In July, UrbanCincy reported on the future of the much-discussed Wasson Way corridor, and investigated the candidate that will most likely be chosen as Cincinnati’s next City Manager. We also opined on the need for a new first-class arena in the city.
Additionally, two of our most popular stories were photo updates: Jake Mecklenborg’s collection of photos from the Northside Fourth of July parade, and my gallery of residential construction projects in Downtown Cincinnati.
KZF Releases Preliminary Designs, Cost Estimates for Wasson Way The 45-page study is the first detailed look at the corridor, which has been hotly debated and discussed over recent years. Much of the controversy has surrounded whether or not both light rail and a trail can be accommodated.
EDITORIAL: It’s Time for Cincinnati to Build a New First-Class Arena Within a one-hour drive from Fountain Square there are eight arenas with a capacity of more than 9,000 people for their primary tenants. Of these, only three have been built or undergone major renovations since the year 2000.
Ryan Meo and Patrick Hitches will open a coworking space in the Brighton District of Cincinnati’s West End neighborhood later this month. The two are taking a different approach and hoping MOVE Coworking will fare better than its predecessors.
Hitches and Meo describe the concept as an “active collaborative environment” that mixes the traditional shared working space with a fitness training facility. It will be the first of its kind in the region and stands in contrast to the three shuttered coworking spaces – Cincy Coworks, Working Side by Side and The Offices – that came before it.
“We believe living an active, healthy lifestyle helps to spark innovation, creativity and productivity,” Hitches explained. “We know from experience that the integration of hard work and play creates an element of true productivity, creativity and innovation in whatever your work or business may be.”
Lighting Inside MOVE Coworking [Provided]
Training Compound [Provided]
Conference Room [Provided]
Coworking Space [Provided]
Coworking Space [Provided]
The business partners say that they believe part of the problem with other coworking spaces is that they essentially recreate a quiet office environment that many independent workers are looking to escape – something new pay-per-minute cafes are also trying to combat. To that end, they say that MOVE Coworking will include communal tables, stand-up desks, hanging hammocks, lounge areas and eventually treadmill desks.
Meo and Hitches come from different non-traditional work backgrounds that they believe will contribute to the success of their new business venture. Hitches has worked as a fitness entrepreneur, splitting time between Washington D.C. and Cincinnati, and Meo has spent his professional career doing web development outsourcing. They also say that, in addition to their non-traditional work backgrounds, they were motivated to make this investment due to all of the positive changes taking place in the city.
“There’s no denying the momentum and excitement of the changing neighborhoods all across downtown Cincinnati,” Hitches said. “I look around at all the architecture that has for so long been underutilized and really can’t believe we’ve waited this long to utilize these unique buildings. To me this is a huge opportunity to snag up one of these spaces to create a vision while cultivating a community of people who are also passionate about the positive changes to the city.”
The two are particularly excited about the historic warehouse building they will be located in, and Hitches, who lives car-free, says that as an avid cyclist he is also thrilled about the new Central Parkway Cycle Track out front.
Coworking Space [Provided]
Central Parkway Cycle Track [5chw4r7z]
Coworking Space [Provided]
Training Compound [Provided]
MOVE Coworking will take up 5,000 square feet of space in the basement of the historic Mohawk Building. In order to get the space into the proper condition and fully outfitted, they say that they have invested somewhere around $100,000.
Those looking to use the coworking space or fitness component will have several options. Hitches says that every coworking package will include a membership to the gym space, but that people can also purchase fitness memberships independent of the coworking space. He also says that a yoga space will be added later this fall, and be inclusive in specific membership packages, while also being sold separately for those who just wish to access the yoga studio.
It will cost $20 for drop-in use of the coworking space, or $199 per month for a three days per week package and $270 per month for full-time 24-hour access. As of now, rates start at $70 per month for those who just wish to get a fitness membership.
“Instinctively I always wanted a place where I could go part-time to do some focused online work outside the gym or coffee shops where I would set up my laptop,” Hitches told UrbanCincy. “I now have a place in D.C. where I can utilize space that allows me to have a network of people outside the fitness professionals who I’m around daily in the training studio.”
With that in mind, Hitches and Meo are now hoping they can attract local entrepreneurs, solopreneurs and young professionals that are in search of an alternative workspace, where they can also surround themselves with other health-minded individuals.
MOVE Coworking will start giving private tours to potential members this week, and will have an official launch party on Wednesday, August 20.
While Cincinnati leaders would like to see their parking system generate more in revenue than it costs to operate and maintain it, that is not the reality. It is, however, the reality across the river in Covington.
A review of Covington’s recently approved 2014-2015 budget estimates the parking system will bring in approximately $1.6 million in revenue, while costing only $1.1 million for operations, maintenance and upgrades.
One of the largest chunks of Covington’s annual parking revenue, however, comes from lease payments which total about $491,000 – or nearly one-third of the city’s annual parking revenues.
Had Cincinnati followed through with its parking lease agreement, it too would have realized these benefits by offloading expenses and locking in fixed lease payments. Under Cincinnati’s parking lease, the city would have received anywhere from $3-4 million in annual payments from the concessionaire.
In order just to break even, the City of Cincinnati has and continues to defer needed maintenance and upgrades, while also depleting its parking fund.
Covington will also benefit from increased parking rates, which will net the city an additional $68,500 in the first year. Those changes include a 10-cent per hour increase for on-street parking meters, and a $2 per day increase at the RiverCenter Parking Garage.
In addition to on-street parking meters throughout downtown, Covington has 818 parking spaces in 16 surface lots and another 1,574 spaces in three different parking garages.
As technology and automobile companies invest heavily in making driver-less cars a reality the impacts and consequences of this developing technology will be hard to predict. One auto manufacturer, Toyota, is warning that the phenomenon may lead to more fuel usage and sprawl. More from Bloomberg News:
“U.S. history shows that anytime you make driving easier, there seems to be this inexhaustible desire to live further from things,” Laberteaux said. “The pattern we’ve seen for a century is people turn more speed into more travel, rather than maybe saying ‘I’m going to use my reduced travel time by spending more time with my family.’”
Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley (D) announced Harry Black as his pick to fill the role of the city’s equivalent of a chief executive officer.
It has been widely reported that Black is the current finance director for the City of Baltimore, and that he had a tumultuous tenure while serving as the chief financial officer for the City of Richmond, VA. When selected for the Baltimore job, The Brew had the following to say regarding Black:
Baltimore’s new director…was introduced to the City Council as a green-eyeshades number cruncher well-versed in municipal bond transactions.
That dull description hardly fits with Black’s varied career and his sometimes volatile personality that included an attempt to evict the Richmond school board from its offices and frequent brawls with the Richmond City Council.
It has also been widely reported in the Baltimore and Richmond media that Black earned the nickname of being “the mayor’s bull dog” and “Baby Wilder” in reference to former Richmond mayor L. Douglas Wilder.
What makes this interesting is the explanation for all the turmoil in Richmond, by both Black himself and Mayor Cranley. They say it was due to tensions over the transition of the city from a city manager form of government, to a “strong mayor” system.
It should be seen as no coincidence that Black has been selected for the Cincinnati role after he had ramrodded through a new form of government in Richmond that is also being proposed in Cincinnati by a Cranley loyalist – Christopher Smitherman (R). If Black’s history, and Cranley’s style of governance, is any indication, one can assume Cincinnati’s transition from a city manager government to a strong mayor system may be just as tumultuous.
What adds further intrigue to the selection are Black’s other noteworthy leadership moments.
Harry Black face the media [Fern Shen/The Brew]
In 2007, then Richmond Mayor Douglas Wilder (D) asked for an outside audit of the city school board’s finances. When rebuffed by the school board, Wilder then forced the move and had Black conduct the operation. In order to do so, Black, as the city’s chief financial officer, withheld half of the board’s non-payroll funds and tried to evict them from their offices.
Such behavior and loyalty would come in handy for Mayor Cranley if he does in fact try to dismantle the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA), and shift its control into City Hall – something he has been calling for since his time on city council in the early 2000s.
Later on in his tenure at the City of Richmond, he was nominated to become to the city’s chief administrative officer, but was rejected by the city council, according to The Brew.
Then, in 2008, Black’s office was slammed by a KPMG audit that highlighted a slew of auditing inconsistencies and faults including outdated and unreconciled city financial accounts, improperly recorded account deposits, and more than $5 million in money that was not recorded at all in the city’s cash account as it should have been.
According to the Richmond Times Dispatch, “The memo said millions of dollars from different sources of city money either were not recorded or were accounted for in the wrong period. It also criticized city officials for poor record-keeping of financial transactions, noting that they couldn’t document spending on capital projects or the details of complex economic-development deals.”
At the time, Black attributed the failures of his office to the limited resources he received from the city council, and institutional problems that restricted his ability to hire and fire staff as he pleased.
Black says that he has since learned from his troubled career in Richmond, and that his subsequent experience in the private sector has bolstered his credentials. Unfortunately, there are also disputes regarding his past performance and experience.
Harry E. Black claims to have supervised a $500-million construction program at an architectural consulting firm where, according to a federal administrative judge’s finding in 2006, he “was not a key employee” and “had no management authority.”
[…]
Looking at a joint venture by McKissack & McKissack and Global Commerce Solutions Inc. – a company founded by Black’s wife, Sheryl Black – Small Business Administration Judge Thomas B. Pender ruled on May 24, 2006 that “the preponderance of the evidence” showed that Harry Black had “no management authority when he worked for McKissack & McKissack” despite his title.
“Mr. Black is not a key employee of M&M [McKissack & McKissack] and has no ability or power to control M&M. He was originally hired by M&M as an independent consultant and his role as vice president was in name only,” the opinion, obtained by The Brew, said.
But it is what was uncovered by The Brew last October that raises potentially the biggest concern. At that time, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D) was moving forward with awarding a $185 million contract to Dynis LLC to replace 400,000 water meters throughout the city and county.
The problem was that Dynis had no experience in doing such work, and that an actually qualified contractor submitted a bid that was $100 million less, but not accepted. Perhaps predictably so, it was uncovered that Dynis had connections to one of the mayor’s top campaign donors, and would make a considerable profit off of the contract.
While the story was uncovered by Mark Reutter, who Mayor Cranley dismissed yesterday as a “silly blogger”, it eventually became front-page news and earned The Brew national acclaim for the work of its “bloggers” who previously had careers as investigative journalists for various newspapers.
While the story centered on Rawlings-Blake and the unethical process of awarding contracts by Baltimore’s Board of Estimates, Black’s position as the director of finance is tasked with working with the Board of Estimates on recommending and issuing contracts.
Mayor Cranley appears to have used the national search for a new city manager to hand-pick a candidate that will be used to advance his own political agenda.
Black’s past shows a troubled public tenure, questionable private sector career, and paints a picture of a man who greatly desires power and authority, and dislikes those who get in his way.
While his accomplishments in improving minority contracts and reducing structural deficits in Richmond and Baltimore are laudable, his strong-headed and ruthless approach to governance should give Cincinnatians pause.
In July, UrbanCincy reported on the future of the much-discussed Wasson Way corridor, and investigated the candidate that will most likely be chosen as Cincinnati’s next City Manager. We also opined on the need for a new first-class arena in the city.
