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Month in Review

Month in Review – June 2014

We Are Walnut Hills 3UrbanCincy‘s most popular stories in June were clear signs of the progress being made in Cincinnati. While a modest number of new residents have been added over the past four years, the urban core and surrounding neighborhoods continue to grow with new residential developments.

Two of the stories (#2 and #5) are in sharp contrast: while Cincinnati received national praise for its form-based code efforts, Norwood missed an opportunity and ended up with an auto-oriented development in its core.

As you enjoy your Independence Day weekend, we invite you to catch up on our top stories from June that you may have missed:

    1. Cincinnati Posts Population Gain for Second Consecutive Year
      The city has added about 1,000 new residents since 2010.
    2. Cincinnati Wins National Planning Award for Form-Based Code
      Jocelyn Gibson reports back from her trip to the 22nd Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU).
    3. New Apartments, Retail Space Coming to Peeble’s Corner in Walnut Hills
      “The whole goal here is to create a concentrated effort, like what 3CDC has done in Over-the-Rhine, and reach that critical mass in Walnut Hills.”
    4. Work on $30M Corryville Apartment Project On-Pace for Fall 2015 Completion
      Uptown Cincinnati continues to molt and grow, and Randy Simes reports on the latest 300-bed Uptown Rental Properties development.
    5. Paycor’s Brand New Headquarters in Norwood Misses the Mark
      In a guest editorial, Norwood resident James Bonsall explains that the latest phase of the Linden Pointe on the Lateral development turns its back on bikes and pedestrians.

 

Categories
News Opinion Transportation

Chicago Serves as a Model for Midwestern Cities Looking to Bolster Bicycling

For the past few years anyone with an interest in bicycling has seen their Facebook and Twitter feeds stuffed daily with bike lane and bike share project updates from cities around the United States. Much of that news has come from our northern neighbor Chicago, where its first of 100 planned miles of protected bike lanes opened in 2012.

In 2013 Chicago also launched the nation’s third-largest bike share program, a 300-station network sprawling across large sections of the city. Then, in early 2014, construction began on the $60 million Navy Pier Flyover, an elevated structure that will speed Lakefront Trail bicycle traffic over the Chicago River and the congested Navy Pier tourist area.

In May I spent part of a vacation day biking 35 miles around Chicago to see its various recent bicycling improvements for myself. This ride included The Loop, parts of the Lakefront Trail, and various residential areas where bike lanes have been recently created.

Dearborn Street Two-Way Protected Bike Lane
This two-way protected bike lane opened on the otherwise one-way Dearborn Street in November 2012, and is among the most talked-about new bike lanes in the country. It occupies a 10-foot wide strip on the west side of this major north-south street, with bikes separated from vehicular traffic by bollards and on-street parking.

To manage conflicts between two-way bike and one-way automobile movements, bicycle traffic is controlled by dedicated signals at about a dozen intersections in The Loop.

I biked the length of this protected lane in both directions beginning at about 4:50pm on a weekday. It was immediately obvious that travel in the lane during rush hour was not particularly fast or orderly — pedestrians often stepped into the bike lane to hail cabs or to cross Dearborn Street mid-block. At cross-streets, bicycle traffic was sometimes unable to proceed when signaled due to surges of pedestrians or gridlocked traffic.

Bicyclist behavior within the protected lane was more chaotic than I expected.

Commuters riding their own bikes often passed slower Divvy bikes and northbound bikers sometimes drifted between the protected bike lane and Dearborn’s vehicular lanes. I observed a handful of northbound bicyclists ignoring the protected bike lane altogether, instead biking in mixed vehicular traffic up Dearborn Street as they had for the past 100 years.

Divvy Bikeshare
Chicago’s “Divvy” bike share system began operation on June 28, 2013 and by year’s end the system logged over 700,000 trips. This year the system is planned to expand from 300 to 400 stations and add 1,000 bicycles to its existing fleet of 3,000.

To say that the Divvy bikes are popular would be a gross understatement – the extent to which the blue bicycles have become a ubiquitous feature of Chicago’s cityscape in their first year has no doubt silenced all critics.

To that end, the utility of shared bicycles in Chicago is aided by the city’s flat layout. Recently a writer from Seattle expressed some skepticism of a planned bike share program’s popularity in the hilly Emerald City.

Similar questions have been raised locally and intensely debated on Internet forums. The questions bear enough validity to cause many proponents of Cincy Bike Share to concede that Uptown and Downtown operations may function and serve different customers from one another.

Navy Pier Flyover
Chicago’s Lakefront Trail stretches 18 miles along the city’s lakefront, and is home to a crush of bicycle traffic unlike anything to be seen in Cincinnati or elsewhere in the Midwest. In fact, the Active Transportation Alliance claims that Lakefront Trail is the busiest in the United States with peak daily usage reaching 30,000 people at key points.

Every type of bicycle and every type of rider uses the trail, along with joggers, walkers, and inline skaters – motivating the Chicago Tribune to remark earlier this year that the Lakefront Trail is “claustrophobic and dangerous—the antithesis of the shoreline as a refuge from urban crowding.”

The Navy Pier Flyover will link the north and south halves of the trail with 16-foot wide elevated approaches to the Outer Drive Bridge. The trail will cross the Chicago River on a new structure cantilevered off the west side of the famed 77-year-old bascule bridge.

General Observations
As someone who grew up biking the monster hills and hostile commercial avenues of Cincinnati’s west side in the 1980s, riding in Chicago – even the many areas without new bike lanes — is by comparison a piece of cake. So easy in fact that it’s boring.

Virtually all of Chicago’s streets are perfectly flat, perfectly straight, and traffic moves at pretty much the same speed and in the same fashion on all of them. There is little to no sense of exploration and discovery during a bike ride around Chicago – no wonder the Lakefront Trail is so popular when a ride between any two neighborhoods has the same character as any other combination.

No Chicago bicyclist knows anything like our varied street characteristics, our innumerable odd intersections, and of course the two-mile downhill runs that can be strung together between various Cincinnati neighborhoods.

Experimenting with side streets and alternate routes between points A and B is something that keeps the avid Cincinnati bicyclist exploring the city, year after year, and familiarity with all of the hills is a point of pride.

When Cincinnati’s bike share begins later this year, and if we eventually build more protected bike lanes beyond the current Central Parkway project, no doubt bicycling will become more popular in the center city, basin neighborhoods, and across the river in Covington and Newport.

Any city, however, can paint bike lanes and buy a few thousand bike share bikes, but the endless range of leisurely or challenging rides available to the Cincinnati bicyclist is something Chicago and most other American cities will never have.

Categories
Arts & Entertainment News

June URBANexchange Helps Kick Off World Cup 2014

photo (9)The weather is warming up which makes it a great time to enjoy fine Belgian beers outside at this Thurday’s URBANexchange event (weather permitting)! We are returning to Taste of Begium’s Short Vine location.

Come down for some waffles and chicken or some Belgian beers this Thursday from 5:30pm to 8:00pm. This is a great opportunity to check out the progress of the new streetscape being installed on Short Vine in Uptown and to check out the new apartments going up along Correy Street.

As always, the event will be a casual setting where you can meet others interested in what is happening in the city. We will gather in a space near the bar so that each person can choose how much or little they buy in terms of food or drink. Although we do encourage our attendees to generously support our kind hosts at Taste of Belgium.

As always URBANexchange is free and open to the public. This Thursday kicks off World Cup Soccer so Taste of Belgium will have special happy hour prices.

Additionally, Jocelyn and I have recently returned from attending the 22nd annual Congress for the New Urbanism in Buffalo where Cincinnati won a major award and have some great ideas and experiences to share.

We will be situated near the kitchen bar on the north end of the restaurant but you can also ask the host where the UrbanCincy group is located and they will be happy to assist.

Taste of Belgium is located on Vine Street in Correville between the University of Cincinnati’s east and west campuses and is located just two blocks from a future uptown streetcar stop. If you choose to bike there is free and ample bike parking is available outside the building. The venue is also served by Metro’s Metro+ bus , as well as routes  #19, #78 and #46 buses.

Categories
Month in Review

Month in Review – May 2014

Three of UrbanCincy‘s top stories in May revolved around a few dramatic transformations taking place in the urban core. We took you on a Street View tour of some of the biggest transformations in the city, showed you photos of the Cincinnati Streetcar’s construction, and shared news about changes to the city’s oldest historic district. In case you missed them, enjoy UrbanCincy‘s most popular stories from May 2014:

    1. PHOTOS: Cincinnati’s Dramatic, Decade-Long Transformation Visualized
      While many of us can feel that a transformation has taken place in Cincinnati over the past decade, it can be difficult to visualize it. Thanks to new Google Street View capabilities we have done just that.
    2. EDITORIAL: What Cranley’s Clever Budget Means for Urbanists
      The rookie Mayor John Cranley has proposed his first budget. At first glance, it doesn’t look so bad. But after further review what most feared is in fact the sad reality.
    3. The Littlefield to Bring Craft Bourbon Bar to Northside This June
      A craft bourbon bar called The Littlefield will open in Northside next month. The approximately 400SF establishment, which will also include a large outdoor terrace, has been years in the making.
    4. Western & Southern Aiming to Alter Lytle Park Historic District Boundaries
      Western & Southern has long been rumored to be eyeing a location for a new high-rise office tower to consolidate their headquarters; and proposed changes to the Lytle Park Historic District may be setting up for exactly that.
    5. PHOTOS: Construction Activities for $133M Streetcar Project Move Southward
      Significant visual progress continues to be made on the $133M first phase of the Cincinnati Streetcar. Take a look at the progress and learn about a string of good news that may push forward the opening date.

 

Categories
Business Development News

Construction Work on $30M Corryville Apartment Project On-Pace for Fall 2015 Completion

Uptown Rental Properties is making progress on their latest development in Corryville. This one, called VP3, is located on Euclid Avenue between Corry and Charlton Streets, and will add 147 units with 300 beds to the neighborhood. If all goes according to plan, the $30 million project will open in the fall of 2015.

The site previously included seven homes and a suburban-style Fifth Third Bank retail branch, and is located across the street from the planned site for a new Kroger grocery store.

Corryville has seen a wave of private investment recently that has added hotel rooms, apartments, and retail and office spaces. Much of that investment has come from Uptown Rental Properties, which has constructed hundreds of new residential units and injected thousands of new residents into Corryville over the past several years.

According to Dan Schimberg, president of Uptown Rental Properties, the demand for additional housing units in Corryville is so strong that they have revised their original plans over the years to try to serve the market.

“There is such an incredible demand for housing on the east side of campus,” Schimberg told UrbanCincy. “Originally our plan was to build housing for 1,200 people on Short Vine, but now we’ve increased that total to 1,600 by 2016.”

For better or worse, all of this development is changing the face of Corryville.

But unlike many of the company’s other developments surrounding the University of Cincinnati, it is not just students occupying the residential units being built in this area. According to Schimberg, more than 30% of the total residents are non-undergraduate students, compared with just 3% on the south side of campus – something he attributes to the growing demand for urban living.

“Three of the top five largest employers are in Uptown, and then have been adding thousands of jobs over recent years,” Schimberg explained. “What we’re seeing is a demand for workforce housing on the east side of campus from a desire for people to live in a more urban environment.”

In addition to the increased demand for urban living and the rapid job growth nearby, Schimberg believes the improvement of Uptown neighborhoods is also keeping and attracting residents in a way he has not seen since starting Uptown Rental Properties nearly 30 years ago.

It is expected that work will wrap up on the four-story VP3 development in the fall of 2015. At that time, a new 550-space parking garage, being built in coordination with this project, will open and provide some 225 public parking spaces for the Short Vine business district.

“The addition of these new residents is providing the core demand for the retail, and the residents get to benefit from those nearby services,” Schimberg continued.

Due to the philosophy of wanting the retail and residential to benefit one another, Schimberg said that the public portion of the parking garage is being built solely to help bolster the business on Short Vine. As a result, Uptown Rental Properties and the City of Cincinnati are sharing the costs for the garage.

Since developers are pursuing LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, the project will be eligible for the City of Cincinnati’s LEED Tax Abatement.