Urbana Cafe – UrbanCincy

New Coffee shop Focuses on Community Connections

Tucked away on the charming and growing business district in East Walnut Hills is a new coffee shop that is only a few months old. Urbana Café, the Pendleton coffeeshop that began by operating out of a Vespa at Findlay Market, opened it’s second brick and mortar location in East Walnut Hills this summer.

However, this new location has an unexpected twist when you compare it to other coffee shops in the city: it’s decision to remain “unplugged.” Why? I spoke with owner Daniel Noguera to find out:

For Daniel, it’s all about taking a second to unplug and reconnect. His aim is to “Build community and connections.”

“That’s what we are aiming for. Come with your date, come with your family, come with your dad,” Noguera told UrbanCincy, We don’t want to take away the relevance of technology, because we all need it, but just take the five to ten minutes to disconnect, and after that, if you need to go back to your computer, you have your office and other places to do so.”

When I asked if their decision to not have wifi in their new location has been met with negative feedback, Noguera said no, in general. He said there is one local woman who continues to check in and make sure they are still sticking to their decision, and they always confirm, but she continues to come back and is a regular patron of the café.

Intentionality is a big part of Urbana Café’s brand. Noguera explained that they do not go into a community that is already well served. They want to bring something new to a neighborhood that will build relationships, and they don’t want to compete with other cafés.

By not having wifi available they change their customer base, so patrons will come to Urbana based on the idea they have set forth, which is building community.

Noguera is also intentional in “serving the best product we can with the best resources we can find, sourced as responsibly as we can.” They try to buy locally, make their pastries in-house, and try to build connections with those that they source from, always organic and fair trade, to continue to positive influence on the community here and elsewhere.

The new location can be found at 2714 Woodburn Ave.

Model Group Moving Forward With $30M Second Phase of Broadway Square

Despite missing out on millions of dollars in state historic tax credits, Model Group is moving on undeterred with the next phase of work at Broadway Square.

Project officials say that the $30 million Broadway 3, which is actually phase two, should get started within the next week and will include 30 residential apartments and 1,200 square feet of commercial space.

“It’s a pretty sterile scoring system, so it’s pretty fair and to the point,” Bobby Maly, Chief Operating Officer at Model Group, told me when asked about missing out on the tax credits.

Broadway Square Development Plan [Provided]

Undeterred, Maly then quickly changed to a more positive note and spoke about how Model Group is excited about the changes on tap for nearby Ziegler Park.

“Anytime you can create high quality green space that is safe and programmed is terrific,” Maly said. “Even the planned parking can be helpful for a high density neighborhood like Pendleton.”

One of the big differences about Broadway Square from the other developments taking place in Over-the-Rhine is that it has a different and unique setting. As many longtime residents know, Pendleton is less a district, and more of a pocket neighborhood.

To that end, he says that Model Group’s Broadway Square project is trying to not recreate what is happening on Vine or Main, but rather create a nexus that has a high concentration of professionals and niche businesses in a “high energy” environment.

Ziegler Park Preliminary Master Plan [Provided]

So far the first phase of Broadway Square has lived up to that motto by attracting a collection of small, creative businesses, along with Urbana Cafe’s first brick-and-mortar location and the recently opened Nation Kitchen & Bar. While this next phase of work will have considerably less commercial space, Maly says that they have their eyes set on a small brewery for the corner of Thirteenth and Broadway Streets.

With apartments in Downtown and Over-the-Rhine at nearly 100% occupancy, and the first phase of Broadway Square fully leased within months with new marketing, the climate seems even better for the 30 new units this investment will bring online.

“There’s so much demand for Downtown and Over-the-Rhine right now that Cincinnati is still catching up with demand in that regard,” said Maly. “This is still more the beginning, than the middle or end.”

With work expected to get started soon on phase two, project officials say that the third and final phase could break ground as soon as January.