Author: Randy A. Simes

Randy is an award-winning urban planner who founded UrbanCincy in May 2007. He grew up on Cincinnati’s west side in Covedale, and graduated from the University of Cincinnati’s nationally acclaimed School of Planning in June 2009. In addition to maintaining ownership and serving as the managing editor for UrbanCincy, Randy has worked professionally as a planning consultant throughout the United States, Korea and the Middle East. After brief stints in Atlanta and Chicago, he currently lives in the Daechi neighborhood of Seoul’s Gangnam district.

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Findlay Market Fun

Cincinnati’s historic Findlay Market is expanding the number and duration of its farmers market days. In addition to the popular Saturday seasonal market (8am to 2pm), there will now be a new Tuesday Drive Time Farmers Market and an expanded Sunday Farmers Market.

The new Tuesday Drive Time Farmers Market kicked off this past Tuesday, June 16th and is open from 3pm to 6pm through October. There will be a dozen farmers that will open the market and Findlay Market’s Market Wines will offer a drive time wine tasting every Tuesday from 3pm to 6pm.

The expanded Sunday Farmers Market got started yesterday and will run from 10am to 2pm weekly. There will be a grand opening party for the new farmers market days on Tuesday, July 7th from 3pm to 6pm and will feature music, cooking demonstrations and prize drawings.

Good Energy and Holistic Health Fair
Another fun event coming up at Findlay Market will be the Good Energy Gathering and Holistic Health Fair on June 28th. The fair looks to “celebrate the many opportunities we have to conserve, recycle and reuse in our lives.”

There will be vendors and exhibits on Findlay Market’s Essen Strasse (south side of the market house). Visitors will be able to pick up information on a variety of topics and enjoy entertainment from Bi-Okoto Drum & Dance Theatre (10am to 12pm), Al Janna Dancers (12pm to 1pm) and Tai Chi Demonstrations with flute music from Sunflower (1:30pm to 3pm). Below is a listing of the three categories with the exhibitors for each.

Food and Nutrition: Marvins’ Organic Gardens, Eco Garden,Green Earth Grille, Nutrition Counseling, OSU Extension Office, Cooking Demonstrations.

Alternative Health: Full Spectrum Health Center, Cole Center for Healing, Cincinnati Area Doula Society, Abby Artmisa; Herbalist & Healing Practitioner with Goddess Garden Healing, Cincinnati School for Metaphysics.

Alternative Energy/Lifestyle: Third Sun Solar and wind Power, Green Energy Ohio, Park+Vine, Wild Design Jewelry, Infinity Magazine, Sam Dunlap; Cincinnati Permaculture and Edible Landscaping, Enright Ridge Urban Eco-Village, Cincinnati State, OTR Electric Car Company.

The event is free and open to the public. On one other brief note, musicians are invited to come an perform at Findlay Market. If you’re interested in performing at Cincinnati’s historic market place and one of the region’s best gathering spots you can email playmusic@findlaymarket.org.

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Phoenix light rail

“The population in the United States is now increasingly urban, which makes the relationship between land use policies and transportation policies that much more important, because we are accommodating so much more growth in cities we need to be able to have the funding to provide alternative forms of transportation. We have a budding light rail system that we need to continue throughout the city.”

-Maria Baier, Phoenix City Council

“We’ve seen $7 billion in both public and private investment along the light rail line, because they want to be where light rail is and so it tends to be a huge factor in the vitality of your downtown. I’m sure that you will take a picture of some of the construction going along here. Those decisions were made based on having the light rail line here.”

-Maria Hyatt, Assistant to Phoenix City Manager

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MuralWorks ’09

You may have noticed some scaffolding on the south facing wall of the building that houses the popular Park+Vine store at Central Parkway and Vine Street. It has come to my attention that this scaffolding is there for the prep work that started today.

This prep work is for what will be one of ArtWorks‘ 2009 MuralWorks locations. The popular city-beautification program can be seen all throughout the city (map/images of all MuralWorks projects). This particular mural location will cover up a large blank wall along Central Parkway and become the fourth prominent mural along that stretch of road.

Owner of Park+Vine, Dan Korman, does not yet know what the design will be but he says that he has been hoping for a mural there for some time. “I hope it has bikes,” says Korman who is a prominent local bicycle advocate.

MuralWorks is a program that works with teenage and professional artists as well as community members to create murals, and has the goal of creating these murals in every Cincinnati neighborhood. In 2008, MuralWorks completed nine murals in eight different city neighborhoods.

Image taken from Google Street View

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Summer Gateway Celebration – 6/20

The OTR/Gateway Summer Celebration takes place this Saturday, June 20th from 10am to 7pm in the heart of Over-the-Rhine’s Gateway Quarter.

The inaugural celebration will build off of the popular GoOTR 5k (route map) that will kick off the festivities at 10am. This 5k raises money for the Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce and started as a way to celebrate the great neighborhood assets of Over-the-Rhine and showcase the exciting changes taking place there.

Pre-registration is just $12 and will go up to $20 after noon on Friday, June 19th. All participants will receive a GoOTR 5k t-shirt and be treated to the sights and sounds of the 3.1 mile journey through historic Over-the-Rhine.

The OTR/Gateway Summer Celebration has been organized by the Gateway Merchants Group and will boast live music, a host of local arts/crafts vendors, food and beer brought to you by Christian Moerlein.

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This Week In Soapbox 6/16

This Week In Soapbox (TWIS) you can read about the team selected to make Cincinnati’s modern streetcar system happen, the transformations that have occurred along Walnut Street downtown, this weekend’s Summer Gateway Celebration, the new generation of city leaders taking a stand on an important issue, an eastern Cincinnati suburb making trails a transportation priority and the Hamilton County Climate Initiative that is encouraging Blue Ash to go green.

If you’re interested in staying in touch with some of the latest development news in Cincinnati please check out this week’s stories and sign up for the weekly E-Zine sent out by Soapbox Cincinnati.

TWIS 6/16:

  • Cincinnati takes major step towards building modern streetcar system – full article
  • Transformation along Walnut Street downtown nearly complete – full article
  • Summer Gateway Celebration takes place this weekend – full article
  • Next generation of leaders rallies at historic Verdin Bell Center – full article
  • Anderson Township embracing trails throughout suburban community – full article
  • Hamilton County Climate Initiative encouraging Blue Ash to go green – full article