Tag: clifton

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Business News Politics

Roxanne Qualls Directs Administration to Develop Solar Financing Mechanisms

Cincinnati Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls (C) put forth a motion last week that calls on the mayor’s administration to establish new financing mechanisms for expanding the city’s solar energy capabilities.

Qualls says that she hopes the City of Cincinnati can work with local organizations like Green Umbrella, Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, and the Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance (GCEA) to develop Property Assisted Clean Energy (PACE) financing.

When City Council approved the Green Cincinnati Plan in 2008 it included a target of installing solar energy on one out of every five rooftops, both residential and commercial, by 2028. Qualls believes that working with GCEA and Green Umbrella will be critical in establishing a viable solar rooftop program and facilitating power purchase or lease agreements for solar energy installations that will be critical towards reaching 2028 benchmark.

“These are steps we can take now to help to not only save money on our energy bills today, but to build a globally-competitive local green economy and a lasting green legacy for our children,” stated Qualls.

Cincinnati Zoo Solar Panels
The Cincinnati Zoo’s solar canopy is the largest publicly accessible urban solar array in the U.S. Image provided.

According to the vice mayor’s office, such a program would work by using third-party financing tools to overcome existing financial barriers for those interested in installing solar energy systems on their building. Similar programs are already in places around the nation, and Qualls believes a Cincinnati program could save consumers money on their utility bills, promote local jobs, and offer numerous environmental benefits.

“If Cincinnati adopted a goal to get 10% of its energy from solar by 2030, and just my small business met that demand, I’d have to hire 450 electricians tomorrow and keep them hired for the next 17years,” explained Matt Kolbinsky, Program Manager for SECO Electric.

The City of Cincinnati is already experiencing positive gains from its efforts to transition towards the use of green energy following the formation of an electricity buying group formed in 2012 that is now saving residential and small commercial users 23% on their monthly bills.

The electric supply contract put in place last April by the City also calls for 100% of the energy supply to be backed by Renewable Energy Credits. The move made the city one of the largest in the United States to do so, and earned it a spot as a finalist for the 2013 U.S. Earth Hour City Capital award.

The new motion, however, comes on the heels of a town hall meeting hosted by Xavier University’s Sustainability Committee, on the topic of solar energy, where more than 100 people attended. To capitalize on the momentum, Qualls has requested that the administration bring legislation on the matter back to council within 60 days.

“Cincinnati has all the right ingredients to go solar,” said Christian Adams, Clean Energy Associate for Environment Ohio who organized the town hall meeting last Tuesday. “From Findlay Market to the Cincinnati Zoo, the Queen City is leading the charge statewide for homegrown solar power and we can see that Cincinnatians are taking note of their city’s leadership on this issue.”

Green Umbrella has already established a Renewable Energy Action Team that has outlined how a residential solar rooftop program might work in Cincinnati, but the organization says that ongoing public feedback will be critical to future success.

“Building a solar powered Cincinnati is possible, but it will take all of us standing up to support these programs and calling for more,” Adams concluded. “Vice Mayor Qualls’ solar vision is striking a chord with Cincinnatians and people across the Queen City are waking up to the potential for a homegrown solar powered future right here in southwest Ohio.”

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Up To Speed

UC’s Campus Recreation Center named best in America

UC’s Campus Recreation Center named best in America.

Most everyone knows by now that the University of Cincinnati has transformed its previously drab uptown campus into one of the world’s most beautiful college environments with stunning architecture and public spaces. One of those stunning pieces of architecture is the university’s Campus Recreation Center (CRC), which opened in 2005, and has been rated as the best college recreation center in America. More from Best College Reviews:

The UC Campus Recreation Center is an impressive building, with over 200,000 square feet of recreation facilities. A juice bar and a convenience store are also available to students for immediate refreshing during or after a big workout. The CRC has three pools, over 21,000 pounds of weights, a climbing wall, and a suspended track.

The University of Cincinnati has always placed a premium on impressive architecture, and the CRC is an example of this. UC’s facilities for student athletes are also impressive…UC students have all the amenities that modern students expect, but they enjoy partaking of them in world class architectural achievements, which is a big part of why Cincinnati takes our top spot.

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Arts & Entertainment News Politics

Lee Fisher to Discuss the Future of Cities at UC’s School of Planning

The University of Cincinnati’s School of Planning will host Ohio’s former Lieutenant Governor and current CEOs for Cities President, Lee Fisher, next Thursday.

The event will start at 4pm with Fisher explaining what CEOs for Cities does and what they stand for. Organizers also say that those who attend will also hear about civic activists can work with professional architects, planners, designers and artists in a collaborative way to change their communities.

While serving as Lieutenant Governor, Fisher was perhaps most well-known for his economic development work and the implementation of the Ohio Hubs of Innovation & Opportunity to foster urban-based collaborations between businesses, colleges and universities, and research institutions.

Cincinnati was named an Ohio Hub of Innovation & Opportunity for Consumer Marketing in July 2010.

Fisher’s interest in these collaborative approaches to building up cities aligned him perfectly with CEOs for Cities which helps lead these types of discussions and has becoming a prominent voice on these topics over recent years. Specifically though, leadership at CEOs for Cities believe that great cities are not simply places that are born, but are rather made and improved over time.

“A living place is someone’s success,” Paul Grogan, who founded CEOs for Cities in 2001 with Richard M. Daley. “These are matters of choice and skill, not laws of physics.”

This work of enhancing cities has spread throughout North America to more than 60 cities, and CEOs for Cities currently has offices in Chicago, Cleveland and Washington D.C.

Following the speech, organizers say that the audience will get an opportunity to meet and discuss their ideas with Fisher during a reception to be held at 5:10pm.

The main event will kick off at 4pm on Thursday, April 4 inside the Kaplan Auditorium (Room 5401) at UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art & Planning. The event is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be served.

The University of Cincinnati is well-served by Metro bus service (plan your trip), but those taking personal automobiles should be able to find cash parking in the nearby Clifton Court Garage.

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Up To Speed

Will $25M cash payout from Big East fast-track Nippert Stadium renovation?

Will $25M cash payout from Big East fast-track Nippert Stadium renovation?.

The University of Cincinnati has been trying mightily to get out of the collapsing Big East Conference, but its lack of options to-date might result in a big-time payout for its athletic program. With as much as $25 million in cash heading to Clifton, might this fast-track the $75 million renovation and expansion of Nippert Stadium? More from CBS Sports:

Big East leaders met Friday afternoon in Atlanta to discuss, among other things, the withdrawal of the Catholic 7. No deals regarding the new basketball-centric league or reported sale of the “Big East” name were finalized, but Blaudschun reports that the current “football faction” will have a cash fund of “close to $100 million for distribution.”

The $100 million total is a combination of nearly 70 million dollars the Big East has and will collect in exit fee money from schools that have left or have announced they are leaving and another total of approximately $30 million which will come to the Big East offices from the NCAA as “unit” shares for conference teams participation in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

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Business News Transportation

Metro to Break Ground on $6.9M Uptown Transit District this April

Regional transit planners are looking to take advantage of growing ridership around Cincinnati’s second largest employment center by developing what will become the bus system’s secondary nexus.

Officials from the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) say that construction will begin on the Uptown Transit District, a collection of four new transit hubs throughout Uptown, in the coming months.

The new hub is intended to serve Cincinnati’s uptown neighborhoods which create the region’s second largest employment center with more than 50,000 jobs. Many of these jobs are associated with the region’s largest medical institutions and the University of Cincinnati, and even though the area is served by a variety of Metro buses, it has been difficult for transit riders to find or coordinate transfers between buses.

Jefferson Avenue Transit Hub
One of the four new transit hubs will be built along Jefferson Avenue at the University of Cincinnati. Rendering provided.

“Ridership with Uptown origins or destinations is one of the highest in the region, second only to downtown Cincinnati,” explained Jill Dunne, Metro’s public affairs manager. “On an average weekday all Uptown stops serve about 3,300 people.”

Since the failure of the 2002 MetroMoves campaign, which included a plan to construct several regional bus hubs, the region’s largest transit provider has been able to utilize other funding sources to move forward with a more limited approach.

The Glenway Crossing Transit Hub was the first of these to become reality when it opened in December 2011.

With ridership increasing 4.2% over the past year, due in part to an increase of use by students at the University of Cincinnati, the transit agency wants to move forward with the next component of the regional bus hubs originally envisioned as part of MetroMoves.

The four separate hubs that will make up the Uptown Transit District, officials say, will include shelters and real-time arrival boards modeled after those installed at Government Square last June.

Uptown Transit District

Dunne says that the hub locations were designated after transit planners reviewed the combination of the existing route network, existing passenger travel patterns, geography and street pattern of the Uptown area, and dispersed land use and trip attractions.

“The four enhanced bus stops will provide an adequately sized and more comfortable place to accommodate existing passenger volumes,” said Dunne. “It will also address future growth needs in such key Uptown markets as UC students/faculty/staff, medical industry employees, medical patients and visitors, and neighborhood residents.”

In an effort to focus attention on existing routes, Metro recently conducted several public sessions on modifying bus routes to increase utilization of the Uptown Transit District.

In addition to existing service modifications to enhance usage of the Uptown Transit District, officials say that the four new hubs will benefit from the planned phase two expansion of the Cincinnati Streetcar and new Metro*Plus limited stop service that will begin operating between Downtown, Uptown and Kenwood.

The $6.9 million project was funded through a mixture of funding, approximately 72% of which came from Federal sources, and will begin construction in April.

Plans call for additional bus hubs, like the Glenway Crossing Transit Hub and Uptown Transit District, to be developed in other large employment centers around the city as money becomes available.