Category: Up To Speed

Links to keep you up to speed on what’s happening in Cincinnati and what we can learn from other cities.

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Up To Speed

Will Marriott-Starwood Merger Affect New Hotels in Cincinnati’s Center City?

Will Marriott-Starwood Merger Affect New Hotels in Cincinnati’s Center City

A new AC Hotel by Marriott is coming to The Banks, and a Starwood-affiliated Aloft Hotel is being built at  Newport on the Levee’s latest phase. But with the news announced earlier this week that Marriott is buying Starwood, a few questions have been raised about the future of these two hotels.

Does it make sense for the combined company to operate both of these hotels, which will target similar demographics, in such close proximity? And will Marriott, which now controls 30 hotel brands, maintain both the AC Hotel and Aloft flags, or will one of these two new hotels be forced to rebrand? If so, the change won’t take place in the near future, as hotel experts predict it will be a “minimum of three years before any brands disappear.”

Read more about which hotel brands may be on the chopping block at Forbes.

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Cincinnati’s booming center city should be obvious choice for CDK Global’s new operations center

Center city should be obvious choice for CDK Global’s new operations center

It was announced earlier today that CDK Global, an integrated information technology and digital marketing provider for the retail and automotive retail industries, is looking at Southwest Ohio for a new facility that would house around 1,000 employees.

CDK Global LLC expects to create $45,000,000 in new annual payroll as the result of a 75 percent, 15-year job creation tax credit estimated to be worth $15,652,715 that was approved by the Ohio Tax Credit Authority on Monday. The tax credit will require CDK to maintain operations at its new site for the next 18 years and would retain $3,421,465 in existing payroll along with 80 jobs. CDK is expected to make $9,750,000 in capital investment as a result of the tax credit.

The move makes sense given the region’s strong marketing and retail presence, and its rapidly growing tech scene. According to the report from our content partners at the Business Courier, a specific site has not yet been selected. We would like to take this opportunity to point CDK Global to the center city where many of the region’s fastest-growing, most innovative and successful companies are locating. Plus, there are several great sites located directly on the first phase of the Cincinnati Streetcar that would only add to the experience and quality of life for CDK’s employees.

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Up To Speed

With many cities no longer interested in hosting mega events, what’s the future for the Olympics and World Cup?

With many cities no longer interested in hosting mega events, what’s the future for the Olympics and World Cup?.

Cincinnati make an unlikely bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. The Queen City lost out to a number of other American cities that became the finalists for the U.S. selection, which ultimately put New York City in the running against a host of global competitors. Those days of heated competition to host the games, however, may be over. More from CityLab:

If the U.S. bid had gone to D.C., San Francisco, or Los Angeles, critics would have rallied against the Games in those cities the same way they did in Boston. Support for the Games was bound to fall in the wake of an actual bid, as critics sought to expose the high costs or unpractical plans that usually attach themselves to these mega-events.

I don’t see how a U.S. city will ever again host the Olympic Games. Or a World Cup, for that matter. (We’re stuck with the Super Bowl, though.) While mega-events could help cities in Western nation accomplish good things, the participation of authoritarian states is driving the Olympics and the World Cup toward extreme costs and extravagance.

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Up To Speed

Recent string of deaths on our roadways illustrates need for Vision Zero policy

Recent string of deaths on our roadways illustrates need for Vision Zero policy.

There have been a string of deaths on our region’s roadways this year. In several cases, including one last week that involved the death of a 12-year-old girl in Colerain Township, have come as a result of deadly roadway design. In this particular instance, cars often travel at fast speeds and there are few crosswalks made available to people walking. In March it was a deadly stretch of roadway in Florence that led to a person losing control of their car and killing a grandfather and his two toddler grandchildren as they attempted to walk along a road with no sidewalks.

In Los Angeles, a city that has become infamous for being car-dominated, the city’s mayor is looking to improve the situation. Some local leaders are also calling for a so-called Vision Zero policy agenda that works aggressively toward designing streets and crafting public policy in a way to eliminate such deaths. More from the Los Angeles Times:

Los Angeles is in many respects a terrible place to be a pedestrian. That’s in large part because we have engineered our streets to function like highways, widening them over the decades at the expense of sidewalks, which are so anemic in some places that telephone poles and other utilities block them. We’ve made it easy to drive on Sepulveda Boulevard or Sunset Boulevard as an alternative to the 405 or the 101, and, as a result, made it dangerous to traverse those streets by foot.

The city’s lack of regard for pedestrians is nowhere more apparent than in the shortage of marked crosswalks. Although technically pedestrians have the right of way at any intersection, drivers don’t generally slow down or look around unless there’s paint on the ground. Is there anything more frustrating for a pedestrian than arriving at a corner without white lines? You have to choose between risking your life by darting across the street and walking out of your way in the hope of finding a safe crossing nearby.

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Up To Speed

Uptown leaders should copy Buffalo and develop a street-calming plan

Uptown leaders should copy Buffalo and develop a street-calming plan.

Cincinnati’s uptown neighborhoods are experiencing a bit of a boom. Hundreds of residential units are being developed, new transportation infrastructure and capacity is coming online, and smaller, historic buildings are controversially making way for new, taller ones. While significant changes are underway, one thing that remains the same, and seems poised to only get worse as new roadway projects are built, is the fact that most major thoroughfares uptown are inhospitable to people who wish to walk or bike to get around. In Buffalo they have developed a plan to address just that in the city’s historic downtown. A similar plan should be considered for Cincinnati’s second largest employment center. More from Buffalo News:

The new Downtown Infrastructure Master Plan lays out a series of enhancements to key streets, districts and public squares to bolster the appearance and feel of the city center for residents, employees and visitors, while making the downtown more vibrant. At the same time, it seeks to make the area more cohesive and pedestrian-friendly, by improving access and connections. And it calls for traffic calming, more accessible green space and public space, and a “softening” of barriers like highway overpasses.

The goal is to provide a framework for future public-sector investments and projects, using shared objectives in making decisions about where to target new initiatives. But it’s also flexible enough, officials said, so that it can be adapted to tie in new projects to downtown and neighborhoods.