Cincinnati's Music Hall will close in May 2016 to undergo a $129 million renovation.
As the winter comes to an end, work has begun or will soon begin on a number of new developments around Over-the-Rhine. Today, we’re sharing 16 panoramas, taken over the past month, that show how the neighborhood is evolving. You can click on each of the images to view them full-screen and read the full description about each project.
3CDC will soon start work on the 15th and Vine development. The historic buildings will be saved and the parking lots will be filled with new construction.
This parking lot will be replaced by a new office building as part of Mercer Commons Phase IV.
The 15th & Race site is being developed by 3CDC. The first phase includes a new 3-story building featuring 17 condos and 2-3 commercial storefronts.
The 15th & Race site is being developed by 3CDC. The first phase includes a new 3-story building featuring 17 condos and 2-3 commercial storefronts.
This old firehouse will be rehabbed as part of the Elm Street Townhomes project.
The Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati will soon start a renovation of its buildings on the 1100 block of Vine Street, which will include the construction of a new building in the gap near the center of this photo.
Developers have proposed a nine-story building for this site on Central Parkway, replacing this now-vacant two-story office building once occupied by the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority. The new building would include 40,000 square feet of retail space (potentially a grocery store), 70,000 square feet of office space, and 235 parking spaces.
The former Drop Inn Center homeless shelter has now been demolished and will be replaced with a new theater for the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. To the left is the Central Parkway YMCA, which is undergoing renovation. To the right is The Transept, a recently-opened bar and event space in a former church.
The corner of 12th and Elm was previously home to the Drop Inn Center. The non-historic building was demolished and will be replaced by a new theatre for the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company.
The former Ophthalmic Hospital and Free Dispensary will soon be developed into a boutique hotel featuring 20 guest rooms and a bar and restaurant on the first floor.
Cincinnati’s Music Hall will close in May 2016 to undergo a $129 million renovation.
The skywalk linking Music Hall to the Town Center Garage is expected to be demolished during the renovation of Music Hall.
The former Queen City Radio building (left) is being redeveloped by Urban Expansion, and Grandin Properties plans to convert the historic Strietmann Biscuit Company building (center) to an 88,000 square foot office building.
It looks like some preliminary interior demolition work is going on inside the historic Wielert’s building, although no plans have officially been announced.
This corner could look very different in a few years if the proposed Liberty Street Road Diet and LibertyElm project (left) move forward.
Editor’s note: These photos were taken by Travis Estell for UrbanCincy between February 11 and March 8, 2016.
With Thanksgiving behind us, the holidays are officially in full swing in Cincinnati. If you’re looking to get in the holiday spirit, there are dozens of options in the city center. While Downtown Cincinnati keeps the traditional holiday festivities on lock down with the Fountain Square ice rink and Holiday Junction at the Cincinnati Museum Center, Over-the-Rhine has embraced a more eclectic mix of urban craft markets, revisited German traditions, historic tours, and local shopping. If you’re looking for more than wassailing and Breakfast with Santa this season, check out UrbanCincy’s round up of things to see and do in Cincinnati’s city center.
Beginning this weekend, the Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce kicks off the holiday shopping season on Black Friday with its sixth annual “Holidays in the Bag” special. Purchase a bag and receive discounts from over 25 participating businesses in OTR. Bags cost $5 and this year’s proceeds from bag sales benefit Future Leaders OTR. Score deals from new OTR businesses like Homage, Brezel, Macaron Bar, and Cincy Shirts, and more. Check out the full list of discounts here.
Macy’s Light Up The Square [Thadd Fiala]
In addition to Black Friday specials, OTR will also continue its regular Final Friday gallery hop with a variety of events and shop specials. November’s Final Friday art walk will include Walk This Way, a pop-up art gallery inside OTR’s alleys. Located between Clay Street and 13th Street, the event transforms Drum Alley and Coral Alley into an artist market featuring over 13 local artists, a majority of whom are students from Art Academy of Cincinnati. Walk This Way is a collaboration between Spring in Our Steps, the Art Academy and Urban Sites. Afterward head back to 13th street for another pop-up shop at Exposure/13, the Art Academy of Cincinnati’s student-run gallery.
Other Thanksgiving weekend highlights in OTR include the kickoff of the OTR-a-Glow window display competition, Small Business Saturday, and Main Street Stroll and Shop and Caroling.
Several indie pop-up markets in the city center will highlight fine art and handmade goods by regional artists. Visit the fifth annual Crafty Supermarket at Music Hall November 29 to browse 90 crafters, artists, and makers from the eastern U.S. On Sunday, November 30, City Flea Small Mall brings together local brick and mortar businesses like Parlour, Leftcoast Modern, indigenous, Fern Studio, Casablanca Vintage, Rock Paper Scissors, and more. This year the second annual event will expand into Contemporary Arts Center in addition to its original location at 21c Museum Hotel.
Looking for more opportunities to shop local? Findlay Market will host “Christmas at the Market” December 6, 7, 13 and 14 where visitors can find gifts, holiday entertainment, warm drinks and the Caracole Christmas tree sale. Other craft markets include Art Academy of Cincinnati’s Snowflake Sale on December 6, featuring fine art, crafts, “poetry while you wait,” on-site screen printing and a clothing swap, Art on Vine’s holiday market at Rhingeist on December 14 and City Flea’s special nighttime Unwrapped Market at Washington Park on December 15.
Washington Park will host several holiday events this season. In addition to regular weekend programming like caroling at the bandstand and visits to Santa’s Workshop on Saturday afternoons, Washington Park hosts its fourth annual Light Up OTR party. On December 12 the community is invited to assemble and distribute over 1,000 luminaries. Afterward Washington Park will light its Christmas Tree.
The holidays are also an excellent opportunity to catch special holiday arts events and concerts. For those looking to tap into their German roots, American Legacy Tour hosts Christmas Saengerfest December 5 and 6. More than a dozen regional choirs will perform at venues including Memorial Hall, Christian Moerlein Brewery, and St. Francis Seraph.
Meanwhile, The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Pops have a full concert schedule through December 21 and theater nerds can delight in Know Theatre’s Bureau of Missing Persons and Ensemble Theater’s Sleeping Beauty.
If urban exploration is more your thing, consider the Main Street OTR Walking Tours. These new guided walking tours will explore the architecture and history of Over-the-Rhine’s Main Street. Tours will be available December 6 and December 11. For a more traditional trip downtown, free horse drawn carriage rides are available on weekends through December 14. More downtown holiday activities can be found at downtowncincinnati.com.
What are your new favorite holiday traditions in Cincinnati? Share your favorite off-the-beaten path traditions with us in the comment section.
End Days, a play by Deborah Zoe Laufer, is an amusing and philosophical comedy now showing at the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati. The divinely inspired comedy by Deborah Zoe Laufer enjoys its regional premiere at the Ensemble from March 16-April 2, 2011. It is directed by guest director Michael Evan Haney, Associate Artistic Director at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.
The show features two young local actors who both make a stunning debut at the Ensemble. Lily Hidalgo plays the lead, Rachel Stein, and is a freshman at St. Ursula Academy. Her character’s beau, nerdy Nelson, is played by Richard Lowenburg, a skilled magician and seasoned performer having worked with Playhouse in the Park, CCM Prep, SCPA, Xavier University, and Cincinnati Music Theater, attends the School for Creative and Performing Arts.
Other performers include Amy Warner and Barry Mulholland playing Rachel’s parents, and Michael G. Bath in an interesting double billed role as both Jesus and Stephen Hawking.
End Days tells the story of the dysfunctional Stein family, who left New York after 9/11. With a depressed father and a newly religious mother, youngster Rachel Stein has nowhere to turn but her teenage angst and her obnoxious, Elvis-impersonating neighbor, Nelson.
When Nelson persuades Rachel to read Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, she becomes interested in physics. Eventually he ingratiates himself in the Stein family. With the help of a secret confidante, the family and friends join and realize that togetherness can make life worthwhile, even despite a coming apocalypse.
End Days was awarded the 2008 American Theatre Critics Association Steinberg Citation. It received its NYC premiere at Ensemble Studio Theatre through an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant. End Days is listed in the Burns Mantle Yearbook as one of the best regional plays of 2008, and is published in The Best Plays of 2008.
With great acting and fantastic lighting, the show had audience members laughing out loud. Get down to ETC and enjoy this regional premiere for a rollicking good time and look at life, love and faith.
End Days is on stage now through April 3 at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, located in historic Over-the-Rhine at 1127 Vine St. in the Gateway Quarter. Ticket Information
Single tickets are $34 to $42, depending on the day. Children’s tickets are $16 for all performances.
Rush Tickets: $15 rush tickets are available for all performances 15 minutes prior to curtain and are subject to availability. Senior/ student, Cincinnati Public Radio Perks Card, ArtsWave Fun Card, AAA, and Enjoy the Arts discounts available. ETC accepts all major credit cards, Over-the-Rhine Merchant gift cards, and Downtown Cincinnati gift cards. Group rates are available for 10 or more people.
Patrons may purchase tickets in person at the ETC box office, by calling (513) 421-3555, or online.
Currently running in the historic Over-the-Rhine neighborhood’s Ensemble Theater of Cincinnati (ETC), Becky’s New Car by Steven Dietz will hold its final performance on Sunday, March 28 at 2:00pm.
In this hilarious comedy of errors, Kate Wilford’s character Becky Foster allows herself to try on a new life for a while – complete with a new lover and a new home. But when her lie begins to unravel, she discovers that her two separate lives were significantly more intertwined that she had thought. She engages the audience for assistance, but their help cannot possible avert the mess Becky has created.
The show will run Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30pm, Friday and Saturday at 8pm, and close on Sunday with a 2pm performance. The ETC sells discounted $15 tickets 15 minutes prior to each show, so make a night of it in the Gateway Quarter and see what you’ve been missing. Grab dinner or drinks at Lavomatic or at the brand new Senate, visit the shops, then head over to the theater. Plenty of cheap and secure parking is available in one of the 3 garages within a block, but why worry about parking when you can take the bus? Visit Metro to calculate your route.
Ticks are selling fast, and range from $30-40. Numerous discounts apply for children, seniors, students, holders of the Public Radio Perks Card or the FAF Card, and Enjoy the Arts members. Patrons may purchase tickets online, in person at the ETC box office (1127 Vine Street), or by phone at (513) 421-3555.
