Tag: mt. auburn

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Business Development News

Mt. Auburn CDC Hosting Public Meeting to Kick-Off Auburn Avenue Development Plan

Mt. Auburn [Provided]

The Mt. Auburn Community Development Corporation is one of Cincinnati’s newest CDC, and they are actively working on a number of efforts to position the neighborhood for success as investment continues to spread outward from both downtown and uptown.

In order to get to that point, community leaders say that they need a better understanding of where the community stands, what it wants, and how to get there.

“The future of Mt. Auburn is to have successful development that responds to the needs of the neighborhood,” Carol Gibbs, director of the MACDC, explained to UrbanCincy. “It needs to be inclusive.”

Understanding these needs, Gossman Group, DDA and MKSK submitted a strategic development plan proposal to the MACDC in early March. The proposal includes a multi-phase approach to assessing current conditions, identifying potential improvements, conducting a market study, and determining future land uses, massings and the type of development and redevelopment that would be appropriate for the Auburn Avenue Corridor.

“This plan lays out a process that helps it be inclusive,” Gibbs continued. “It has a history to lay out the foundation and it will include all of the stakeholders – those who live, work and play in Mt. Auburn, developers who are here or have plans to be here, and the City departments that have stepped forward to help make it a smooth process.”

News of Uptown Properties bold plans to move their investments into Mt. Auburn, particularly along the Auburn Avenue corridor, sent shock waves through the uptown community last year when the plans became public. The real estate development company, which got its start by redeveloping properties and marketing them to students at the University of Cincinnati, has, in recent years, transformed swaths of Corryville with new apartment complexes that have often replaced smaller and more historic structures.

Dan Schimberg, President and CEO of Uptown Properties, told UrbanCincy that their plans are to, at first, focus on rehabs along Auburn Avenue, along with a new medical office building at the southwest corner of Auburn and McMillan. From there, he says they intend to look elsewhere throughout the neighborhood at redevelopment opportunities.

It is not yet certain how these plans will factor into the strategic development plan that will get started soon, but so far there has been little talk about retail along Auburn Avenue. That may change, however, through this planning process as some neighborhood leaders are interested in establishing a neighborhood business district in Mt. Auburn.

“The CDC hopes that this plan will help us approach businesses and other investors to point out the potential profitable successes in our neighborhood,” said Gibbs. “Our hope is that this will lead to a neighborhood business district in Mt. Auburn.”

Neighborhood leaders will be kicking off the process of thinking about the future of the neighborhood, and the Auburn Avenue corridor in particular, at a public kick-off meeting tonight at 7pm at Taft Elementary School at 270 Southern Avenue. Organizers say the meeting will be structured as an informational session, and will be followed-up by future public meetings for more people looking to get engaged.

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Business Development News

PHOTOS: Building Boom Changing the Face of Uptown Neighborhoods

The Verge [Eric Anspach]

While the construction activities taking place in Over-the-Rhine and Downtown often grab the most headlines, it is actually the city’s uptown neighborhoods where some of the most dramatic construction progress is taking place.

Numerous projects are underway that are adding four- to six-story structures all over Clifton Heights, Corryville, University Heights, Clifton, and Mt. Auburn.

The $15 million, 115-room Fairfield Inn & Suites is now topped out and filling in the remaining piece of the U Square at The Loop block along W. McMillan Street. Once this portion of the development is complete, attention will turn to developing the planned office building along Jefferson Avenue in between W. McMillan Street and Calhoun Street.

Just down the street from the hotel project site is The Verge – 178-unit residential development – which is also now topped out. This project has stirred controversy due to its demolition of two historic structures that were once on the site. In addition to that, the project is replacing a large surface parking lot and several small homes.

In Corryville, the finishing touches are being put on the $30 million, 147-unit VP3 residential development that, like The Verge, is targeting students studying at the University of Cincinnati. Likewise, the $25 million 101 E. Corry project is bringing an additional 123 apartments and eight townhomes to the historic neighborhood.

Nearby, and on the border of Clifton Heights and Corryville, is the University Plaza site, which has now been fully demolished of its previous structures. While the new development footprint will not differ significantly from what was there before, a new Walgreens is already nearing completion, and a new Kroger grocery store, twice the size of the previous store, will also soon begin construction as part of a $24 million redevelopment effort.

Finally, the $17 million, 117-unit Gaslight Manor residential development in Clifton is on-pace to be completed later this year. This project is replacing a less dense apartment complex that previously occupied the hilly site immediately northwest of Good Samaritan Hospital.

EDITORIAL NOTE: All 17 photographs were taken by Eric Anspach in February 2016.

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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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News Transportation

Could Narrowing Liberty Street Unlock New Development Potential in OTR?

Brewery District vision for Liberty Street

Streets can set the mood and feel of a place. Narrow streets with low traffic are quiet, easy to walk across and casual. Wide streets can be chaotic, full of traffic and hard to bridge on foot. There is a wide street in Over-the-Rhine that cuts through the northern part of the neighborhood and the southern revitalizing part of it. It’s Liberty Street.

Liberty Street was not always so wide. Before 1955 the street, which now dead ends at Reading Road and the I-471 ramps, extended from Highland Avenue on the hill in Mt. Auburn to the U.S. Post Office facility in Queensgate. The width of the street was a modest 25 feet.

In 1955, however, the city decided to widen and connect it to Reading Road as a east-west cross town access point for the interstate highway system. Buildings on the south side of the street were demolished and the street was widened from a two lane road to one with five lanes.

The street is currently 70 feet wide and is both dangerous and difficult to cross for people walking. Development has not taken place on the south side of the street since most of remaining lots are too small and oddly shaped for development.

Beyond its physical barriers, Liberty Street also serves as a psychological barrier between the nascent Brewery District and vibrant Gateway Quarter.

In 2012, the City’s Department of Transportation & Engineering began studying ways to calm traffic on the street in order to make it safer. After spending two years evaluating traffic conditions, City Hall is beginning to engage the public for comment on the proposal. The first will be tomorrow night at the Woodward Theater.

The session will build upon the idea proposed in the OTR Brewery District Master Plan, which called for the removal of a lane of traffic to add protected bicycle lanes in both directions. The UrbanCincy team recently discussed the proposal and found that while this is a good starting point, there is a larger opportunity for the street to spur more redevelopment along the corridor.

Our proposal eliminates one lane of traffic in each direction, but preserves the middle turn lane. A two-way contraflow protected bicycle lane would then be installed on the south side of the street. This leaves approximately 15 feet of unused street right-of-way.

This unused right-of-way could be returned to property owners on the south side of the street, thus narrowing the overall street by 15 feet. It would also increase the size of the southern properties which would increase their development potential and improve safety for pedestrians crossing the street. This would serve as particularly beneficial for small parcels such as those at the corner of Vine and Liberty or between Main and Sycamore.

This idea builds on the ideas put forward by Jeff Speck, who recently released a video on traffic calming and embraces modern street design standards that are found in the National Association of City Transportation Officials Street Design Manual.

The Liberty Street Safety Improvement Open House will take place at the Woodward Theater located at 1404 Main Street in Over-the-Rhine. The session starts at 6pm and will last until 8pm. It is served by the #16, 17, 19 and 24 Metro bus routes, and is less than a block away from a Cincy Red Bike station.

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Arts & Entertainment News

Finding Inspiration From Seoul For Cincinnati’s Public Staircases

Ihwa Mural Village [Randy A. Simes]

ArtWorks has become well-known for its mural program. Over the past eight years, the program has created 90 murals that have added to the vibrancy of 36 city neighborhoods.

This year, however, ArtWorks started to branch out a bit more. In addition to 10 mural projects, they also installed more than 50 public art pieces throughout the city. Some were poetic, while others charming. Regardless of the project, they have always worked to actively engage young people in the city with the artist community.

The program’s impact on the visual appearance of the city cannot be overlooked. Public spaces have been dressed up and walls have been decorated in truly Cincinnati fashion. When considering one of Cincinnati’s most defining features – its hillsides – another opportunity seems to be sitting in waiting for future ArtWorks programs.

Over the years The Hillside Trust has worked to promote and preserve the city’s hillsides and the view sheds that they offer. At the same time, many of the city’s public staircases, which long served as a critical component of the sidewalk network, have fallen into disrepair. In many cases, due to either lack of maintenance or neighborhood distrust, public staircases have been closed off altogether.

This should not be the case.

One potential way to address this would be to focus an ArtWorks program on the city’s public staircases. Artists could be engaged to come up with creative mural designs for the stairs themselves, or perhaps suggest other installations. These could then be complimented by lighting installations that would not on

ly add an artistic touch after dusk, but also make the corridors safer for their users and the neighborhoods around them.

Seoul’s Ihwa neighborhood has done exactly this.

Set on the side of a steep hill leading to Seoul’s historic fortification wall, the neighborhood has seen many of its staircases painted, along with surrounding building walls, to create a truly unique environment. A variety of art installations were also undertaken in order to create an even more dynamic experience.

Today visitors flock to the area to view the murals and experience the other installations some 60 artists created in 2006 as part of Naksan Project. Due to this influx of people, small cafes, galleries and restaurants are now prevalent throughout the neighborhood.

While Cincinnati’s hillsides and surrounding neighborhoods present a different challenge than what exists in Ihwa, there are equal, yet different, opportunities that also exist.

Right now Cincinnati’s hillsides and their public staircases are mostly viewed as barriers and have been constrained to afterthoughts in the city’s public psyche. ArtWorks has changed the way we viewed vacant walls and barren streetscapes. Here’s hoping they can work similar magic on the city’s long-forgotten staircases.