Tag: opinion

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Strong Gay Communities Are an Important Part of a Healthy Urban Core

On Tuesday, September 15, the Democrat controlled Ohio House approved the Equal Housing and Employment Act (HB 176) that bans housing and employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill passed with a 56-39 vote margin and now moves to the GOP controlled Senate, where passage is less likely.

As of today, twenty states and the District of Columbia have similar laws in effect and 12 states currently offer full housing and employment protection for the LGBT community. If this legislation passes, Ohio will become the 13th state to offer full protection for the LGBT community against such discrimination, putting Ohio on the forefront of fighting for gay rights. This will send a message to the LGBT community in Ohio and across the country that Ohio is a welcoming and an open-minded place that promotes strong gay communities.

I personally believe having a strong gay community is a key part of having a strong urban core and that this legislation is irrevocably tied to the health of Cincinnati’s core. When you look at cities in North America with vibrant cores, they tend to have successful, happy LGBT communities as well. This occurs because we gays are an urban bunch, often pioneering urban development, forming a niche in the city, and claiming a space of our own. These ‘gayborhoods’ become identifiable with the LGBT community and a sense of pride is taken to ensure they are maintained. Chicago has their Boystown, San Francisco has The Castro, and New York has…well…Manhattan. These places are thriving urban neighborhoods, act as ethnic enclaves for their respective cities, and are a key part of a diverse, vibrant urban core.

If Cincinnati and other Ohio cities want to have diverse, active, and interesting urban cores, Ohioans must embrace the LGBT community and allow them to maintain or establish a successful niche. If this legislation passes, Ohio will take steps towards achieving that goal and if it does not, my community will continue to feel like second class citizens and look elsewhere to live; our fabulous urban lifestyles in tow.

Cincinnati needs a strong gay community for a more vibrant, diverse, eclectic urban core. This is one of many reasons that I support the passage of HB 176 and urge the Ohio Senate to pass the bill as soon as possible.

Guest editorial written by Greg Meckstroth. Photography by Scott Beseler.
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News

The Waterfront Wednesday Mystery

On the final Wednesday of August, I took a road trip down to Waterfront Wednesday in Louisville. Waterfront Wednesday is put on by 91.9FM WFPK and is a free show that occurs on the last Wednesday of each month from April to September on a little piece of Waterfront Park in downtown Louisville. Each month the show features three national touring bands playing from an hour to an hour and a half a piece. Oh, did I mention it’s free?

Canada’s Great Lake Swimmers, singer-songwriter Will Hoge, and alt-country legends, Cracker all graced Louisville’s stage last month with the Ohio River as its backdrop. While the tunes were great and ran for four hours (starting at 6pm) this post is not a concert review by any stretch. This my friends is more of an open letter to you, the UrbanCincy reader, to get a discussion going around why Louisville can pull something like this off while we here in Cincy get cover band after cover band on our waterfront on Wednesday nights.

Waterfront Wednesday crowd gathers along the Ohio River

This is my biggest beef these days with our town and something I’d love to change, but the task sometimes seems so great that it is not worth tackling. Then I look closer (like I know most of us do, and we challenge our friends to do so too) and I see that things are starting to really cook! Midpoint is quickly approaching with a lot of great bands with bands from our same zip code, as well as bands from as far away as Paris, France. That group also did a great job lining up bands through the summer on Fountain Square, but I have to say that all of that seems to be the polar opposite of “name that cover band.” I think there is a middle ground, and I think Louisville has found it.

Louisville is doing a lot of things right with their concert series and they are bringing a good amount of people into town for it. Their mix of artists on any given Waterfront Wednesday is very diverse and don’t necessarily cross over, but people come for one and stay for all three. Will Great Lake Swimmers open for an entire tour for Cracker? Heck no, but for a night it seems to work! Oh, and because it’s free, people bring other people along with them. I have noticed in my two trips there this summer that most of the people that show up fall more under the “curious observer” label than “diehard fan”. People bring their kids along and there are people around that would be eligible for the Golden Buckeye if only they lived in Ohio. It’s a wonderful and diverse combination of music lovers that come to enjoy their evening. Outside. For free. Along the river. Shocking, I know.

So, to you the reader of UrbanCincy, I ask this… why not us? And just as (if not more) important, how can we do something like this? I have asked this question of people around town in conversations over the last six weeks and have received many different answers. Louisville has about 1.2M people in the metro area and we have 2.1M people, so you can’t say they have a wider base from which to draw. We both have universities and we are both river towns. Provide your rationale and provide your solutions in your comments, and if you are willing to try to find a way to make it happen say that too.

For those curious, the September 30 show headliner is BellX1 with supporting acts to be announced. I have to say, the drive is pretty easy and for what you get, it’s well worth the trip.

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News

Places You Should Know – Venice on Vine

Ever get hungry while you are wandering through the shops in The Gateway Quarter? Well, there is a pizza place on the corner of Vine and 13th called Venice on Vine that is there to hook you up with a bite to eat. On the surface, it seems just like any other pizza parlor There is exposed brick, a large oven, art on the wall, and a friendly staff to take your order and make up your lunch. Look closer though and you’ll see this is not your average restaurant.

Run by the non-profit group Power Inspires Progress, Venice on Vine is not just there to satisfy hungry patrons but is there to train and develop employees by helping them build job skills that they can carry into the workforce and become viable members of society. Most everyone that comes through the Venice program does so because they are have a poor work history, lack transportation to another job or are in need of a second chance either due to criminal or drug history. The folks that run Venice are there to help ensure that the trainees, as they are called, get a fresh start, job training skills, and the resume builder that is needed to land full time gainful employment.

If a candidate makes it through the three step interview process ,they come to Venice to learn and develop a variety of skills that are needed in the restaurant business. The trainees earn stars for their name tag by showing proficiency in the different roles at Venice including dishes, utilities, server, cook, register, and catering. In doing so they are building job skills, and oh by the way, running their own place. UrbanCincy visited on a Tuesday night and while it wasn’t very crowded, the staff of five was busy cleaning up from the day and there was not one detail going unnoticed.

In addition to learning all the parts of the restaurant, trainees are encouraged to continue their development and education in other areas. Many are focused on furthering their education by working towards their GED, or will work on building additional job skills such as Microsoft Office or even resume writing. In fact, each person earns money for food by taking five 45 minutes sessions during each two week pay period to further develop themselves.

Photos by Dave Rolfes

The night we visited, the longest tenured employees had been there four months but that is part of the plan. Once brought on board, a trainee is expected to graduate within twelve months and go out to find a job in the workforce. The stated goal of the program is “to increase the power of people through skill development, relationship building and collaboration with other organizations.” Without a doubt, the trainees were so happy to talk about their experiences, why they joined Venice, and it shined through brightly just how proud they were of where they worked.

Coming up on it’s third anniversary at 1301 Vine, another thing that is noticeable about Venice on Vine is its ties to the community. The tables in the restaurant are adorned with flowers from neighboring City Roots. There is artwork displayed and for sale on the wall from local artists that work through the Visionaries & Voices program. There are even local bands played on the stereo and displayed on the Cincy In Your Ear rack near the register.

Again, without looking closer it is easy to think Venice is just another pizza joint when in reality it is so much more. It is an important piece to the Gateway Quarter that really helps to develop the people that live in and around the area and help them build the job skills they need to be successful. Help Venice on Vine help others by volunteering, donating, or just being a customer and stopping in for a pizza or hoagie the next time you are around town because quite frankly the food is almost as good as the cause they are going after.

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News

Queen City Square: An Opportunity Lost?

Last Friday Cincinnati Business Courier publisher Douglas Bolton wrote an interesting editorial piece that discussed the recent news about tenants at the Great American Tower at Queen City Square.

In the past I have said that the new office space is a plus for the downtown office market even if it filled up by shuffling existing office tenants around. The thought process was that some local companies would be able to upgrade their office space for a comparable price due to the additional supply in the market. The space left behind by those companies would then potentially be filled by a company looking to locate in the center city market, but previously could not afford to do so, or find enough contiguous space to fit their needs.

What makes Bolton’s editorial piece interesting is that he used it as an opportunity to throw down a challenge for Eagle Realty and other businesses who might be considering filling up the remaining 20 percent of office space inside the tower.

“I have a challenge to Western & Southern Financial Group CEO John Barrett, who marvelously brought to fruition at the end of last year a 20-year vision for the block at Sycamore and Third streets. The challenge extends to any other company located downtown considering moving to the remaining seven floors and 175,000 square feet of space available in what will be the city’s tallest building: Don’t do it.”

Bolton goes on to discuss the importance and opportunity of landing an out-of-market company for the remaining space, or bring a “marque” suburban company into the downtown market.

I was left thinking about something else during a recent conversation on the topic. Is the Queen City Square development a project meant to boost Cincinnati’s good ol’ boy network? Consider the following.

The Western & Southern-controlled Eagle Realty, who is developing Queen City Square, has had some recent troubles with other development projects – most notably the prominent Fifth & Race lot which has since had development rights taken from Eagle and transferred to Towne Properties.

Queen City Square is a marque project that will add instant starpower to Eagle Realty in future deals. The two-phase mega project needed to be successful though, so insert the rest of the good ol’ boy network in Cincinnati. In rolls IFS Financial Services and Fort Washington Investment Advisors (both entities of W&S), Great American Insurance, and Frost Brown Todd.

So far everyone involved in this development project has come out smelling like roses. The architect, developer, financiers and tenants all included. But what is being done in and of itself is not immediately productive for the downtown office market. That success will come when those vacated spaces left behind by these already existing downtown companies are filled; and that work will be done by the owners of those other buildings.

What will probably happen is that these vacated spaces will fill up with a plethora of small tenants looking to take advantage of the low price points, therefore creating less fanfare than a large single entity moving into Cincinnati and downtown. It is unfortunate, but true, and the Cincinnati business community needs to step up their game and take Bolton’s challenge.

Queen City Square presented Cincinnati’s best opportunity in many years to land a new corporate tenant or headquarters for downtown with its high-quality finishes, large contiguous space and prominent location on the city’s skyline. This will be virtually impossible to do with the older spaces that are now available – opportunity lost.

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News

Misguided amendment garnering state-wide opposition

Sunday’s Enquirer featured an opinion piece that called the recently proposed Charter amendment to ban all passenger rail expenditures without a prior vote a “poison pill.” The Enquirer’s piece marks yet another local institution that’s committed to voicing their opposition to the dangerous amendment. Followers of transportation debates in Cincinnati will readily admit that the Enquirer has been vocally opposed to the proposed streetcar line, so it is clear that they’ve seen the dangers of passing such an ill-conceived restriction on our city’s Charter.

The debate surrounding the proposed amendment has garnered attention beyond the I-275 loop as well. Although only residents of the City of Cincinnati have the ability to vote on this amendment, its potential negative implications have warranted statewide criticism.

A Columbus-based group that promotes the free markets by advocating for greater transportation choices, All Aboard Ohio, voted unanimously to adopt a resolution condemning the amendment as “punitive and discriminatory.” The resolution goes on to argue that if passes, the amendment would only bolster a predominately car-based public policy that “siphoned jobs, residents and wealth from the city [and] will continue to be funded by taxpayers in the City of Cincinnati.” The group’s president, Bill Hutchison, decries:

“This is very sad to see this happening… They’re really not thinking this through. Passenger rail has a strong record of bringing economic vitality and environmental quality to urban centers throughout the world. For groups who claim to want these characteristics for Cincinnati yet seek an anti-rail charter amendment is very disappointing.”

The groups Mr. Hutchinson references are the Green Party and the local chapter of the NAACP, which helped circulate petitions to place the proposed amendment on the November ballot. The Green party’s involvement befuddles most, as an increase of options for non-vehicular transportation aligns closely with green initiatives. Furthermore, in increase in transportation options not only creates jobs, but allows those without the means to purchase a car greater mobility and access to existing jobs.

WHIO, a news talk radio station in Dayton, cautioned this weekend of the dangers of the amendment. “The issue also could put the brakes on Cincinnati’s involvement in future rail projects across Ohio,” the statement warned, “meaning the proposed high-speed rail proposed by the federal government could be in jeopardy.”