The University of Cincinnati is less than one month away from welcoming college football fans back to one of the nation’s most historic stadiums.
After a year away from the friendly confines of Nippert Stadium, the Cincinnati Bearcats will host Alabama A&M on Sunday, September 6. School officials say that the game is not yet sold out, but that ticket sales have been brisk. There are big hopes for this season as the team comes back to a renovated and expanded stadium. It also comes at a time when the University of Cincinnati is trying to position itself for a potential spot in the ACC or Big 12 Conference.
The $86 million renovation and expansion of Nippert Stadium, which was designed by Heery International and paid for entirely with private funds, is expected to help bolster those chances of landing in one of the nation’s top athletic conferences.
With less than a month before the first game of the season, construction workers and cleaners are busy preparing the facility.
In a unique situation for the University of Cincinnati, the readying of the stadium is also significant for the return of students to campus at the end of this month. This is due to the fact that the stadium, unlike almost all other major college football venues, is open at all times and used by students for recreational purposes, and as a pathway to navigate the densely built campus.
Bob Marton, project manager for the Nippert Stadium reconstruction project, says that while much work remains it is fully expected that the facility will open on-time, and within the targeted budget.
When a brother and sister are fighting over the same toy, a parent quickly steps in and teaches the children to take turns and share.
Now that Over-the-Rhine parking is at a premium, and the residential permit plan has been vetoed, the residents of OTR are going to have to find a way to share parking, or risk losing more of the historic neighborhood to parking lots and garages. Sharing also presents an opportunity when it comes to modernizing the City of Cincinnati’s fleet of 2,149 vehicles.
Mayor John Cranley (D) received unanimous support for this year’s budget, which includes $110 million to make much-needed upgrades to the City’s fleet and roadways over the next six years. While some vehicles, like those for police and fire, cannot be shared, others certainly can; and by implementing a program like Zipcar’s FastFleet program, Cincinnati would benefit from significant savings and operating efficiencies.
Zipcar in Over-the-Rhine [Randy Simes]
In 2012, an internal audit of the Fleet Services Division found that fleet management has been “unwieldy” and mentioned that a knowledgeable and empowered staff is needed to properly manage the system. This has proven difficult over the past decade due to a severe cut in funding for the department in 2003.
“Almost the entire management team left the department near the end of 2007 and was not replaced,” the internal audit noted. “While the staff operates to the best of their abilities, they are undermanned without the resources to correct the inertia of the department.”
The Fleet Services Division operates under the Public Services Department, and controls and maintains 2,149 motorized vehicles for various departments at City Hall. These departments pay $63 an hour for maintenance and repair of the vehicles and are allocated a portion of the capital budget based on their proportion of need with regards to their percentage of obsolete fleet.
In 2011 Fleet Services was allocated $4,301,900 in capital dollars and $5,240,600 was allocated for 2012. These numbers are expected to rise as soon as the approved budget is published on July 1, but more money for new vehicles is only part of the solution. The 2012 audit also recommended reducing the size of the fleet, evaluating underutilized equipment, and examining the cost of leasing sedans and light trucks.
With services like FastFleet, City Hall could optimize its fleet without degrading operations, thus lowering maintenance and administrative costs.
FastFleet works by tracking vehicle usage by employees through GPS monitoring systems. This enables the service to produce real-time data, with recommendations on synergy and optimization. Once this data is analyzed, car assignments can be reorganized to allow for sharing of each vehicle by city employees, ultimately allowing for more efficient usage of vehicles.
In Washington D.C., city officials there were able to benefit from $6 million in savings over a five-year period by eliminating more than 200 administrative vehicles from their fleet. While Cincinnati’s fleet is smaller than the nation’s capital, proportional savings are safe to be assumed.
With City Hall poised to invest millions into its fleet operations, now is the perfect time to look into a solution such as this that could potentially reduce the City’s fleet, while also improving its performance.
A program could even be put in place to allow for public use of the vehicles, akin to the city’s existing Zipcar system, when city employees are not in need of the fleet. The revenue collected from these services could then be used to offset the public’s cost of maintaining the city’s fleet, while also expanding car-sharing services to other neighborhoods outside of the city center.
As it stands now, the City of Cincinnati does not even know what the optimal size is for its vehicle fleet. Tracking the performance of the fleet and analyzing the data will help bring clarity to the matter, and allow for the fleet to perform more efficiently.
Implementing a vehicle sharing program for Cincinnati’s municipal fleet would help save additional taxpayer dollars, improve operations and bolster car-sharing throughout the city.
EDITORIAL NOTE: Chad Schaser contributed to this article.
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.
Scioto Hall Construction [Jake Mecklenborg]
Clifton Heights [Randy A. Simes]
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.”
The $86 million renovation and expansion of the University of Cincinnati’s historic Nippert Stadium is nearly complete.
According to project officials, the work is expected to be complete in time for the Bearcats to host their first game back on campus – after a year away at Paul Brown Stadium – in three months.
The latest project video update reveals that virtually all exterior work is now complete, and that crews are now focused on interior finishings, along with some exterior facade treatments. They also note that the dramatic roll-open windows on the press boxes will soon go in, along with the ribbon scoreboards on both the east and west sides of the 114-year-old stadium.
Designed by New York-based Architecture Research Office and Heery International, the modern architectural style continues a trend on UC’s main campus of blending contemporary with historic designs. The large glass facade on the back side of the western concourse will, perhaps, serve as the best example of this as it looms over the historic, yet modern Tangeman University Center and internationally acclaimed UC Main Street.
The new Nippert Stadium will have an increased seating capacity of 40,000, and boast luxury boxes, press suites, new lounges, and a sorely needed expanded offering of restrooms and concessions stalls.
Originally projected to cost between $80-85 million, University officials say that the $86 million project is being funded through private donations and premium seat revenues.
Cincinnati’s uptown neighborhoods are experiencing a bit of a boom. Hundreds of residential units are being developed, new transportation infrastructure and capacity is coming online, and smaller, historic buildings are controversially making way for new, taller ones. While significant changes are underway, one thing that remains the same, and seems poised to only get worse as new roadway projects are built, is the fact that most major thoroughfares uptown are inhospitable to people who wish to walk or bike to get around. In Buffalo they have developed a plan to address just that in the city’s historic downtown. A similar plan should be considered for Cincinnati’s second largest employment center. More from Buffalo News:
The new Downtown Infrastructure Master Plan lays out a series of enhancements to key streets, districts and public squares to bolster the appearance and feel of the city center for residents, employees and visitors, while making the downtown more vibrant. At the same time, it seeks to make the area more cohesive and pedestrian-friendly, by improving access and connections. And it calls for traffic calming, more accessible green space and public space, and a “softening” of barriers like highway overpasses.
The goal is to provide a framework for future public-sector investments and projects, using shared objectives in making decisions about where to target new initiatives. But it’s also flexible enough, officials said, so that it can be adapted to tie in new projects to downtown and neighborhoods.
