We’ve see Art Deco, Modernism, Post-Modernism, Queen Anne Style, Italianate and many other periods of architectural expression, style and function. We are now currently in a period of Sustainable/Ecological architecture, but some Ohio politicians would prefer the state not participate in the most widely used and accepted rating system for such design and construction practices. More from Columbus Business First:
Ohio Concurrent Senate Resolution 25 was introduced last year by Joe Uecker, R-Loveland, and Tim Schaffer, R-Lancaster, to stop state government from using the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design building practices. Instead, the resolution advocates using American National Standards Institute practices because, it says, they’re more grounded in science.
The resolution got its first hearing earlier this week and chemical and manufacturing boosters laid out their case against some of the Green Building Council’s credits. Specifically, chemical trade groups say, LEED rules are not transparent and don’t conform with environmental industry consensus.
A building project still can achieve LEED Platinum, the highest rating available, without obtaining these credits. But that didn’t stop the chemical industry from voicing its concerns. The council has exhibited “discriminatory and disparaging treatment of vinyl in LEED credits,” testified Allen Blakey, vice president of industry and government affairs of the Washington, D.C. Vinyl Institute.
Noble Denim Co. started its garment operations in Cincinnati’s Camp Washington neighborhood in 2012. Since starting, the company has experienced growth and is taking a look at how their product manufacturing fits into the region’s economy.
The company operates out of the Anchor Building on Spring Grove Avenue, but much of its current manufacturing takes place in a small town in Tennessee. Noble Denim’s founder and creative director, Chris Sutton, and his colleagues made the decision to contract work out to a textiles company in Milledgeville, Tennessee that, despite employing 150 workers at its height, was on its last limb.
Those behind Noble Denim wanted to contribute to this struggling town in Tennessee and they were happy to bring jobs to this area. As Chris put it, “more jeans mean more jobs for the workers at that factory.” In addition to this, Sutton says that capacity and prior experience was more plentiful in the South.
Anchor Building
Anchor Building Loading Docks
Anchor Building Loading Docks
Noble Denim Workshop
Noble Denim Workshop
Noble Denim Leatherwork
Expanding beyond solely making jeans, Noble Denim has recently contracted out work to make sweaters in Toronto and work shirts through a mom-and-pop textile company in New York City’s once-bustling Garment District. While enthusiastic about the return of Made in America, Sutton refuses to manufacture in the U.S. out of pure sentiment. Instead, he says his focus is on his products being of the utmost quality.
Sutton says that their two-person operation made 200 pairs of jeans in their first year – almost all of which were sold in the Cincinnati area.
Cincinnati, he says, is important due to its support of new businesses and its budding design industry, which make it the natural fit to be the brains of the Noble Denim operation. The manufacturing, meanwhile, will continue to be pursued elsewhere where there is a stronger history of garment-making and readily available labor.
While Cincinnati’s manufacturing history does not seem well-positioned to take advantage of an American textile boom currently dominated by the South, Massachusetts, New York City and Los Angeles, Cincinnati does seem suited for heavier industries. And Sutton believes that Cincinnati’s manufacturing neighborhoods, and many of those around the nation, can be revived.
Many view the incredible amount of manufacturing space in the city as an untapped asset. But in order to make manufacturing in the U.S. more attractive, Sutton suggests looking across the pond.
In the United Kingdom, for example, the first six months of rent are paid for by the government and there are generally fewer risks when it comes to starting a new business. In the United States, the risks tend to be much higher and business owners are, more or less, left to their own devices in order to survive.
Going forward, Sutton says he hopes to continue to grow Noble Denim, but does not want to sacrifice quality or care along the way. “I would be willing to be the next Levi’s, as long as we could maintain the quality.”
While the reshoring narrative continues from big manufacturers like General Electric, Masterlock or Ford, it is important to remember that a new generation of small businesses and manufacturing entrepreneurs are also making their mark on the American economy. Companies like Noble Denim are helping to revive industrial towns all across the country and take advantage of the many assets that cities like Cincinnati have.
One pair of jeans at a time, Noble Denim is creating good jobs for the middle class.
Anchor Building photographs by Jacob Fessler for UrbanCincy; Noble Denim workshop photographs provided.
According to data from the Federal Transit Authority (FTA), the State of Ohio provides some of the least amount of funding for its regional transit authorities of any state in America.
Texas, Georgia and Missouri also provide next to nothing to their various regional transit agencies, but in no other state are transit agencies as reliant on fares and local taxes as they are in the Buckeye State.
When broadening the search to examine transit agencies in the biggest cities across America, it also becomes clear that states like Pennsylvania, Utah and Maryland, Minnesota and Massachusetts invest large amounts of state dollars in transit. Some transit agencies with little state support, however, receive larger sums of money from regional transit taxes and federal aid.
Ohio’s three largest metropolitan regions – all with more than two million people – are different in this regard and have the least diverse range of financial support of transit agencies nationwide. For both Columbus and Cleveland, it means that well over 90% of their total revenues come from fares and local tax dollars, while in Cincinnati it is slightly better at 84% thanks to a bit more federal aid.
“In the recession we saw transit service cut while gas prices drove transit demand to record levels,” stated Akshai Singh, an Ohio Sierra Club representative with the advocacy organization Ohio for Transportation Choice. “Roughly all of the state’s public transportation funding now goes to operating rural transit services.”
Honolulu is the only other region in the United States that has 90% or more of its funds coming from just fares and local tax dollars. Cities in other states providing next to nothing also approach this threshold, but do not exceed it as is the case in Ohio.
It recently reported that the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) is one of the best stewards of limited financial resources, when compared to 11 peer agencies across the country. One of the key findings from Agenda 360 report was how little state financial support SORTA receives.
Part of the problem in Ohio is due to state cuts that have reduced funding for public transportation by 83% since 2000. Those cuts have forced transit agencies in the nation’s seventh most populous state to reduce service and increase fares over the past decade.
According to All Aboard Ohio, the state only provides approximately 1% of its transportation budget to transit, while more than 9% of the state’s population lives without a car.
In addition to regional transit, Ohio continues to be one of the most hostile states in terms of inter-city passenger rail. The state remains almost untouched by Amtrak’s national network and boasts the nation’s most densely populated corridor – Cincinnati to Cleveland – without any inter-city passenger rail service.
“When Governor Kasich came to office, the first thing he did was send back $400 million in federal dollars, for the 3C Corridor, on the basis that operations and maintenance would have been too onerous on the state,” Singh concluded. “Today, ODOT is allocating $240 million to build a $331 million, 3.5-mile highway extension through a 40% carless neighborhood on Cleveland’s east side, a staggering $100 million per mile new capacity road, while openly acknowledging they are reducing access for local residents.”
Sick of winter? So are we, so come join us in keeping warm at the Moerlein Lager House for the February URBANexchange tonight! This month’s event is dedicated to sneckdowns, the snow filled islands in roads where cars do not travel but where pedestrians could one day roam.
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 the biergarten 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 the Moerlein Lager House.
URBANexchange is free and open to the public. This month we are giving away two $25 gift cards from Findlay Market as door prizes so be sure to drop your name into the raffle.
We will be situated in the northwest corner of the biergarten (near the Moer To Go window), but you can also ask the host where the UrbanCincy group is located and they will be happy to assist.
The Moerlein Lager House is located on Cincinnati’s central riverfront and is located just one block from a future streetcar stop. If you choose to bike there is free and ample bike parking is available near our location in the biergarten outside by the Schmidlapp Event Lawn.
In early 2000s the University of Cincinnati Board of Trustees voted to build a new academic building for the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences along Clifton Avenue. That plan, of course, never came to reality due to fiscal constraints, but the unintended victim of that decision now be found in the rubble left behind by the now demolished Wilson Auditorium.
University officials revealed to UrbanCincy that while the Board of Trustees approved the new buildings, they did nothing to accommodate the ongoing maintenance costs of the aging Wilson Auditorium in the meantime. As a result, the building significantly deteriorated over the past five or so years.
In December part of the vision the Board of Trustees approved years ago came to reality when the 83-year-old structure was leveled. There are no plans, however, for any new academic facility to take its spot at this time.
Wilson Auditorium is now gone, but what will ultimately happen with the prominent site is anyone’s guess. Photograph by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.
According to the director of project management with the University of Cincinnati Office of Planning + Design + Construction, Dale Beeler, the site will be used as temporary classroom space during the $18.5 million renovation of the Teachers College over the next two years. That temporary space will amount to 25,000 square feet of modular buildings that the University of Cincinnati purchased from Cincinnati Public Schools following the district’s renovation of Walnut Hills High School.
What will happen with the prominent site on the university’s main campus is not yet clear.
“It is a too valuable piece of ground to leave unbuilt for an extended period of time,” explained Beeler. “Whatever is built there, however, would probably not be as imposing or close to Clifton Avenue as Wilson Auditorium.”
While the possibilities are wide open, the site is not. The small piece of land is surrounded by complicated slopes and other structures. The challenging site forced the previous design for the Arts & Sciences building to include a “tremendous amount of underground space” so that it was less imposing above ground.
While some rumors have included the possibility of a parking garage on the site, Beeler says that it will most likely be for some sort of academic use – indicating that either the Arts & Sciences building could come back into play, or the site could be used as the home for the new $70 million College of Law building.
Until any solidified plans are put on the table and funded, students and area residents and workers, Beeler says, will at least be able to enjoy a better view of McMicken Hall.
“It’s amazing what it’s done for the view of McMicken Hall from that side of campus! It looks twice as big and twice as imposing.”
