above were entirely absent from the 90 minutes of emotional citizen comments that proceeded council’s action.  Speaker after speaker, led by Mary Kuhl of Westwood Concern and various members of COAST, incited the crowd into raucous clapping and heckling of Blue Ash City Council.

Chris Finney, COAST’s central figure, threatened Blue Ash with a ballot referendum that would rescind the rescinding of the 2006 sale of the airport to Cincinnati, creating a legal mess his law firm would no doubt attempt to be hired to untangle.

After public comments, five of the seven city council members explained their rationale for voting to approve Ordinance 2012-41. All voiced frustration with the local media’s inability to factually report the situation and called out Chris Finney and COAST for unethical behavior. Several Blue Ash council members reported that Finney had called them at home, and described his actions as an effort to extort Blue Ash. One council member went as far to sarcastically call Finney “The World’s Greatest Lawyer”, while another simply referred to him as a coward.

After city council presented the facts and context that Chris Finney had distorted or omitted in his week-long media blitz, there was no heckling to be heard as Ordinance 2012-41 was approved.

As council returned to its routine business after the nearly two-hour episode concocted by same man who has brought so much chaos to Cincinnati’s municipal affairs since the early 1990s, the crowd that had been calling for Blue Ash Council’s heads earlier in the evening quietly shuffled out of the building.

The misled public, however, had no opportunity to redirect their ire at Finney since he had left the building more than an hour earlier.

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Business Development News

$27.3M investment to transform historic Enquirer Building into 238-room hotel

The historic Enquirer Building in downtown Cincinnati is finally set to get its long anticipated makeover. However, this time it will be as a hotel instead of the residences originally envisioned for the 86-year-old tower.

Plans call for a 238-room hotel with 12,000 square feet of street-level retail space. The renovation work would be completed over the next two years, with the first guests arriving at the end of 2014.

SREE Hotels, which typically operates Marriott hotel brands, will be the eventual operator of the new hotel one block from Fountain Square. This will also be SREE Hotels first project in the Midwest.

The planned hotel would become downtown’s fifth largest and would bring its total to more than 3,000 rooms.

“It is always great when we can preserve and restore one of our historic buildings,” Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory stated in a prepared release. “The deal also illustrates the increasing demand for more hotel rooms in Cincinnati. We have been focused on creating providing a great visitor experience for all of our guests, and that is paying off with increased tourism and convention business.”

The $27.3 million hotel project follows a failed effort by Middle Earth Developers to renovate the historic building into 152 apartments, 53,400 square feet of office space, and 170 parking spaces.

The new hotel would be the third recent hotel to join the greater downtown area over the past three years. According to the Cincinnati USA Convention & Visitors Bureau, downtown hotels had a 63 percent occupancy rate in 2011, and are experiencing record numbers thus far in 2012.

Developers of The Banks have also been in negotiations with hotel operators for a planned hotel at Freedom Way at Main Street directly across the street from Great American Ball Park.

“This deal, coupled with the renovations at the Hyatt, help to build our capacity for bigger and bigger convention and meeting business that in turn help our economy,” Cincinnati City Manager Milton Dohoney noted.

According to City officials, the project is contingent upon a 75 percent exemption on the increased tax value of the $27.3 million investment, which would equate to approximately $7.3 million over the course of 12 years. The deal was passed out of Cincinnati’s Budget & Finance Committee yesterday in their first day back from summer recess, and will go before the full City Council on Wednesday, August 1 at 2pm.

Enquirer Building exterior photograph by Thadd Fiala for UrbanCincy.

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Business Development News

‘The Rhine’ examines what all the changes in OTR mean to long-standing residents

As Over-the-Rhine continues to be transformed, some have wondered if the changes taking place may have a negative impact on the low-income residents currently living in the neighborhood.

This was the fight Buddy Gray long fought for Over-the-Rhine until he passed in 1996. The door was then opened for a change to this dynamic in the early 2000s when the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) was able to purchase hundreds of properties throughout the downtrodden neighborhood.

Since that time hundreds of new housing units and dozens of new businesses have opened up shop. While some of those new businesses and residents match those that have long called the neighborhood home, others do not, and instead present a stressful new reality for those low-income residents who are seeing their world change around them.

The following video, entitled The Rhine, was produced by Kyle Pedersen in an effort to highlight these struggles. UrbanCincy in no way taking a position on the contents of this video, but instead thought it would be useful as a point to start a conversation about the changes taking place in historic Over-the-Rhine.

What do you think? Are the differences between the new and the old residents of Over-the-Rhine too great? What, if any, opportunity is there to bridge that divide? Have investors done enough to engage the existing community? Is the existing community, and their representative organizations, overreacting? We would love to hear your thoughts and ideas.