Tag: downtown

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Arts & Entertainment Business News

Cincy Fringe Festival

The 2008 Cincinnati Fringe Festival marks the 5th year of its existence. The festival started tonight at the Art Academy in Over-the-Rhine. Over the next 12 days, Downtown and Over-the-Rhine will support 20 different venues which will play host to a variety of art including visual, performance, and film. There will also be an ongoing mural installation on the south side of the Know Theatre over the 12 day festival.

The Cincy Fringe Festival is one of 20 active Fringe festivals in North America including New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Minneapolis…with the original stemming from Edinburgh, Scotland which began 51 years ago.

Organizers are still looking for volunteers to assist in various ways throughout the festival. You can get involved by signing up online (it’s very easy). Volunteers get a Fringe Festival t-shirt for signing up for one shift and get two free tickets (to any Fringe show) for every shift you sign up for after that.

There is a lot more I could ramble on about, but you can get most of the information from the website. You can order tickets, get reviews, preview shows, and much more.

Categories
News Politics Transportation

Let’s talk tax structure and streetcars

There is no doubt that residents and businesses, in Downtown/OTR/Uptown, see the value in the proposed streetcar system. It is also quite understandable that community leaders in neighborhoods like Westwood, Price Hill, and Mt. Washington may not exactly see the benefits to their respective communities.

Every community would like to have more amenities and improved services. These are the things that help make neighborhoods successful and great places to live. At the same time they understandably don’t want to see their taxes rise. So lets break down the tax structure and how the streetcar will play into this whole situation…

Residential properties are accepted losers when it comes to taxes. They simply demand far more services than they pay for in taxes. Those services (i.e. trash, police, fire, schools, etc) are made possible by those that pay exceedingly more than they demand (i.e. office, industrial).

Therefore the commercial and industrial bases are the most important tax bases to preserve and grow in order to maintain service levels for your residential base. Of the Top Ten taxpayers, in 2006, 9 were based out of Downtown* (for what I could find).

With that said, residential properties can get close to offsetting their service demands. The best opportunity for this to occur is in the most densely populated (or built) areas where economies of scale factor in big time. In Cincinnati’s case there is no other residential neighborhood that has a potentially better return on taxes than Over-the-Rhine.

Chart illustrating the functionality of Economies of Scale

These most densely built areas need to be focused on first and foremost, and need to be populated with as many people as possible. This allows you to grow your residential base without significantly growing the demand for services (in OTR’s case you may actually decrease demand for services like police and fire by repopulating the neighborhood).

So while a streetcar line only serving Downtown, OTR, and Uptown seems to only benefit those 3 neighborhoods…it is really affecting the financial stability of the entire city, and allows for a growth in tax base without a significantly higher demand for services. This means extra tax revenues can then be used for increased services and funding for the other 49 great Cincinnati neighborhoods.

*Tax data from City of Cincinnati’s 2006 Annual Financial Report (pdf 5mb)

Related reading on UrbanCincy:
Keep the heart strong

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News

GOOD FOOD – GOOD BEER – GOOD TIMES

Taste of Cincinnati USA is held every Memorial Day weekend in Downtown Cincinnati by the Downtown Council and the Greater Cincinnati Restaurant Association. Started in 1979, it is now the nation’s longest running culinary arts festival.

Taste of Cincinnati USA started as a one-day fest in Piatt Park, then known as Garfield Park, with approximately 5,000 attending the first event. The event expanded to two days in 1981, and in 1988 expanded to three days and moved to Central Parkway.

In 2007, th event was moved to Fifth Street to spotlight the $42-million renovation of Fountain Square and its underground parking garage, and to bring the event closer to Downtown’s cluster of hotels, such as The Cincinnatian, Garfield Suites, Hilton Netherland Cincinnati, Hyatt Regency, Millenium Hotel, Terrace Hotel, and the Westin.

Approximately 500,000 now attend the annual food extravaganza, making Taste one of the nation’s largest street festivals. Taste of Cincinnati was named Food Event of the Year for 1997 by Events Business News, the recognized authority of the special events business in the United States, selecting it out of 40,000 special events across the nation.

Taste of Cincinnati USA features more than 40 fine restaurants serving up delicious and delectable menu items. In the weeks leading up to Taste each year, menu items are previewed and judged for the prestigious Best of Taste Awards.

The Taste is also a music festival, with continuous live entertainment featuring local and national recording stars performing on multiple stages throughout the event.

WHEN:
Saturday: Noon-11:00pm
Sunday: Noon-11:00pm
Monday: Noon-9:00pm

WHERE:
On six blocks of Fifth Street, from Race Street to Broadway in Downtown Cincinnati.

Categories
Arts & Entertainment News

Check out Bob Moses at the Wisp tonight

The Blue Wisp plays host to internationally acclaimed drummer Bob Moses with his Chicago Quartet tonight (5/15). The music begins at 7:30pm with a $20 cover charge for this premium act. This is however, an UrbanCincy Night and mentioning the site (at the door) will get you $3 off your cover.

If you haven’t yet heard of Bob Moses, go check out some of his stuff (YouTube video)…you’ll be in the groove before you know it. You can make reservations at fasteddief@aol.com or by calling 513.241.WISP (9477).

Blue Wisp (GoogleMap)

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News

Reds Hot Weekends

This weekend marks the first of 8 Reds Hot Weekends this Summer. The festivities will be taking place on Fountain Square and will start Friday and last through Sunday…covering the entire weekend series against the Cleveland Indians.

Friday’s activities will include live music by Lo-fi, a local cover band playing funk and rock classics, at 5pm. Following Lo-fi, at 8pm, The Harlequins will take the stage. It will make for a great time to just hang out with friends, and there will be beer available on the Square. What makes it even better is that from roughly 4pm-7pm I’ll be serving the delicious adult beverages.

OK Go performing on Fountain Square
Image from myfountainsquare.com

On Saturday the fun continues with DJ Iceburg from 2pm-4pm followed by the first “Movie Night” (featuring Sandlot and The Natural) of the Summer starting at 7:30pm. Beer, soft drinks, and snacks will all be sold on the Square…and people are encouraged to bring chairs, blankets, pillows, etc for “Movie Nights.”

Finally Sunday will wrap up the weekend with free UDF ice cream, on the Square, from about 4:30pm-5:30pm…along with some other neat festivities. Be sure to come out even if you’re not going to any of the games and just have a great time Downtown on Fountain Square.