Tag: John Cranley

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Business Development News

Cincinnati Bringing Neighborhood Enhancement Program to Lower Price Hill, Mt. Auburn

2016 NEP Announcement [Provided]

The City of Cincinnati has announced that it will take its award-winning Neighborhood Enhancement Program to Lower Price Hill and Mt. Auburn this year.

These two neighborhoods represent the 21st and 22nd communities to participate in the program, which utilizes a 90-day collaborative focus between various city departments and community organizations to address crime hot spots, beautifying streetscapes, and tackling blight.

“Cincinnati has a long and proud history of neighborhood involvement and that core value is one of the reasons the NEP is so effective,” Mayor John Cranley (D) said in a prepared statement. “The importance of collaboration with local businesses and volunteers in making our neighborhoods sustainable cannot be underestimated.”

City officials say that Lower Price Hill’s NEP will take place from March through May, while the program will take place in Mt. Auburn from mid-August through mid-November.

While the NEP has consistent goals for each community in which its employed, city leaders also work closely with each individual neighborhood to make sure the program is tailored specifically to meet its needs. Those details, program administrators say, will be developed more for both Lower Price Hill and Mt. Auburn over the coming months.

In addition to reducing blight and addressing crime activity, the program has also started to take on signature projects identified by each respective community. Last year, this included the renovation of Grant Park Playground in Over-the-Rhine and the Cincinnati Outdoor Gym in Roselawn.

“This program is about much more than just building playgrounds and cleaning up empty lots,” noted Cincinnati City Manager Harry Black. “It’s about making meaningful and sustainable investments in some of Cincinnati’s historic communities in order to ensure they’re thriving places.”

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Business News Transportation

Knight Foundation Announces Nearly 150 Finalists For Cities Challenge

The Knight Foundation will announce their list of finalists in the Knight Cities Challenge today. The finalists have been pulled from a collection of more than 4,500 ideas submitted through the challenge to help improve the vibrancy of cities throughout America.

The competition, as with all Knight Foundation grants, is limited to the 26 communities where the organization focuses its efforts. The nearest cities to Cincinnati include Akron and Lexington – both of which were places where the Knight brothers once owned newspapers.

“Through the challenge we want to find new voices and new ideas that capture the three key ingredients of city success—talent, opportunity and engagement,” said Carol Coletta, Knight Foundation vice president for community and national initiatives. “We see these as essential to the challenge and to building stronger futures for all of our cities.”

Akron has become a bit of a darling in the Knight Foundation group as many efforts originating their so tightly align with the non-profit’s core values. In fact, this past October Akron grabbed national headlines when it staged a 500-person dinner on an underutilized highway in the heart of the city – an effort the Knight Foundation supported financially.

The winners of this year’s challenge will be awarded grants to implement their ideas from a pool of $5 million. The target, program officials say, is to invest in civic innovators who help cities attract and keep talented people, expand economic opportunity and create a culture of engagement. Such a model is similar to what People’s Liberty has taken on here in Cincinnati.

Three projects that may prove of interest to leaders here in the Queen City include the Tree Debris to Opportunity project in Boulder, and the New Flavors Food Truck project in North Dakota.

In Boulder, city officials are looking to turn tree debris into an opportunity by training members of the community looking for new skills into collectors and artisans. Through the project, participants would work with the city to collect tree debris and turn it into furniture and art – thus improving the cleanliness of the city and providing the participants with new skills.

In Cincinnati, such a program could potentially help bolster Mayor John Cranley‘s Hand Up Initiative which is aiming to lift 4,000 Cincinnatians out of poverty, while also helping improve the cleanliness of city neighborhoods.

The proposal for the New Flavors Food Truck looks to capitalize on the continued popularity and low-cost of food trucks. In this effort, the organizers would use a generic food truck to provide opportunities to new immigrants to start new food service businesses or restaurants.

With Cincinnati placing a growing interest in embracing and growing its immigrant population, an idea akin to this might serve as a good building block to empower those individuals.

The Knight Foundation will select the winners from this pool of nearly 150 finalists later this spring.

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Business Development News

Paragon Salon & Day Spa’s Relocation Paves Way For Pogue’s Garage Demolition

Former Design Concept [Provided]

Paragon Salon & Day Spa celebrated the opening of their new location along Fifth Street in the Carew Tower yesterday. While smaller in size than their previous location, the move serves as a potentially monumental moment for the center city since it paves the way for the demolition of the decaying Pogue’s Garage.

While the location of Pogue’s Garage is one of downtown’s most prominent, it is also one of the ugliest and most inhospitable blocks in the city. In 2013 a plan was crafted to fix that by tearing down the decrepit garage and replacing it with a new parking structure, street-level grocery store and 300-unit residential high-rise. Due to politics, finances and other logistics, that plan stalled and was eventually amended in December 2014.

Under that revised plan, Indianapolis-based developers Flaherty & Collins agreed to build an eight-story residential structure, with 208 units, while 3CDC would build a 925-space parking structure that would serve as the tower’s platform. The project would also include 25,000 square feet of street-level retail space.

In addition to serving the project’s needs and providing a platform for the tower to rise, the new parking structure would also provide parking capacity for the many historic high-rises along Fourth Street that currently lack any parking options at all. City officials point to public garages such as this as an opportunity to better utilize those other properties.

But before any of that can happen, the massive Pogue’s Garage must be demolished. That, in and of itself, would serve as a major benefit for downtown as it would remove one of its biggest eyesores and improve safety for people walking and biking along Fourth, Race and Elm Streets.

That demolition effort is not expected to be easy. Due to its immediate surroundings, the structure will not be able to be imploded, and will thus need to be deconstructed using traditional methods over a much longer period of time. Further complicating the matter was Paragon’s ongoing presence in the structure, which was obviously relieved yesterday.

There is no word yet on when demolition work will begin, but it now appears likely that work will finally advance on one of the center city’s highest profile projects. The coming weeks should reveal what its revised design will look like and when residents will be moving in.

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News Transportation

City Officials Gathering Public Feedback On $718,000 Westwood Trail Extension

The Cincinnati Department of Transportation & Engineering is taking public input on the proposed second phase of Westwood Trail. A public meeting was held last Wednesday, at the recently christened District 3 Police Headquarters on Ferguson Road, at which the proposed route was presented.

At that time it was explained that things are moving forward thanks to a $500,000 Federal Transportation Alternatives grant for the $718,000 project. The remainder of the budget, officials say, will come out of Cincinnati’s capital budget.

The new half-mile extension is proposed to connect to the existing loop trail at Dunham Recreation Center; and run approximately 1,200 feet between the Kroger parking lot and the Gilbert Dater/Western Hills High School sports facilities to the south. Engineers and planners with the City say that a cross slope on this portion of the route presents a challenge, so the path is to be cut into the slope, with a new 8-foot high, 355-foot long retaining wall.

Along Ferguson Avenue, the sidewalk in front of the newly constructed District 3 Police HQ was built as shared use path, and has a width sufficient to accommodate people walking and biking. The trail will then continue north on Ferguson, and west on Glenhills Way to Western Sports Mall.

City officials say that the existing sidewalks to the north and west of the police substation are not the width required for a shared use path and will need to be rebuilt. This may be, in part, due to the fact that the Bicycle Transportation Plan adopted in June 2010 called for on-street bike lanes along Glenhills Way, not a shared use off-road trail like what is now being proposed.

City Hall has not currently identified the funding to build the next extension of the trail to the west of the Western Sports Mall, but officials say that the intent is for it to eventually extend northwest to the Green Township Trail, and east to the Lick Run Greenway.

These extensions would incorporate the Westwood Trail into a larger regional trail network, including the Mill Creek Greenway. The work also fits into the Cranley Administration’s aim of prioritizing trails over on-street bike facilities.

DOTE officials say that they will be taking public feedback on the proposed trail alignment, and connections to local community institutions, until Wednesday, December 2. Those that were unable to attend last week’s meeting can submit their feedback online at: http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/bikes/bike-projects/westwood-trail-phase-2/.

Construction is projected to begin in the spring of 2017.

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Development News

High Profile $35M Hyde Park Condo Building Officially Topped Out

2770 Observatory (Provided)

The corner of Observatory and Shaw Avenues now looks much different than it did a year ago. Yesterday, development of 2770 Observatory, a 30-unit luxury condominium project by Greiwe Development officially topped out with a ceremony at the site. The project, which we reported on back in May of 2014, has transformed the corner with the demolition of several apartments that were formerly on the site.

At the ceremony, Mayor John Cranley (D) marked the occasion by proclaiming November 10 “Hyde Park Landmark Day,” recognizing the neighborhood’s historical charm, signature places and 2770 Observatory’s place as its newest landmark. The $35.5 million modern four-floor structure will stand as a gateway to the neighborhood with future residents just steps from Hyde Park Square.

With 16 of the 30 units pre-purchased, the development is expected to sell out before it opens in summer 2016.

Topping Out ceremonies are a Scandinavian custom dating back to 700 A.D. thought to bring good luck to future occupants. After remarks from project developer Rick Greiwe and Mayor Cranley, the event concluded with the traditional raising of an evergreen to the top of the building’s newly completed wooden framework.

2770 Observatory is the fifth Greiwe lifestyle development in the Cincinnati area since the grand opening of Mariemont’s Jordan Park in 2008. In October, Greiwe, with a group of developers known collectively as Gateway Partners LLC, was selected to develop a 12-acre site adjacent to downtown Montgomery, where he will build high-end condominiums as part of an urban in-fill village.

“We choose to build our projects in neighborhoods where dining, shopping and entertaining are within one block of the resident’s front door,” said Rick Greiwe, principal of Greiwe Development in a prepared statement, “Hyde Park Square is the ideal location for one of our developments. It’s in demand and draws people from around the whole city. I’ve been watching it for sometime — waiting for the ideal site to become available, and this is absolutely it.”

2770 Observatory features three bedroom and two bedroom units with large foyers and open entertaining areas. With 10-foot ceilings and 8-foot windows, the units range in size from 1,915 to 4,675 square feet. Each unit has its own balcony or patio. The building has an underground parking garage, and a resident pathway leads from Linshaw Court to Michigan Avenue and Hyde Park Square. Prices range from $700,000 to $2 million.