Tag: avondale

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Business Development News

Construction Set to Begin on Cooperative Clifton Market Later This Month

Existing Conditions at Clifton Market [Eric Anspach]

After a hard-fought fundraising campaign, Clifton Market is expected to begin construction at the end of this month to convert the former 22,000-square-foot Keller’s IGA into a cooperative grocery store.

Incorporated in January 2014, the group behind Clifton Market successfully purchased the former IGA in April 2015, after a year of negotiations and challenges. Since that time, the group has raised money by selling ownership shares, acquiring two loans totaling $3 million to cover the costs for the building’s renovation and purchase of equipment, and securing a 12-year tax abatement from the City of Cincinnati that is valued at $1,063,000.

When the IGA closed in 2011, Clifton and other nearby neighborhoods were added to Cincinnati’s collection of food deserts – places where people are unable to easily access a full-service grocery store.

Following the store’s closure, Clifton residents met and decided to find a way to bring a grocery store back to the neighborhood. According to Marilyn Hyland, a Clifton Market board member, the group of citizens decided that a co-op model would be the most effective, allowing the group to pool their money in order to accomplish their common goal.

Hyland explained to UrbanCincy that the IGA closed, in part, due to problems stemming from the Great Recession, but that the grocery store was still doing around $200,000 in sales a week in its final days.

Clifton Market’s grocery market analyst, Keith Wicks, says that he predicts the new store will draw approximately 15,000 people a week, while also creating 35 new full-time jobs.

While there are a number of other grocery store projects either underway or in planning stages in Corryville, Northside and Avondale, Clifton’s store is expected to be bolstered by its proximity to high population density, along with the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati State Technical & Community College, and Hebrew Union College.

Other neighborhood leaders, meanwhile, are excited for the additional foot traffic the store will bring to the historic business district, along with the reintroduction of local and organic produce to Ludlow Avenue.

“The amount of activity that will flow through the market will aid other Ludlow Avenue businesses in attracting customers, from the surrounding neighborhoods and beyond, into our business district,” said Brad Hawse, a member of the Ludlow 21 working group.

Hawse says that the group is looking forward to increased development in the area as young Americans continue to choose walkable, urban neighborhoods as their preferred locations to live, work, and play.

“This will also provide our neighborhood residents a convenient way to get healthy food without needing to drive or take the bus to a neighborhood across town,” Hawse explained. “This will not only decrease the amount of time they need to spend on grocery shopping, but also reduce the number of automobile trips our community needs to make.”

The development team says that they are currently waiting on their building permit to be approved, and hope to begin renovation work by the end of February. If all goes according to plan, Clifton Market is expected to open near the end of summer.

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News Transportation

UC Students, Staff Call on Metro to Make Additional Uptown Service Enhancements

University of Cincinnati’s Department of Planning+Design+Construction recently partnered with Metro for an on-campus listening session for input on how to better serve the Uptown community. The two-day outreach event included meetings with students, faculty and staff on both the main campus and medical campus to gather feedback from current bus riders and non-users.

In line with the many other community engagement sessions Metro has hosted throughout the city over the past year, participants were asked how they would like to see Metro improve, while non-riders discussed what was needed to get them to choose taking the bus.

Among the faculty and staff responses, improving east-west crosstown routes and frequency topped the list, followed by adding frequency to the existing 17, 19, 78 (Lincoln Heights) and 43 (Bond Hill) lines, adding express service between Uptown and Liberty Township, improving evening frequency, and adding more ticket vending machines.

Student feedback requested modernizing the fare box; adding evening and weekend frequency on the 19, 51, and 78 lines; improving instructions on how to ride the bus; adding a public display that monitors the number of available bike racks on the bus (currently, each bus has a capacity of two); and integrating the UC Bearcat card as a form of payment for bus fare.

Additionally, staff from the university presented a proposal for a new bus route called the University Connector. Similar to the 51, the route would connect Northside, Clifton, Walnut Hills, Oakley, and Madisonville, with a center circulator around three sides of UC’s main campus.

University staff members believe the route would minimize transfer wait times and improve accessibility to key academic buildings on UC’s main campus, and improve connectivity with the medical campus. But while the proposed circulator service would use established Metro stops, its location in Oakley would not take advantage of the new $1.2 million Oakley Transit Center that will break ground later this year.

As the building boom continues at a rapid pace in Uptown, a growing focus is being placed on improving the area’s transportation access – both UC’s student government and Board of Trustees have recently stated their support for extending the Cincinnati Streetcar up the hill, Metro launched Metro*Plus in 2013 and established the Uptown Transit District in 2014, which features enhanced stations, ticket vending machines, real time arrival signage, and improved wayfinding design.

There is currently no timetable for implementing any of the recommended improvements, but it is widely anticipated that Metro will put a county-wide transit tax on this November’s ballot that would be used to improve the agency’s bus operations.

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Business Development News

Success of Hickory Place Townhomes Accentuates Avondale’s Turnaround

Hickory Place Townhomes [Randy Simes]

A long-held vision for bringing new market rate housing to Avondale is finally being realized; and its early success has surprised many. With most of the initial eight Hickory Place Townhomes already sold, developers say they are ready to invest in a second phase.

“We knew the townhomes in phase one would sell quickly, but sales outpaced our expectations,” said Beth Robinson, president and CEO of the Uptown Consortium.

Robinson says that the first five homes were sold in just 16 days, which is well ahead of the 51-day average for homes on the market in the Cincinnati area. Those first five homes, she says, also had listing prices above $175,000.

When community leaders and development officials with the Uptown Consortium broke ground on eight townhomes in early 2014, many were skeptical about whether they homes would sell.

The skepticism was easy to understand.

The site is located in the middle of a redevelopment area that has yet to be fully realized, is situated in a neighborhood that is often defined by crime and poverty, and is also located near many foreclosed or abandoned homes. But knowing the challenges of the site and project only offers a partial understanding.

The site is located just off of Burnet Avenue, which has seen tens of millions in new investment over the past decade. These investments have created new businesses and jobs, while also preserving some long-time neighborhood establishments and historic assets. Meanwhile, the nearby Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center has continued to add hundreds of high-paying medical and research jobs to its growing campus, and the nearby playground and ball field was recently freshened up thanks to an investment from the Reds Community Fund.

These new investments, combined with changing demographics more interested in urban living and working options, have set the table for a new path forward for the city’s seventh most populated neighborhood.

“We are thrilled that the market has responded so favorably to the Hickory Place Townhomes,” said Ozie Davis, executive director at Avondale Comprehensive Development Corporation. “The success of this project proves our strong belief that Avondale is the next hot residential market.”

Similar to what has been completed thus far, the $5 million second phase will include eight townhomes with approximately 1,400 square feet of living space, and including two to three bedrooms. In order to maximize the use of the land, developers are only building one-car garages for each home, but they will come with the option of an additional on-street parking space along Northern Avenue.

Listing agents with Coldwell Banker’s Metro Link office say that the prices for these homes will start at $225,000.

Developing homes in this price range within Avondale is intentional. In addition to being the largest black community in the city, Avondale is also one of the city’s poorest. This has led to numerous problems over the years, including schooling options, lack of healthy food options, crime and abandonment.

While neighborhood leaders have shown a strong commitment to bolstering affordable housing options, and improving existing conditions of the neighborhood for longstanding residents, the diversification of income levels and housing options is seen as a positive.

If recent success stories, such as the $40 million Avondale Town Center development on Reading Road, and the massive capital investment to improve low-income housing options, are any indication, then the future of the neighborhood looks as bright and as hopeful as the vision Davis has for it.

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Business News Transportation

Pay-by-Phone Technology Now Available for Cincinnati’s Parking Meters

Smart Meter IdentificationCincinnati city officials announced last week that the more than 4,000 smart parking meters that have been installed throughout the city are now functioning in coordination with a new mobile app payment system.

The announcement fulfills a long-held desire for motorists looking for more convenient ways to pay parking meter fees.

It is expected that such technology will help reduce the amount of tickets that are dolled out since drivers will now be able to refill their meter from anywhere, simply by using their phone. Those without smartphones capable of operating the PassportParking app will also be able to use their phones to reload meters by visiting http://m.ppprk.com, or by calling 513-253-0493.

“This enhancement is part of the City’s ongoing parking modernization plan to improve the quality and efficiency of the City parking system,” officials stated in a prepared release. “In accordance with these efforts parking rates were adjusted earlier this year, and motorists saw the introduction of prepay and extended hours.”

In addition to the convenience for parkers, the new technology also allows for local businesses to register so that they can discount the parking costs for their customers.

While the new technology will make payments easier and more convenient, it does not help motorists locate available on-street parking spaces, or utilize dynamic pricing that would encourage those looking for a parking space to navigate toward a lesser used area.

While dynamic pricing has been mentioned as a future possibility by both Mayor John Cranley (D) and City Manager Harry Black, it has not yet been made clear when that will take place.

“Pay-by-phone parking is representative of what we are doing across our organization. We are using technology to enhance services we offer our residents and visitors,” said City Manager Black. “This technology won’t replace more traditional means of paying to park at a meter, but it gives people a new, convenient option that makes visiting Downtown or business districts across Cincinnati easier.”

The mobile payment app, which charges a 25-cent convenience fee, will only work for on-street parking meters and kiosks – not off-street lots or garages. In order to properly use the system, drivers will be asked to input the zone, along with the meter number, into the application so that the payment can be traced to that particular space, and thus monitored by parking enforcement officers.

All of this comes after the contentious cancellation of the parking lease agreement put into place by Mark Mallory‘s administration in 2013.

Under that agreement, the City would have leased its on-street parking meters, along with a number of garages and lots, to the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, which then was to enter into operation agreement with Xerox. In return, the City would have received a large upfront payment, along with guaranteed annual payments.

The new structure maintains more control at City Hall, but it misses on the upfront capital, along with the guaranteed payments.

Instead, the City takes on the risk of meeting revenue projections and keeping operation and maintenance costs within their targets. One thing that remains the same is the presence of Xerox, although their role appears to have been greatly diminished from what it would have been under the Mallory administration deal.

So far the response to the new parking meters and payment functionality has been positive, although some neighborhood business districts, where the meters are arriving for the first time, have experienced some temporary glitches with pricing and hours of operation programmed into the meter.

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Business News

Uptown Neighborhoods Have Outsized Role in Regional Economy

Scioto Hall Construction [Jake Mecklenborg]

Data released by the UC Economic Center shows that Cincinnati’s uptown neighborhoods – Avondale, Clifton, Corryville, Clifton Heights, Fairview, University Heights, and Mt. Auburn – contribute heavily to the regional economy.

Commissioned by the Uptown Consortium, a non-profit dedicated to development in the area, the collection of neighborhoods actually have an outsized influence on the regional economy.

According to the study, uptown houses more than 800 businesses that collectively employ around 52,000 employees and contribute more than $3 billion in annual wages in the Cincinnati Metropolitan Statistical Area. For the City of Cincinnati, the area represents 18.2% of all income tax collections taken in by City Hall.

These statistics are buoyed by the fact that the area also has one of the fastest growing job rates in the region. From 2012 to 2013, uptown neighborhoods saw employment rise by 12%, while growth throughout the rest of the city stood at 0.2%, and the rest of Hamilton County at 0.7%. All of this growth has led to a building boom that is changing uptown’s image.

Furthermore, the UC Economic Center found that while average city-wide property taxes collected per acre held averaged $8,000, while in the uptown area that figure stood at an average of $14,000 per acre.

This economic impact is driven mostly by what the report refers to as anchor institutions – education, healthcare, and social assistance agencies. These types of employers make up a large portion of the city economy, but particularly so uptown. Overall, these types of employees make up 16.3% of the city’s total workforce, and contribute around $98 million in city income taxes and $17 million in Hamilton County sales taxes annually.

All told, they account for 7.8% of the Cincinnati MSA’s gross regional product.

The report also demonstrates that, in addition to the direct economic impact of anchor institutions, they also draw considerable indirect impact from the money injected into the local economy.

While the institution and what are referred to as their auxiliary businesses are a boon for the regional economy at the moment, an over reliance on them could be dangerous.

As the Economic Center stated, “were the University of Cincinnati to close, much of the economic activity in Uptown would leave the region.”