Tag: planning

Categories
Business Development News Opinion

Large vacant buildings should be transitioned into urban community centers

Could the Bartlett Building be transformed into something completely different? Photograph by Thadd Fiala for UrbanCincy.

Throughout the United States there are cities that have large vacant buildings and spaces in their central business district that could be utilized in a new efficient way.

In Cincinnati, the old School for the Creative & Performing Arts was recently auctioned off and is slated to be turned into apartments. In the CBD the Bartlett Building, Tower Place Mall, and Terrace Plaza Hotel remain empty or nearly empty and take up about one-fourth of a city block each.

Some think these buildings could be prime residential properties, but they could be that and more. A large vacant building, for example, could be developed into a mixed use community center.

My inspiration actually came from the Up To Speed story on UrbanCincy about a rock climbing gym in St. Louis. I thought to myself that Cincinnati can have something similar and better. Downtown Cincinnati and OTR/Pendleton are becoming destinations for young adults and families for both restaurants and bars.

Turning a large vacant building into a destination point for physical and social activity would add a whole new dimension to the city. The following ideas are what could go collectively into a large empty building:

  • Rock Climbing Gym – With the exception of the UC recreation center, all of the rock climbing centers are on the outer edge of the city.
  • Paintball Arena – This would be an extremely unique idea for the area as there are minimal indoor paintball facilities and could be a draw for different work or teambuilding groups.
  • Exercise Gym/Running Track – The gyms downtown are mostly old and do not offer enough space or have odd floor plans. Renovating a vacant building would allow plenty of space with tall ceilings and large windows that could allow natural light and have a large open space for exercise equipment. A downtown gym with enough space can offer a full menu of classes including Crossfit, spinning, yoga and Zumba, to bring in a broad range of people looking to exercise. A running track a fraction of the size of an outdoor track could be installed for those that do not like treadmill, but want to run indoors.
  • Basketball Court/Indoor Soccer – Large office buildings could utilize a few stories to carve out a basketball/indoor soccer surface and hold leagues and practices for area schools and AAU teams.
  • Batting Cages/Pitching Tunnels – The basement of a building could be an ideal area for batting cages and pitching tunnels for baseball and softball practice during the cold months. These cages and tunnels are easily moved and can be repositioned to make room for more activities inside the building.
  • Golf Simulators/Nets/Putting Green – This would be another unique addition to an urban area with little green space for golf. Workers could play a quick round during their lunch break or warm up before they go out to one of Cincinnati or Hamilton County’s public courses. This would also allow for urban dwellers a space they could walk to for golf lessons.
  • Offices – With additional amenities a building would become more attractive to businesses.
  • Apartments – To make the building a true mixed use development, apartments could be added as this would be a true “luxury apartment” with a real gym (unlike those found at too many apartment complexes that only have a treadmill and Bowflex and call it a gym) and the ability to walk to some of the most popular dining destinations in the city.

To compare a potential community center downtown with other recreational centers, the Recreation & Physical Activity Center at Ohio State University has a total of 570,000 square feet of space including the pools, while 25,000 square feet is fitness space for weights and treadmills. By contrast, the Campus Recreation Center at the University of Cincinnati has 202,000 square feet including its pools.

The options of what to include in these large, empty spaces are endless, but a truly mixed use development would be better suited for the community than simply offices, apartments, and art studio space. The gyms downtown are old and do not offer enough space, or have odd floor plans. Rock climbing and paintball would draw younger crowds, and the students in the area could benefit from having additional practice facilities.

A neighborhood needs young families as well as young professionals. This would be a good start to try and draw them to the core and keep them there.

Brian Valerio grew up in Cincinnati’s College Hill neighborhood and graduated from St. Xavier High School and Ohio State University where he studied finance and real estate. He currently works at Fifth Third Bank and lives downtown. Those interested in sharing their thoughts can submit guest editorials to UrbanCincy by emailing urbancincy@gmail.com. Please include a short bio with any submissions.

Categories
Business Development News Politics

Cincinnati spreads neighborhood investment in 2013 budget

Last week Cincinnati City Council approved its yearly budget for the coming fiscal year. The approved budget lays out several city priorities for funding redevelopment efforts in many of the city’s 52 neighborhoods.

“This budget prioritizes our neighborhoods and will improve our economic competitiveness, make the city safer and healthier, protect our citizens who are most in need, and support our world class parks and arts,” Cincinnati Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls (C) stated in a prepared release.

City officials say the increased funding will go towards two programs that are designed to maximize impacts on neighborhoods throughout the city.


Cincinnati’s new budget directs funding towards the city’s 52 neighborhoods and invests in walkable neighborhood districts like Calhoun/McMillan in Clifton Heights (above). Photograph by Randy Simes for UrbanCincy.

The first program creates a new fund called Focus 52, which will create a pool of $54 million designed to focus on neighborhood projects by utilizing strategies developed from the city’s successes in the urban core.

“This budget will take the lessons we’ve learned from our success in downtown and Over-the-Rhine redevelopment and give our neighborhoods the support to take that momentum into their communities,” Qualls continued.

The second program endorses 13 neighborhood enhancement projects in neighborhoods such as Avondale, Walnut Hills, Mt. Adams and Price Hill. The annual funding for these projects comes from the Neighborhood Business District Improvement Program (NBDIP), which was created in partnership between the City’s Economic Development Division and the Cincinnati Neighborhood Business Districts United.

“Thriving neighborhood business districts will not only provide a high quality of life for current residents – they’re also key to attracting new residents,” said Odis Jones, Cincinnati’s Economic Development Director. “The NBDIP process reaffirms our commitment to strategically investing in neighborhoods to grow the city and the local economy.”

This commitment to city neighborhoods was recently outlined in the city’s recently adopted comprehensive plan, Plan Cincinnati. Several of the goals outlined in the new plan focus heavily on the continued development of the city’s traditional walkable neighborhood centers. The plan outlines over 40 different centers outside of downtown and calls for the assessment of neighborhood needs and the rehabilitation of neighborhood centers by utilizing tools such as the city’s new form-based code.

Working to begin the implementation of this new plan Vice Mayor Qualls has directed staff to identify sources of capital funding to begin accomplishing some of the plans goals.

“Plan Cincinnati includes strategies that for the first time put the focus on economic development in the city’s neighborhoods,” Qualls stated. “This budget will ensure that spending supports those strategies and translates into results in our neighborhoods.”

Categories
Up To Speed

Report: retailers ‘vastly overestimate’ the role of free parking

Report: retailers ‘vastly overestimate’ the role of free parking.

We hear time and time again that urban retail centers need free and plentiful parking, and without it the customers will not come. New research, however, shows that the actual evidence for such claims is scant at best, and that retailers “vastly overestimate” the role free parking plays in their success. More from The Atlantic:

The review was conducted earlier this year by the cross-party policy group London Councils. The group performed a thorough meta-analysis of the existing academic and public agency research on the role of parking in urban commerce. It also sent parking questionnaires to all 33 London boroughs (comprising the city center, as well as inner and outer areas) and conducted market research with shoppers at three commercial centers in the outer regions. The findings can be reduced down to four main reasons retailers don’t need free parking to thrive.

1) Free, plentiful parking often hurts more than it helps, 2) shopkeepers overestimate how many customers arrive by car, 3) they also overestimate how much car customers spend, and 4) a mix of retailers is more important than parking supply.

Categories
Up To Speed

Atlanta’s bold plan for repurposing its unused railways already paying off

Atlanta’s bold plan for repurposing its unused railways already paying off.

The multi-modal Atlanta BeltLine project is spurring new investment throughout inner-city neighborhoods that had long been forgotten in the southeastern city. What lessons might Cincinnati be able to learn from Atlanta’s experience as it looks to repurpose its unused railway corridors? More from the Washington Post:

Since a new urban trail opened last month in an old rail corridor in Atlanta, it has drawn a steady stream of joggers, dog-walkers and cyclists to take in spectacular views of the skyline and neighborhoods once seen only by train. Hundreds of trees have been planted along the paved 14-foot-wide path, while artists have added works such as windmills made of bicycle parts and colorful murals on concrete overpasses.

The path, known as the Eastside Trail, is part of a $2.8 billion plan to transform a 22-mile railroad corridor that encircles Atlanta into a network of trails, parks, affordable homes and ultimately streetcar lines. The Atlanta BeltLine is an example of rails-to-trails projects going on around the country, including in New York and Chicago, that aim to make better use of old rail corridors by creating better-connected and more livable urban areas, providing alternatives to car travel and spurring economic development.

Categories
Development News Transportation

Two Cincinnati projects make Sierra Club’s list of best, worst transportation investments

The Sierra Club has released their annual report ranking the best and worst transportation projects in the country. Smart Choices, Less Traffic: 50 Best and Worst Transportation Project in the United States provides a brief summary of each project included in their list, and a description as to why the project received its ranking.

The purpose of the report, the Sierra Club states, is to bring light the more than $200 billion worth of transportation projects that advance each year, and identify which of those meet higher national goals of “reducing oil consumption, increasing safety, improving public health, and saving local, state or federal government – and citizens – money.”

The State of Ohio had only two projects that made it into the Sierra Club’s 2012 report, and both were from the Cincinnati region.

The first was the Eastern Corridor project which was identified as one of the nation’s worst projects, with the report stating:

The Eastern Corridor Highway in Cincinnati, Ohio was first proposed in 1999 when the price of gas was $1.14. The project is currently under study, with plans to convert a road into a 10-mile, four- to six-lane expressway. The Highway poses a significant threat to the scenic Little Miami River. The route parallels the river and plans to cross it in an ecologically threatened area, where numerous rare, threatened and endangered species live. Furthermore, the highway will slice the historic village of Newton in half, which would disrupt the community and its tax base, adding traffic and pollution. The village’s mayor has been an outspoken critic of the project. The highway project is expected to cost upwards of a billion dollars.

The second area project that made it onto the environmental organization’s list is the Cincinnati Streetcar, which they called one of America’s best transportation projects.

The Cincinnati Streetcar is a new electric streetcar project that will connect key communities in the city’s urban core while improving neighborhood accessibility, stimulating development, and creating jobs. The streetcar system will go from the River to the Zoo, University, and hospital area. There are currently more than 500 vacant buildings along the streetcar’s 4-mile route. The streetcar will help attract residents and businesses to these rehabbed buildings, putting people to work and boosting the city’s tax revenue. Streetcars will increase accessibility and active transportation in the region by creating denser, more walkable, mixed use development. The streetcars are designed to accommodate both wheelchairs and bicycles and will serve as a complement to the city’s existing bus transit. Construction began in February 2012 and the streetcar is expected to open in 2014.

The full report identifies a wide range of projects including highways, bridges, mass transit, active transportation, aviation, aquatic, and multi-modal investments. Projects of all varieties made it onto both the good and bad lists, but the Sierra Club largely favored transit and active transportation projects over highways and bridges.

“Americans are struggling with the health, climate, and economic costs of our oil-centered transportation system,” the report states. “Our transportation investments should provide an opportunity to further reduce our dependence on oil, reverse climate disruption, and save money. Because transportation infrastructure lasts for decades, the impacts of transportation investments are felt for many years to come, with huge consequences for America’s ability to move beyond oil.”