Tag: developments

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Business Development News

Redevelopment work shifting north and west in historic Over-the-Rhine

The influx of investment in Cincinnati’s historic Over-the-Rhine neighborhood has been profound over the past five years. Hundreds of millions of dollars have flowed into the neighborhood introducing new residential units, office and retail space.

Much of that investment has come from the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC). To date, the development corporation has rehabilitated or stabilized 74 structures throughout the historic neighborhood, and so far the success has been unprecedented for the long-troubled neighborhood.


Vine Street streetscape photograph by Jayson Gomes for Cincy Images.

More than 77 percent of the 186 condominiums have been sold, 100 percent of the 68 apartment units have been leased, and 64 percent of the more than 91,000 square feet of commercial space has been leased.

The work has primarily been focused in the southern portions of Over-the-Rhine along Vine Street and Main Street. Now development is shifting north and west as the success grows outward from the popular Gateway Quarter of Over-the-Rhine.

In the coming month work will begin on the $51 million Mercer Commons development, the second phase of Parvis Lofts and seven other projects that will introduce 98 additional residential units and another 9,300 square feet of office space.

Interesting to many is the fact that approximately half of them are located on Republic Street – the street where Cincinnati’s infamous race riots began in 2001. The street already boasts two sold-out condominium projects and has seen interest spike recently.

“It seems like every other week, we are opening newly renovated housing in Over-the-Rhine,” stated Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory. “The transformation in this neighborhood is nothing short of remarkable, and we are just getting started.”


Photograph of completed townhouses within the City Home development [LEFT] by 5chw4r7z. Photograph of Cincinnati Color Building, by Jayson Gomes, where work will soon begin [RIGHT].

While much of the work taking place includes building projects that are either constructing new buildings or restoring historic ones, one of the most notable projects is the $48 million restoration and two-acre expansion of Washington Park.

Once complete, this project will include a new dog park, civic lawn, a performance stage, playground, splash park, historic bandstand and a 450-space underground parking garage. In all, 3CDC officials say that the amenities are meant to build upon the existing success and provide additional neighborhood assets for those currently living in the neighborhood.

The large investments are not limited to 3CDC though. The $100 million renovation of Music Hall and the $95 million Cincinnati Streetcar both have neighborhood residents and business owners excited about even brighter prospects for Over-the-Rhine.

“The streetcar is so important for the revitalization of this neighborhood,” says Over-the-Rhine resident and property owner Reid Hartmann. “Over-the-Rhine has the largest stock of historic Italianate buildings in the U.S. and is primed for redevelopment, and the streetcar will provide that needed step.”

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Development News Transportation

Officials Break Ground on New West Side Transit Hub at Glenway Crossing

Community leaders gathered with local transit officials and representatives from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) last Monday to celebrate the groundbreaking of a new west side transit center.

The Glenway Crossing Transit Center will serve as the major connection and transfer point for several local and commuter bus routes. Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) officials say that they will announce those routes later this summer. Furthermore, the construction of a west side transit center is a part of the transit agency’s larger effort to build more transit centers throughout the region and capitalize on ridership growth on express bus routes.


Glenway Crossing Transit Center [Image Provided].

In June 2011, Metro announced that it would add express bus routes to Cincinnati’s western and northern suburbs by cutting service elsewhere. The difficult service decision was forced after then newly elected Governor Kasich (R) cut $70 million from express bus route funding for Ohio’s transit agencies.

The Glenway Crossing Transit Center (map) will cost approximately $624,000 to build and will be located in the parking lot for the Glenway Crossing shopping center. The key west side location was previously home to a collection of rail lines that were vacated and cleared to make room for the Glenway Crossing retail development which has seen spotty success, at best, since its opening two decades ago.

Once complete this fall, the new transit center will include four bus boarding areas, passenger shelters, 70 park and ride spaces and electronic real-time arrival displays.

Metro officials say that the majority of funding for the project came from federal sources including the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act, Surface Transportation Project (STP) and Congestion Mitigation/Air Quality funds made available through the OKI Regional Council of Governments. The region’s next transit center is anticipated to be located uptown near the University of Cincinnati and medical district.

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Development News

Significant visual progress being made at Smale Riverfront Park

Major progress has been made on Cincinnati’s new central riverfront park since project manager Dave Prather last delivered an update. Thanks to a $20.75 million private donation, the park is now named the Smale Riverfront Park in honor of Phyllis W. Smale and her family who donated the large sum of money.

The Smale Riverfront Park now also appears poised to host portions of the decommissioned USS Cincinnati submarine which has long been sought for display on the Ohio River. Furthermore, Prather says that an announcement will soon be made on a new hotel to be constructed adjacent to the park as part of The Banks development.

In Prather’s video update he also highlights the progress on the Moerlein Lager House which now includes a tower crane as vertical construction progresses, and the Schmidlapp Event Lawn which is nearly complete.

Surrounding the event lawn are mature Red Maple trees which were purchased by Cincinnati Parks two years ago and prepared for planting. The event lawn itself is largely complete and is awaiting final granite installation and the shade structure for the event stage which will include photovoltaic solar cells atop it.

The demolition of the old Merhing Way has also been completed along with the demolition of the former wall along the Ohio River. The result of those two demolition projects, Prather says, is now improving the visual connection with the river.

Other notable updates are that the Walnut Street Steps are taking form and are aligning with Walnut Street. The steps will then connect activities at the upper level of the Smale Riverfront Park to those lower at the Women’s Committee Garden. Prather also says that the slab for the interactive will be poured soon, and that the cascading water feature spilling down from a glass overlook will also take shape in the near future.

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Development News Opinion Politics Transportation

Replacement of Cincinnati’s infamous Brent Spence Bridge gets political

Since the late 1990s, most government agencies have posted their reports and meeting minutes online. But more than a decade into the Internet era, it is clear that most citizens never familiarize themselves with the materials on these websites. This unfortunate situation has allowed politicians and corporations to continue constructing and perpetuating narratives with no factual basis.

An example of our present dilemma is the conversation – or rather lack thereof – surrounding the Brent Spence Bridge Replacement/Rehabilitation Project, the Cincinnati area’s largest public works project in a generation. After years of inattention by the local media, the $3-plus billion project recently returned to the news after 42 year-old Westwood resident Abdoulaye Yattara, a native of Mali, West Africa, was killed in a fall from the bridge on June 24.


One alternative for an auxillary Brent Spence Bridge.

A flurry of talk radio folderol filled area airwaves during the weekend following the accident. The feature common to all of these conversations was that the public, and even most media figures, were unaware that planning has been underway for the Replacement/Rehabilitation project since 2002, an official website with project plans has been online since around 2005, and that most major decisions concerning the bridge’s design have already been made.

The failure of the local media to inform the public reached new lows on July 6, when the Cincinnati Enquirer’s “Bridging the gap of safety and need” cover story insinuated [PDF] that the existing Brent Spence Bridge will be demolished and replaced when in fact the decision to rehabilitate it after a new bridge is built next to it was made in 2006.

But this omission was not a fluke – on Bill Cunningham’s July 8 radio show, Cincinnati City Councilman Wayne Lippert was asked what the future held for the existing Brent Spence Bridge. The particular way he dodged the question functioned much like the Enquirer’s July 6 report – casual listeners were left to believe that the existing bridge will be replaced.

Politicization of the Bridge Project
Taking advantage of what the public doesn’t know and what the media fails to report, elected officials with no direct involvement with the project, especially Republicans with Tea Party leanings such as Councilman Lippert, have positioned themselves as common sense watchdogs. In a stunning contradiction of Tea Party principals, they have accused “government” of delaying taxpayer spending on a bridge project about which even the most basic details are unknown by the public.

Our local media, rather than working to debunk myths regarding the bridge project, is working in tandem with politicians to advance them. On July 8 the Cincinnati Enquirer ran yet another pro-bridge editorial that cut-and-pasted often-heard bridge talking points. Most absurd is the perpetuation of the idea that the Brent Spence Bridge occupies a special place in the national transportation network, and as such, the Replacement/Rehabilitation Project should be directly funded by the Federal Government.


Cincinnati’s infamous Brent Spence Bridge

The sober fact is that the Brent Spence Bridge, like most urban interstate bridges, primarily serves local commuters and delivery trucks. For fifteen years after its construction it was the region’s only interstate highway crossing. But between 1977 and 1979, three other interstate highway bridges opened nearby, providing numerous alternative routes through the Cincinnati area for long-distance travelers. Mid-1980s modifications to the bridge and the early 1990s reconstruction of the bridge’s hillside approach in Covington were responses to increased commuting from new Northern Kentucky suburbs, not an increase in long-distance travel.

Emergency Shoulders
The circumstances of the death of Mr. Yatarra were caused by the bridge’s lack of emergency shoulders. Certainly, such shoulders are an asset, but according to this article, 12% of deaths on America’s Interstate Highway System occur on emergency shoulders. Full paved shoulders are extremely expensive to build and maintain, which is why they were a rarity in Cincinnati and elsewhere before passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956.

Many of our nation’s famous bridges and tunnels built before its enactment still lack emergency shoulders. Some built since, such as our Brent Spence and I-471 Daniel Carter Beard Bridges have had their emergency shoulders restriped as travel lanes. With the simple act of painting dashed lines instead of a solid white stripe, each of these bridges were automatically classified as “functionally obsolete”. The insinuations of this term have been endlessly exploited by the highway lobby and the politicians they fund.

A desire for failure?
When planning for a new bridge began, the public was led to believe that the end product would unsnarl traffic, become a new symbol for the region, and be free to travel across. Ten years on, it is apparent that the project will likely be none of those things.

What is astonishing is that the same politicians and media figures who have relentlessly attacked Cincinnati’s modern streetcar project by refusing to engage facts are the same ones inventing and perpetuating myths in support of the Brent Spence Bridge Rehabilitation/Reconstruction Project.

Whereas they commonly claim the streetcar project “needs further study”, the Brent Spence Bridge apparently needs less. Whereas the streetcar will be subject to a second ballot issue this fall, they argue that the Brent Spence should receive a Federal award covering its entire cost and construction should be underway by this time next year.

Why have Lippert and other area officials, most of whom have no direct say in the bridge project’s affairs, suddenly concocted a round of free press? The answer, it appears, is that next year when the final bridge design is announced, these same characters will exploit the public’s disappointment in their broad anti-government narrative. The retention of the existing Brent Spence, the ho-hum design of the new bridge, and the specter of tolls will be blamed on a soup of high union wages, the national debt, social welfare programs, ObamaCare, and other government “spending”.

Categories
Business Development News

$22M American Can Factory redevelopment to welcome first residents this September

On Monday the public was invited to tour the long-delayed American Can Lofts as part of Northside’s Fourth of July festivities. The $22 million redevelopment of the 180,000 square-foot 1920s-era American Can Factory resumed in 2010 with the help of a $1.6 million federal grant. The prominent Northside structure (map) is now poised to welcome its first residents in September.

Monday’s visitors toured six units on the building’s second floor, all of which featured high ceilings, loft designs, and the factory’s huge windows. The odd layout of the building required creative adaptations and so units of all shapes and sizes will be available to the project’s first renters.

Most of the factory’s features that survived its 30-year vacancy were retained, including pillars, original staircase railings, and a spectacular covered assembly area that will be used for indoor parking.

Organizers promise that the grand opening of the American Can Lofts in September will be marked by another public event, and future tours of the building are not to be missed. What has long stood as one of Cincinnati’s most notorious eyesores has been remade into one of its greatest assets, and portends the future redevelopment of the region’s other abandoned industrial properties.

The Cincinnati-based developers of this project are familiar with working with large warehouse structures. In 2003, Bloomfield/Schon + Partners completed the transformation of the former Ford Model T Factory in Walnut Hills into 115,000 square feet of office space.

Once complete, American Can Lofts will include 110 apartments ranging from $600 to $1,300 per month, 75 parking spaces, and 12,000 square feet of office and retail space. Developers state that future retailers may include a brew pub, restaurant and health center. Other amenities will include a bocce ball court, conference rooms, music rehearsal room, artist space and an exercise room.

The project was also assisted financially by an $8.7 million loan from the Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD), and additional grants from local and state sources. Those interested in leasing information can email Info@AmericanCanLofts.com or call (513) 827-5638.

Photographs by Emily Schneider for UrbanCincy.