Tag: urban design

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Development News

Phase 1a of The Banks to rise quickly

This past Tuesday, January 27th, Cincinnati City Council’s Strategic Growth Committee gathered at City Hall to listen to and review construction updates on the long-awaited Banks development project. David L. Holmes, Assistant City Manager and John F. Deatrick, Banks Project Executive were both on hand to explain the project’s progress in further detail.

The update focused on Phase 1a of the construction plan, which includes 300 apartments and nearly 80,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space with parking garages below street level. As of this January, Phase 1a is 65% constructed and staying well within the budget previously set for the development.

Construction of Phase 1a of The Banks is 65% complete as of January 2010 – Photo Provided

Both the City of Cincinnati and Hamilton County have pledged monies towards The Banks. The City has pledged $20 million and has so far paid $7.5 million, while the county has committed some $5 million. After both the city and the county have paid their committed shares, they will split the remaining cost 50/50.

Phase 1a of The Banks is projected to open by Opening Day 2011. According to the presenters, apartment leasing will begin in fall of 2010, though the projected price points of said apartments are still up in the air. As soon as the exterior facades on the buildings are finished, the streets that are currently closed off due to construction will reopen.

Construction has begun on 300 apartments and 80,000 square feet of retail at Phase 1a of The Banks – Images Provided

The scope of construction that has been most recently completed is mostly structure for parking and mechanical, electrical and plumbing infrastructure. They are currently laying shear walls and columns in the south site by the bridge. The workers are waiting for warmer weather to come back in order to pour more concrete.

One of the financial directors gave an update on the amount of local, small business, minority and women employees and businesses currently engaged in the Banks project. She emphasized that 74% of construction workers for the project currently live in the Cincinnati metropolitan area, 20% are minorities, and 2.5% are female. Council members Charlie Winburn, Laure Quinlivan and committee chair Chris Bortz expressed concern for making sure that “as many Cincinnatians as possibly are involved in the construction and in the business of the Banks.” Winburn stressed making sure that “this project has the utmost integrity” when it comes to keeping money local, (despite hiring out of Birmingham for the general contractors).

Phase 1a site plan for The Banks – Image Provided

After Phase 1a is complete in early 2011, work will begin on reconstructing Mehring Way to cut a wider arc above the river, bordering the new Central Riverfront Park. As a result, project managers are currently in the process of appropriating stimulus funds for this development.

While retailers for the Phase 1a portion of the project are not yet set in stone, much has been speculated about a potential grocery store, entertainment venues like an ESPN Zone, and other restaurants, bars and entertainment venues to compliment the evolving riverfront district. Connectivity to the existing Riverfront Transit Center, and proposed Cincinnati Streetcar, will help connect The Banks to the rest of Downtown, Over-the-Rhine, and Uptown neighborhoods resulting in a live/play/work situation that will be attractive to all.

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News

Madison Road getting $5.76M makeover through Oakley

The City of Cincinnati will begin work on Madison Road from Ridge Avenue to Oakley Square’s eastern edge at Allston Street (map) this February. The work, valued at $5.76 million, will be performed by Adleta Construction and last through November 2010.

Just over $4 million will come from Cincinnati Water Works for the installation of new water mains according to Cincinnati Department of Transportation & Engineering (DOTE) officials. Concurrently, another $1.54 million will be invested by the City for additional infrastructure improvements to the stretch of roadway.

“The project improves the geometrics of the intersection of Madison Road and Ridge Avenue to allow all vehicular turning movements to maneuver safely and decrease accidents,” said DOTE Senior Engineer Danny Jones who also stated that the project is in coordination with the Kennedy Connector plan.

The City will also make streetscaping improvements in the Oakley Business District that will include the following in addition to new sidewalks, walls and steps under the railroad overpass on Madison Road.

  • Sidewalk & Curb Replacements
  • New Street Trees
  • Installation of Decorative Signs & Meter Posts
  • Pedestrian Level Lighting

During construction City officials state that one lane of traffic will remain open in each direction along Madison Road, but encourage drivers to use extra caution and reduced speeds through the area.

Oakley Business District photo by reyerd on Flickr.

Categories
Development News Politics Transportation

Examining parking policy from an urban perspective

The City of Cincinnati requires one parking space per residential dwelling unit throughout all four sub-districts of the Downtown Development District. For office uses there is one parking space required for every 750 to 1,200 square feet of office space.

These parking facilities could range from initially cheap surface lots to costly structured parking garages. Both facilities have the potential to severely damage the urban fabric in spite of design guidelines in place to improve their appearance. In addition to this damaging effect, the cost of parking is extraordinarily high in urban locations as parking spaces can cost between $20,000 and $30,000 per space in a structured parking garage. While surface lots are cheaper to construct, they squander valuable land and thus shoulder the cost of wasted revenues for local government and private land owners.

Thousands of parking spaces are being constructed underneath The Banks development with tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

The high costs of parking are immediately passed on to the customer (tenant) which results in one of two things. 1) The price points go so high that many are priced out of the market; or 2) The costs become too much for the developer to be able to recoup based on market demands which stymie investment absent substantial public subsidies.

Neither scenario is ideal, but both are seen in Cincinnati’s urban core today. Within the Central Business District the demands are there for increased development, but the prices are higher than the market will bear. As a result affordable living spaces are often not built, and new office development is rare.

In Over-the-Rhine, demand historically was too low to warrant the high parking costs, one factor in under-investment in the neighborhood, did not exist. The demands now exist in several portions of Over-the-Rhine, but in order for the price points of units to be kept artificially low, and keep inventory moving, parking has come in the form of surface lots.

The purple building seen here will be demolished to make way for an above-ground parking garage to supply parking requirements for nearby developments.

These surface lots throughout Over-the-Rhine have lower initial capital costs, but cause negative externalities for the neighborhood – one of America’s largest and most significant historic districts – and put additional historic structures at risk of demolition for these parking requirements.

Cincinnati Beer Company owner, Bryon Martin, currently owns the former Christian Moerlein residence and office on Elm Street in the Brewery District. His plans are for a brewpub restaurant that would play on the history of the two buildings. Martin would also love to have a large outdoor biergarten area on the vacant adjacent lot, but says that parking may have to be the use for that space at least initially.

There are potential solutions out there to balance out this equation without extreme demands that drive price points of investment in the neighborhood to unaffordable levels, or massive public subsidies. Over the next several weeks UrbanCincy will be looking into these potential policy solutions and how they might impact investment in our urban neighborhoods, preservation of the city’s historic building stock, and help change the way in which we design our communities.

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News

Over-the-Rhine in late Fall

These photos were taken throughout the historic Over-the-Rhine neighborhood in late November 2009. Locations primarily include Findlay Market and the Gateway Quarter district of Over-the-Rhine with some views of Downtown.

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News

UC’s Sustaining the Urban Environment named Advanced Energy Center of Excellence

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland recently announced the first round of Advanced Energy Centers of Excellence, and on that list was the University of Cincinnati’s Sustaining the Urban Environment (SUE) along with eight other centers across the state. The announcement comes after the SUE Center of Excellence won the National Science Foundation 2009-2010 Award for its “Economic Development through Green Entrepreneurship (EDGE)” initiative.

According to the University of Cincinnati, the prestigious honor will place the Sustaining the Urban Environment Center of Excellence in a leadership position for improving the health and wealth of Ohio’s urban residents through the development of technologies that promote the evolution of economically and environmentally sustainable urban regions.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 80 percent of the U.S. population lives within urban environments. These megacities and urban regions consume large amounts of natural resources to satisfy energy demands, and as a result, the SUE Center of Excellence (blog) has a goal to design for life and work in a manner that sustains the environment and resources for the benefit of present and future generations.

To accomplish this, the SUE Center of Excellence has developed partnerships with Cincinnati-area businesses to help identify potential sustainability solutions. The SUE Center of Excellence will also continue to study how urban infrastructure and environmental policies affect the long-term health and wealth of cities; and will continue examine scientific metrics, policies and technologies that, “promote the evolution of economically and environmentally sustainable urban regions.”