The 11th annual Ohio River Way Paddlefest took place June 21 through 23 at Coney Island, and culminated with more than 2,200 paddlers took to the Ohio River. The paddling event has become the largest of its kind in the Midwest, and according to event organizers, has positioned Cincinnati as “the paddling capital of the United States.”
Paddlefest celebrates the region’s picturesque Ohio River and surrounding hills, and puts a critical mass of recreational users out on what is typically a commercial waterway through the heart of North America.
A new video highlights the 8.2-mile journey from the perspective of a kayaker participating in the 2012 Paddlefest. The one-minute video was produced by Vimeo user Brent B. and features scenes of the Ohio River’s natural scenery, the I-471 Daniel Carter Beard Bridge, Serpentine Wall, and Cincinnati’s central riverfront.
If you have yet to visit the first phase of the Smale Riverfront Park, then you need to do yourself a favor and go visit the beautiful new park. From a personal perspective, out of all of the new developments along the central riverfront, the new park is by far the best product and is a true civic asset for Cincinnati.
In the latest video update from project manager Dave Prather, he takes viewers on a tour of the now completed features of the Smale Riverfront Park that are open to the public. Prather also gives some insight into the elements that are soon to come including the continuation of the tree grove, Women’s Committee Garden, Adventure Playground, construction of the river’s edge and the transient boat dock.
“We’re proceeding with design and grant application for the transient boat dock, which will be aligned with the Main Street Fountain,” Prather explained in the project video. “That grant application is due the end of July, and award will be announced around early March next year. So we’re planning on next May to present the completed portion of the tree grove and break ground on the boat dock.”
In addition to the boat dock, Prather says that plans call for construction to begin on the Vine Street Steps next May as well, and would complete the framing of the Roebling Suspension Bridge.
One of the attractions of the first phase of the park is the new Cincinnati Bike Center which is now open to bicycle commuters 24 hours a day, and boasts a retail shop that includes merchandise and allows for people to rent various types of bicycles and Segways.
Reports from various media outlets and first-hand accounts highlight the immediate popularity of the park. One problem, according to Prather, has been that visitors want to play in the dramatic water curtain along Mehring Way which was not designed for interaction.
The early summer project update is nearly 13 minutes in length, and is the first video of the series to highlight a finished product.
Video production company 7/79 created a video for the recent CEOs for Cities national conference held in Cincinnati. The nearly three-minute video takes viewers throughout the city’s urban core, and is perhaps the best use of tilt-shift videography in Cincinnati to date.
Previously, UrbanCincy has profiled Brian Spitzig’s tilt-shift videos filmed on and around the University of Cincinnati’s uptown campus. Spitzig has informed UrbanCincy that he is currently working on additional videos that would cover more ground throughout the city.
In the mean time, Cincinnati – A New Perspective is an enjoyable sequence and includes some interesting statistics about the Queen City throughout the video.
It is not always easy to fully tell the narrative of a place and its people through words alone. This, I would suspect, is one of the most constant struggles for writers and professional journalists.
Over the past five to seven years, a tremendous amount of progress and change has taken place throughout Cincinnati’s urban core. This progress, however, is not just through bricks and mortar, but also the people who populate those buildings. In fact, those people are the most significant part of the equation. Without their ideas, hard work and passion, none of this would be happening.
Thankfully, Queen City Project has been documenting some of these people and their stories. Their latest video looks at a collection of young entrepreneurs looking to bring their new ideas to Main Street – literally and figuratively.
Cincinnati Growing Cincinnati is a six-and-a-half minute video that breaks down some of these individuals, but also identifies the start-up infrastructure in place that is helping foster their growth and jump start other new ideas with the help of seed money and support networks.
Smart Growth America recently produced a series of video interviews with mayors from around the United States. The series, officials say, is intended to highlight prominent elected officials that are taking on leadership roles in promoting smart growth.
The first of those videos features Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory. In the video, Mayor Mallory discusses the need to invest in urban centers and make smart infrastructure investments that will trigger job creation and community development.
Specifically, Mayor Mallory touts the recent completion of phase one work at The Banks and ongoing revitalization success in Over-the-Rhine. The approach being taken by Cincinnati is one that intrigued officials at Smart Growth America.
“Thinking about land-use, transportation, housing, environmental, economic development and city planning, and redevelopment projects holistically can be challenging,” Thomas Madrecki from Smart Growth America told UrbanCincy. “But the rewards are that much higher, because when executed successfully, all of those pieces of the puzzle are working together.”
Madrecki says that once that initial buy-in is achieved at a local level, support for smart growth projects like the Cincinnati Streetcar becomes a better reality. Accomplishing that initial task, however, does not necessarily mean that funding and regulatory issues will not also pose problems.
“In a place like Cincinnati, I think that’s very obvious, where you have something like the streetcar take longer to get off the ground because of withdrawn funding promises,” said Madrecki. “Smart growth strategies often require upfront investments that will engender future economic gains while saving the city money on infrastructure and utility costs, but it takes money and the political will to deal with setbacks and opposition.”
Madrecki continued by saying that Mayor Mallory has shown the latter quality in spades, and has quickly become a national leader in the smart growth movement.
As Cincinnati moves forward with additional phases of development at The Banks, and additional renovation work in historic Over-the-Rhine, smart growth champions believe that even additional investment will be needed in Cincinnati’s urban core to help those respective neighborhoods reach their full potential.
One of the greatest challenges going forward for a Midwestern city like Cincinnati will be maintaining the momentum built by Mayor Mallory’s steadfast approach.
“Everyone likes to talk about the ‘next thing,’ but there has to be an element of seeing things to fruition and making sure they fully develop. When that happens and people see the economic and community payoffs, I think it will set a precedent and make future endeavors more likely to succeed right away.”
