Tag: KZF Design

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University of Cincinnati Selects Design Team for New Lindner College of Business

University of Southern Denmark Kolding Campus [Henning Larsen Architects]

On December 18, the University of Cincinnati announced that its new $100-135 million Carl H. Lindner College of Business facility would be designed by the Danish firm Henning Larsen Architects in association with Cincinnati-based KZF Design. The final building is expected to be paid for through a combination of private donation and university funds.

This continues the university’s Signature Architecture Program, in which renown architecture firms from around the world are selected to design new buildings on campus, typically with a local firm serving as the architect of record. In such an arrangement, the design architect typically leads the project from concept through the design development stage, in which the overall design intent for the building is established.

The architect of record (also sometimes known as the executive architect) then carries the project through construction documents and construction administration, assuming responsibility for the technical aspects of the project. Each party typically has some involvement over the entire course of the design and construction process, but the architect of record remains legally responsible for the project, including compliance with applicable building codes.

This arrangement is common when the project is located outside the design architect’s own geographic region, and/or if the project type is outside the design architect’s usual area of expertise. For example, New York-based Architecture Research Office recently collaborated with Heery International, an Atlanta-based firm with a strong portfolio of athletic facilities, on the design of the new West Pavilion at Nippert Stadium.

Founded in 1959, Copenhagen-based Henning Larsen Architects has a long history of innovative design for educational facilities throughout the world, particularly in Europe and the Middle East. Recent projects include Campus Kolding at the University of Southern Denmark, and the Copenhagen Business School in Porcelænshaven, Frederiksberg. Common to all of Henning Larsen’s projects are a strong emphasis on transparency, natural daylighting, and an environment that nurtures a spirit of open collaboration.

Cincinnati-based KZF Design was founded in 1956 and has become one of Cincinnati’s most venerable architecture firms. KZF has a well-established history of serving as architect of record on a number of notable projects at UC, including the Campus Recreation Center in association with Morphosis and the Engineering Research Center in association with Michael Graves.

KZF was also the architect of record on Zaha Hadid‘s Contemporary Arts Center in downtown Cincinnati, and was responsible for the re-cladding of the Aronoff Center at UC, home to the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning.

Henning Larsen and KZF had been shortlisted for the College of Business project in early December, along with Foster + Partners and Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, both based in the United Kingdom.

To be built at the current site of the Myers Alumni Center and unused faculty club building, the planned 250,000- to 275,000-square-foot is anticipated to house most all of the facilities for students and faculty at the fast-growing college. Unclear at this point is the fate of the 1,601-space Campus Green Garage located immediately adjacent to the existing Lindner Hall, which is expected to be demolished once the new building is completed.

Should both be demolished, it would open up a vast space for potential construction for other uses – serving as a masterstroke of campus redevelopment that would provide much-needed classroom space, while also opening up UC’s main campus to Burnet Woods and ridding main campus of one of its most unsightly above-ground parking structures.

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Development News

Cincinnati Becomes One of Nation’s First Cities to Provide Tax Incentives for Living Building Challenge

Phipps Center for Sustainable Landscapes [Dave Whittaker]

Eight years ago Cincinnati was one of the first municipalities to incentivize sustainable building practices through tax abatements for LEED certified buildings. Last week, City Council continued its leadership in sustainable design by becoming one of the first cities in America to incentivize certification through the Living Building Challenge.

Launched in 2006 by the International Living Future Institute, the LBC has quickly become one of the most stringent green building standards in the country. Instead of focusing on reducing bad practices, the LBC encourages projects to be regenerative and create places that make a positive social, economic and environmental impact.

Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld (D) has been working with Cincinnati Living Building Challenge Collaborative members Brian Selander and David Whittaker to get the ordinance to where it is today.

“This will allow us as a matter of policy to support some of the most robust green and sustainable projects anywhere in the country,” Sittenfeld explained to UrbanCincy by email. “We hope this will encourage developers and rehabbers to push the boundaries of sustainable building.”

The LBC certifies renovations, buildings, infrastructure and landscapes, and even entire communities. It does so through a system of seven petals, including Place, Water, Energy, Health and Happiness, Materials, Equity, and Beauty. Each of these petals then includes an additional 20 imperatives, all of which must be met, and judged based on real world performance data.

The ordinance spells out that both new construction and remodeling projects attaining LBC Net-Zero can receive a 100% tax abatement of up to $562,000 of the market improved value, while those attaining LBC Petal or Full have no cap.

While City Council has made stricter requirements for LEED tax abatements in recent years, this new ordinance would not alter those existing incentives for LEED projects. Instead, this provides project developers and owners with more than one opportunity for an applicable certification process; while also helping raise the bar of sustainable and resilient design.

The decision not to override existing incentives for LEED projects makes sense from an overall usage standard. So far, there have been more than 69,000 LEED projects worldwide, while only 23 projects have been certified by the ILFI, with some 250 projects currently registered. Part of this is due to the newness of the ILFI standard, but it also has a lot to do with how difficult it is to attain certification.

For example, full ILFI certification requires a project to produce all of its own energy, process its own waste, and harvest all of its water on the property, or by sharing resources with another property. These are not simple tasks to accomplish, and require a diverse set of skill sets in order to achieve.

Selander, a mechanical engineer with KZF Design, and Whittaker, a landscape architect with Human Nature and founding facilitator of the Cincinnati LBC Collaborative, reflect the diversity of interests and collective buy-in needed on such projects.

“In order to meet the requirements of the Challenge, everyone has to begin to think more holistically and take an integrated systems approach, looking at the building, site, and context in more complex ways beyond just first costs,” Whittaker said.

He also believes that these projects often have a transformative effect on those involved in their creation.

“When project teams start to see how the built environment can become more socially just, culturally rich, and environmentally regenerative, they become very inspired and willing to go the extra mile to develop projects that benefit their communities.”

Some of the practices called for in this more aggressive green building standard, however, are prohibited by other existing City ordinances. This means that any project looking to go down this path will need to exhaust all regulatory appeals, short of legal proceedings, before using any exceptions allowed by the LBC that acknowledge current policy conditions.

This, developers of the standard say, is where the Challenge becomes more than just a checklist, but a tool for advancing regulations and culture, advocating for a more resilient, sustainable, and vital built environment.

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Development News Transportation

Cincinnati Reaches Agreement With Norfolk Southern on Purchase of Wasson Railroad Corridor

Wasson Way at Shaw Avenue [Chris Wyatt]

Cincinnati City Council’s Neighborhoods Committee gave a unanimous okay to an ordinance that would solidify an agreement to purchase 4.1 miles of railroad right-of-way from Norfolk Southern for $11.8 million, providing a key piece of the 7.6-mile Wasson Way recreational trail.

The agreement would give the City a two-year purchase option for the property, which extends between the Montgomery-Dana intersection along the Norwood/Evanston line to the intersection of Red Bank and Wooster roads in Columbia Township.

The ordinance was a last minute by-leave item on the committee calendar, made necessary due to a TIGER grant application that is due on Friday. Project backers are seeking $17 million of the $20 million project cost, and City support makes their application much more attractive.

The trail has been in the works since 2011, and a group of nearly 20 volunteers with the Wasson Way nonprofit got a big boost when Mayor John Cranley (D), City Manager Harry Black, and City staff assisted with the negotiations.

“We started looking at the TIGER grant application,” said Mel McVay, senior planner at Cincinnati’s Department of Transportation & Engineering. “They really talk about ‘ladders of opportunity’, increasing mobility and accessibility for folks throughout the region, and so we saw an opportunity between the property we could purchase and some property we already had, and some existing trails.”

Director of Department of Trade and Development Oscar Bedolla spelled out the project’s urgency.

“One of the statutory requirements associated with the scoring for TIGER is related to readiness,” he said. “And so, the more that we can do to show that the project is potentially shovel-ready enhances our ability to acquire or be selected for TIGER funding.”

Bedolla added that under the terms of the agreement, the City would pay nothing in the first year if it does not proceed with the purchase. If the purchase is pursued within the second year, there would be a 5% fee added to the price.

The City’s matching funding of between $3 million and $4 million for construction costs could be made up of a combination of state and federal grants, plus funds raised by Wasson Way, he said.

Still up in the air is approximately two miles or the corridor between the Columbia Township end point and Newtown, where it could connect with the Little Miami Scenic Trail.

“We’re working on it,” McVay said. “Unfortunately, the railroad was not open to selling any additional property east of that point. We’re investigating three or four ways that we can get farther east to the existing Little Miami Trail. We’re very confident we can get there.”

David Dawson, a resident of Mt. Lookout and realtor with Sibcy Cline, expressed concern about how a long-envisioned light rail line could be brought to the corridor once its freight rail designation is abandoned – a legal process that is handled by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board.

“It just can’t be said enough, in my view, that the City will now become the steward of a very valuable asset,” Dawson said. “This is a regional corridor that, in this day and age, cannot really be duplicated. If we lose that ability to eventually have transit, rail transit, or some sort of transit in the future, we won’t be able to put it back.

Dawson and other rail advocates are calling for the corridor to be railbanked, so that the addition of light rail transit remains an option in the future.

“This doesn’t just connect our neighborhoods, but in the future it has the potential to connect the entire region out to Clermont County,” Dawson said.

The use of this corridor has long been eyed for light rail transit, including in the 2002 MetroMoves regional transit plan. A 2014 study by KZF Design recommended a design solution that would preserve the ability to develop both light rail transit and a trail; and estimated that such an approach would bring the cost of developing the trail to approximately $11.2 million.

Andrea Yang, senior assistant City solicitor, said that the purchase agreement would give the City some time to work out those issues.

“The way that the abandonment process is structured, there is a time period which we could utilize to further investigate other options,” Yang said. “Had we chosen to railbank the property and attempt to preserve it, it would actually follow the same process for abandonment, so there’s definitely time to look into that if that is what Council’s interested in seeing.”

In April, Cincinnati’s Planning Commission voted to place an Interim Development Control Overlay District on this corridor in order to give the city more time to allow plans to progress without new development creating new conflicts.

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Development News Transportation

KZF Releases Preliminary Designs, Cost Estimates for Wasson Way

Segment 5 - Grovedale Place to Edwards Road

A newly released feasibility study, produced by KZF Design, finds that construction of the 6.5-mile Wasson Way Trail would cost anywhere from $7.5 million for just a trail to $36 million for both a light rail line and trail totally separated from one another.

The cost estimates vary so much due to the three potential design options studied. The lowest cost alternative looked at placing a 12-foot-wide trail along the entire existing rail alignment. This, however, would make the inclusion of a future light rail line extremely difficult.

The most expensive alternative would construct an entire new trail alignment that does not interfere with any existing rail right-of-way. This would include the construction of several new bridges and completely preserve the ability to easily construct the long-planned light rail line adjacent to the new trail.

Alternative B, which was recommended by KZF and priced at $11.2 million, was a bit of a hybrid. It would include a 12-foot-wide trail offset from the existing rail alignment, but utilize existing rail right-of-way at pinch points along the corridor.

The 45-page study is the first detailed look at the corridor, which has been hotly debated and discussed over recent years. Much of the controversy has surrounded whether or not both light rail and a trail can be accommodated. KZF’s findings appear to show that much of the corridor could in fact accommodate both, but that some segments may prove to be difficult, albeit feasible.

If project supporters are able to advance the trail plan, KZF estimates that it would connect eight city neighborhoods and approximately 100,000 residents with an overall network of more than 100 miles of trail facilities.

“It is hard to build in the urban core, and to find an intact corridor ripe for development is a unique thing,” explained Eric Oberg, Manager at the Midwest Rails to Trails Conservancy. “If this is done right, this can be the best urban trail in the state of Ohio. I have no doubt.”

Some of the most difficult segments of the corridor are the nine existing bridges where the right-of-way is extremely limited. If both light rail and trail facilities are to traverse this corridor together, additional spans will be needed in order to have safe co-operation.

In addition to introducing what may become the region’s best urban trail and light rail corridor, some proponents also see it as an opportunity to fix other problems along the route. Most notably that includes the congested and confusing intersection of Madison, Edwards and Wasson Roads near Rookwood Pavilion.

While the newly released feasibility study offers the most detailed analysis of this corridor to date, the City of Cincinnati has yet to close on its purchase of the former freight rail line from Norfolk Southern.

City officials are reportedly in negotiations with Norfolk Southern now, and have made an initial offer of $2 million. In April, Mayor Cranley’s Administration also allocated $200,000 to the project.