Category: Opinion

Categories
Business Development News Opinion

Downtown Cincinnati to get another new office tower, but is it an opportunity missed?

On Monday dunnhumbyUSA announced that they had found a location for their new expanded headquarters. The consumer analytics company will build a new office tower at Fifth and Race in downtown Cincinnati.

The embattled property had long been seen as a site for a tower by city leaders. Development plans, at some point or another, had called for a department store, theater, condo tower, office tower, or some combination thereof. Both Eagle Realty and Towne Properties had failed at developing the site beyond the surface parking lot currently located there.

As one of the most ardent supporters of Cincinnati’s urban core, I am here to say that I am disappointed by this news. Yes, it is exciting that Cincinnati will be getting yet another tower built in its urban core as so much other investment takes place. And yes, it is terrific that a young company is flourishing in Cincinnati. The problem, however, is more complex.


A new office tower will soon rise from the center-left of this vantage point as dunnhumbyUSA builds its new headquarters in downtown Cincinnati. Photograph by Randy A. Simes for UrbanCincy.

As the renaissance continues to progress in Cincinnati’s urban core, the city must seize every opportunity to inject life where life has long since been vacant. The activity that follows should be thought about in a logical manner. What kinds of activities are found in what parts of the center city, and what is needed?

In the case of the notorious Fifth and Race location, what is needed is after-hours street life. It is currently an area vibrant during the business day, but struggles to support businesses and street activity into the evenings and weekends. The development of a new office tower there does not address either of those issues.

Yes, the new dunnhumbyUSA tower will be a boon for city coffers and develop a long underutilized piece of property just a block from Fountain Square. But the central business district needs more residents if it ever wants to support the likes of a grocery store, theater or other service retail. And there are very few sites well-suited for a high-rise residential tower beyond the Fifth and Race location that will now be occupied by a shiny new office tower.

The alternate location for dunnhumbyUSA’s new tower would have been at The Banks where an office tower has been proposed at the corner of Second and Walnut streets. This is an area that is, infact, in need of daytime activity. Unlike the rest of the central business district, The Banks is primarily made up of high density residential and other entertainment that fills the streets into the evenings. What The Banks does not have is daytime business activity, and dunnhumbyUSA would have provided just that.

Furthermore, a location at The Banks would guarantee increased parking revenues at the county-owned garages sitting beneath the development. This, in turn, would help to pay off the stadium debt that is crippling Hamilton County.

If you are to look at things in order of sparking additional development, The Banks location also comes out on top. As most industry insiders are aware, it is difficult to make money on residential development, but office development makes money hand over fist if you can lease it. Such a tower at The Banks would have almost assuredly helped either pay off debts on the first phase, or finance the second phase of development there.

Unless the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) uses the profits to leverage additional development in Over-the-Rhine or in the central business district, the Fifth and Race location will not have the same ripple effect that would have been seen at The Banks.

In my opinion, city officials should have been patient and sat on the Fifth and Race site until a deal came to pass that would have developed the site into a 20 to 30-story residential tower. Cincinnati may only have one or two sites well-suited to accommodate such a tower in its central business district now, but it could probably use three times that many to achieve the vibrancy that is needed.

Let’s hope that the development plan for the Fifth and Race site includes some residential component to help offset this situation. Until then, chalk this one up as good news, but an opportunity missed.

Categories
Arts & Entertainment News Opinion

Tolzmann breaks from historical analysis in latest Over-the-Rhine book

Don Heinrich Tolzmann with his latest book. Photograph by Emily Schneider for UrbanCincy.

Few native-born Cincinnatians know as much about the history of this city as Don Heinrich Tolzmann, originally of Minnesota. The former University of Cincinnati professor, and president of the German-American Citizens League of Greater Cincinnati, has written numerous tomes on Cincinnati history. His most recent book is for tourists and locals alike: Over-the-Rhine Tour Guide.

In contrast with most of his other work, this book is focused on the OTR of today, not decades past. Tolzmann says the reason for the change of style is due to the many requests he received to give tours of the historic neighborhood.

“Understanding Over-the-Rhine is the key to understanding the city,” Tolzmann told UrbanCincy.

In Over-the-Rhine Tour Guide, Tolzmann carefully describes nearly every block of the neighborhood, from its southern border of Central Parkway up to the Brewery District, and everything in between. Using buildings and streets as a framework, the guide carefully describes the architecture of the neighborhood.

Historical details are provided for each place, and changes that have occurred over the years are noted as well. Several historic poems, in German and English, connect the text to the old country.

The book delineates outlying areas where German immigrants lived, including Clifton and the West End. The book also serves as a literal guidebook, with directions for walking or driving throughout the neighborhood, and traveling between each of the landmarks described.

While considerable demolition has damaged parts of Over-the-Rhine’s historic urban fabric over the past several decades, the area remains dense and beautiful.

“Over-the-Rhine still contains one of the most comprehensive collections of buildings built by Germans for Germans, especially in the popular Queen Anne and Italianate styles,” said local historian Betty Ann Smiddy. “To walk the streets now you can feel yourself drifting back in time and can envision all that the neighborhood once was.”

Over-the-Rhine Tour Guide, can be purchased at local bookstores and through online through Little Miami Publishing. With its photographs and clear descriptions, the book serves as a useful companion for a neighborhood stroll. But for those visitors wanting a quick survey of the neighborhood, here are Tolzmann’s top three attractions:

Findlay Market: “Get a feeling for the neighborhood. The sausage, cheese, bread, fruit and vegetables are sold in an open-air market like you’d find in Germany.”

Germania Building (12th and Walnut): “Symbolizes German heritage in Over-the-Rhine, devotion to culture and history of Germany.”

Washington Park Area: “Surrounded by institutions like Music and Memorial Halls and six German churches, this area shows the musical impact, military service in wars, and religious influence in Over-the-Rhine.”

Categories
Development News Opinion

Vancouver’s approach to urbanism serves as North American model

By all accounts Vancouver is a modern metropolis. The eyes of the world were directed squarely at the picturesque Canadian city when it hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics, but Vancouver has been making noteworthy progress within its urban core for many years.

One of the most striking elements of Vancouver’s urban landscape is the sheer number of glass high-rises throughout the city. The design approach is more characteristic of a modern Asian city than it is of a North American city. The existence of this might make sense given the large Asian population found in Vancouver, but the tower typology is slightly different than what is found in Hong Kong, Shanghai or Seoul, for example.


Residential high-rises define the modern Vancouver metropolis. Photograph by Randy A. Simes in January 2012.

The Vancouver model of urbanism places a focus on diversity and truly embodies the Jane Jacobs concept that downtowns are for people.

Most of the high-rise towers you find in Vancouver are residential, not commercial as is the case in most North American cities. The towers are almost always glass and slender – a design approach almost assuredly meant to open Vancouver’s residents up to the breathtaking natural landscape surrounding them.

What is not immediately evident when viewing these towers from a distance is that their street-level engagement is completely different from most other residential tower designs you will find elsewhere throughout the world.


Townhouses and a corner grocery store create a human scale for the high-rise residential towers rising behind them. Photograph by Randy A. Simes in January 2012.

The brilliance of the Vancouver model is that it incorporates two- to three-story townhouses at the street, while the slender glass tower sets off of the street. This accomplishes three very important urbanist goals.

  1. The townhouses at street-level allow for a pleasant human scale, and are often designed with more expensive, natural materials that also are more pleasant to the human experience.
  2. The set back of the towers allows for natural light to permeate throughout the urban streetscape without jeopardizing its vibrancy with a blank area between the tower and the street.
  3. The towers allow for the always coveted young professional and empty nesters to find a place to live, but the townhouses allow for a desired housing typology for young families with children – thus offering a unique diversity of people within Vancouver’s urban core.

Vibrant schools and playgrounds, exciting nightlife and dining, an urban landscape that embraces its natural counterpart, and vibrant streetscapes are the result of this approach to urbanism.

While other North American cities continue to look for a way to embrace Jacobs’ concept, they should first look to what Vancouver has been so successfully able to implement.

Categories
Arts & Entertainment News Opinion

Airport officials should pay local artists to fill CVG with music

Violinist at Findlay Market

As many of you may know by now, Cincinnati will be hosting the 2012 World Choir Games. It is a marque event for the region, and will mark the first time the international event has been held in North America. Tens of thousands of people from around the world will converge on Cincinnati, and regional leaders are looking to impress.

The ideas have ranged from installing multilingual signs throughout the center city to branding a new city slogan all around town in time for the visitors. What is important is that city leaders do not view this event as a singular excuse to debate these types of improvements, but rather as an event that allows Cincinnati to looks at itself from the outside in and implement new ideas that will leave a lasting impact long after the final choir leaves town.

Cincinnati does in fact have a long history with music and the arts in general. It is one of the major reasons why the World Choir Games selected Cincinnati as its 2012 host, and this fact should be celebrated. Cincinnati leaders should look at ways to engraining more of the arts, and music in particular, into our everyday lives.

ArtsWave does a great job at this, and does so at a regional level. But after a flurry of recent travels I had an idea for Cincinnati that should be put in place in time for the World Choir Games, and stay in effect permanently.

The Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport should pay local muscians to play within its facilities. Inside the concourse tunnel, inside Concourse B, and near baggage claim.

Traveling can often be a stressful experience, especially international travel. On a recent trip to Chicago, I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by violin and guitar musicians after an otherwise unpleasant flight and arrival experience. The moment, while simple, was profound. I felt relaxed and welcomed to Chicago – something all travelers hope to encounter upon their arrival.

To avoid the ‘bum on the street’ perception, airport officials should ask that musicians not leave open their instrument cases for tips, and simply pay the musicians an hourly rate. In my opinion, this would go much farther towards welcoming visitors to the Cincinnati region than any inanimate piece of art could ever do. At the same time, it would provide a reliable opportunity for local musicians to perform and get paid doing it.

Cincinnati should take advantage of the World Choir Games far beyond the immediate $73.5 million economic impact that it is estimated to generate. Most importantly, leaders should not get too caught up in those short-term impacts that they miss out on creating long-term benefits for the region.

DISCLOSURE: Jenny Kessler is a regular contributor to UrbanCincy and serves as the website’s operations manager. Kessler also works professionally for ArtsWave, but had no input or association with this article. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of Randy A. Simes, and do not necessarily represent those of ArtsWave.

Categories
News Opinion

The Triumph of Downtown Cincinnati

The following editorial was published in the Cincinnati Business Courier on January 6, 2011. UrbanCincy shared this story with its followers, and received a slew of requests to share the story in its entirety.

Typically, premium content in the Cincinnati Business Courier is only available to paid subscribers, but thanks to our exclusive partnership with the weekly publication, UrbanCincy readers can read the story in its entirety below. Readers who would like to view all premium content from the Business Courier are encouraged to take advantage of a new subscription discount being offered to UrbanCincy readers.

Who would have figured, 10 or 20 years ago, that downtown Cincinnati would ever be described as “interesting” or “appealing”? A more oft-repeated characterization was that “they roll up the sidewalks at 6,” once the workday crowd headed off.

But local hotel and tourism officials are much more cheerful these days, according to our Insight focus on travel and hospitality this week. Senior Reporter Dan Monk writes that hotel occupancy in the central business district has jumped more than 20 percent since its low point in 2001, and convention business is booming.

And that’s because downtown Cincinnati isn’t what it used to be, in a good sort of way.

“There’s just more going on here,” says Wayne Bodington, general manager of the Westin Hotel, in Monk’s column.


Thousands crowd onto Fountain Square on December 31, 2011. Photograph by Thadd Fiala for UrbanCincy.

But while tourists seem to think that downtown Cincinnati is pretty lively, quite a few residents of Greater Cincinnati still cling to the notion that downtown is a dark and forbidding place, with empty streets, boarded-up buildings and flying bullets.

While the “empty streets” part once was true, at least in the evenings, downtown never was the desolate place some suburbanites envision; the number of Fortune 500 headquarters has always kept things humming, at least during the day.

And the business about high crime is illusionary – downtown has had exactly zero homicides in the past year, according to Cincinnati Police statistics. More likely people confuse downtown with the more crime-ridden neighborhoods of Over-the-Rhine and the West End, but even there, crime is decreasing.

In fact, according to the police department’s District One statistics, which include all three neighborhoods, violent crime is down 15 percent over the past two years, and property crimes have fallen 9 percent.

Cincinnati’s government is an ongoing magnet for insults, but the city deserves credit for what it’s done for downtown in the past 20 years. It kicked off the downtown living trend in the early 1990s, when it subsidized Towne Properties’ apartment projects on Garfield Place. And the formation of the public/private Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) speeded up the downtown living process, turned Fountain Square into an entertainment and restaurant venue, and began gentrifying large chunks of Over-the-Rhine.

Now, in the evenings, you can see people walking their dogs, crowding into bars and dancing to music on Fountain Square. That is, if you dare to come downtown.

It is the fate of Greater Cincinnati, and every sprawling American urban area, that some people live so far out in the suburbs that the city is nothing more to them than a mailing address.

And grumbling is part of Cincinnati’s culture, but why trash the city you call home, especially if you haven’t seen the center of it since the fountain was in the middle of Fifth Street and your mother took you Christmas shopping at Mabley & Carew and Pogue’s department stores?

Cincinnati will be hosting the World Choir Games this summer, bringing thousands of people into downtown and its environs. That would be a perfect time for entrenched suburbanites to make the day trip and see what Mr. Bodington is talking about, as well as participating in the festivities.

Or come down now, while you can ice skate on Fountain Square, and see what a difference a couple of decades can make.

The Business Courier offers a weekly print publication to its premium subscribers, and UrbanCincy readers have been offered an exclusive subscription discount. Those who do not wish to receive the weekly print edition can elect to become a premium digital member for just $49 through this exclusive offer being extended to UrbanCincy readers.