Those who haven’t been living under a rock for the past five years know that a lot has happened in Cincinnati’s center city during that time frame. On Sunday TBS’ announcers spoke highly of the transformation that has occurred in downtown Cincinnati since the Reds last playoff appearance in 2010, and with the eyes of the baseball world focused squarely on the city this evening, it seems as though the nation will get a front row seat to that progress. More from the Associated Press:
Less than two years ago, little more than a giant parking lot occupied the half-mile between the stadiums of the Cincinnati Reds and Bengals along the Ohio River.
After more than $600 million in new development between the two stadiums, there are now six distinct bars and restaurants, a popular riverfront park and high-end apartments that are touted as being “Cincinnati’s premier live-work-play destination” and charge rent in the thousands…A few blocks over is a new $322 million, 41-story office tower that’s the tallest building in the city, and a 20-minute walk away is the trendy Over-the-Rhine historic district that used to be best known as a haven for crime and the site of the city’s 2001 race riots. Now dozens of bedraggled buildings in the district have been renovated into popular bars and restaurants and a once crime-prone park has undergone a $48 million makeover to become one of the city’s best venues for concerts, outdoor movie viewings and flea markets.
Developers of The Banks hope to break ground in early 2013 on the next major phase of construction work at the $600 million development.
Following the success of the $91 million Phase 1, newly revealed designs for the riverfront development call for an additional 300 apartment units, more than 60,000 square feet of street-level retail and more than 400 parking spaces at the block southeast of Race and Second streets, said Libby Korosec, spokeswoman for The Banks development team. The structure is one building, but appears to be two, sitting on a three-story foundation.
The next major phase of construction at The Banks is planned to get started in early 2013. Rendering provided.
The Banks development team has until now been quiet about the design for the second major phase. According to principals at the Preston Design Partnership, an Atlanta firm selected by Carter for Phase 2 design work, the designs have received approval from Cincinnati’s Urban Design Review Board after two “productive” meetings over the course of the summer.
“The review board liked the concept, but they thought we had watered down the idea across all of the elevations in terms of its 3D massing,” said Edsel Arnold, senior design principal with Preston Design. “They also wanted us to look at how the structure appeared within the city skyline view, and were worried that some of the original color on the building would look too cold in front of the city skyline.”
Taking the board’s comments into consideration, Arnold said that the team went back to the drawing board to better match color schemes with the surrounding cityscape and build upon their design concept.
Building reflects city’s grid, riverfront
The end results include more gray and light blue colors to match existing buildings in the Central Business District. With a strong emphasis placed by the UDRB on integrating the designs of Phase 2 with the city skyline in mind, the colors were considered a critical element.
Arnold said the three-story base of the building will include brick to match that of other nearby structures and also offer some variation in the building’s use of materials. The two structures that will rise from the base will largely be made up of grayish-blue glass and vertical white columns.
Preston’s concept was influenced by the unique convergence of Cincinnati’s orthogonal grid street system with the organic curves of the central waterfront, Arnold said. It was this design concept that led to an eye-catching curved glass façade on the north side of the 10-story structure.
“Being from Atlanta, we were struck by the way that the city comes out of the plain and comes out to the water’s edge,” Arnold explained. “We decided it would be fun to play a strong curve along one of the walls, and let the other three sides play up more of the grid system of the city.”
To that end, the remaining three walls will be flat, as is true with most buildings in downtown Cincinnati. And a popular design element carried over from Phase One, balconies, will be incorporated onto the building’s western and southern façades to take advantage of city and river views.
From here, the design team will return to the design review board for final approval later this fall.
“We don’t have a schedule set for Phase 2 yet, but we are pleased with the progress being made on the development overall,” Korosec said.
Developer still seeking hotel, office deals
Project officials also say that they continue to work on negotiations for a potential operator for a hotel tower and tenants for an office tower planned to be built within the footprint of Phase 1 work. Townhouses planned to front along the Schmidlapp Event Lawn are also pending financing.
Once complete, the $2.5 billion public-private development partnership will transform Cincinnati’s central riverfront with 3,000 new residents, 1 million square feet of commercial space and 300,000 square feet of hotel space. The first major phase of construction work was completed in 2011 and has been considered a major success by city officials and the development team, with 100 percent of its apartments leased and about 92 percent of its 96,000 square feet of retail space occupied.
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Cincinnati leaders announced a major step today in moving forward the construction schedule of the Cincinnati Streetcar, after a recent memo from City Manager Milton Dohoney conceded that the project had been delayed to summer 2015.
According to the August 28 memo, city officials had not been able to resolve negotiations with Duke Energy over utility replacement costs. A new legislative package, which is set to go before the Budget & Finance Committee on September 24, seeks to sidestep the negotiations and start the next phase of utility relocation work on the streetcar.
“It is not feasible to sit idle awaiting an outcome,” City Manager Dohoney explained in a prepared statement.
The first piece of legislation establishes a $15 million account from which the City will advance the work for the Duke Energy utilities until the City and the energy company can fully address who must pay for the relocation of electrical and gas lines under city streets. This figure is what was disclosed to the City by Duke Energy as the cost of utility relocation and design work.
While both parties reached an agreement to the three feet separation from the tracks, as is used in other cities, the ongoing issue is over who is responsible to pay the cost of utility relocation. The City has maintained that the streetcar is a transportation improvement project and that Duke Energy is responsible for utility relocation costs.
City officials broke ground on the streetcar project earlier this year. Photograph by 5chw4r7z.
Funding for the account will come from part of the recent $37 million sale of land adjacent to the former Blue Ash Airport. As recently reported by UrbanCincy, the City of Cincinnati sold most of the former airport land to the City of Blue Ash for a new park but retained approximately 100 acres.
Once an agreement is reached in the dispute, the City expects that the $15 million will be recovered and become available for other investments throughout the city. According to City officials, by fronting the cost of utility relocation work, it will be able to avoid potential legal disputes and any further delay or cost increases.
The second piece of legislation changes the funding source for repayment of $14 million of the $25 million in notes issued as part of the original streetcar project proposal. According to the City’s finance department, the funding shift does not add cost to the project but instead shifts the funding temporarily from the Downtown South TIF District to a fund created in 1995 that collects service payments from Westin/Star, Hyatt and Saks. Half of these funds are reserved for housing projects throughout the city and the other half is currently unallocated. Once the City revises the districts revenue funding it will be able to assess how much debt it can borrow against the revised Downtown South TIF District.
The final item for consideration is a right-of-way ordinance confirming and clarifying the City’s existing historic rights for utility relocation. This legislation, also enacted in other large Ohio cities, unequivocally asserts a municipality’s authority to require a utility in the public right-of-way to relocate its facilities – at the utility’s sole cost – when required in order to accommodate construction of a public improvement.
City officials have disclosed to UrbanCincy that they are confident an agreement with Duke Energy will be reached. In the meantime, this procedure will allow crucial construction of the streetcar to advance, including track construction work and ordering of the streetcar vehicles.
“Cincinnati is still growing and the streetcar project is still a part of that,” City Spokesperson Meg Oldberding told UrbanCincy. “This should be a good signal that the streetcar is moving forward.”
The Budget & Finance Committee meeting will be held on Monday September 24 at 10:30am in Room 300, in City Council Chambers at City Hall.
UPDATE: The two items passed through City Council’s Budget & Finance Committee 6-3 with P.G. Sittenfeld (D), Charlie Winburn (R), and Christopher Smitherman (I) voting in opposition. The Budget & Finance Committee is made up of the full nine-member City Council which is expected to pass the measures by the same margin at their regular meeting this Wednesday.
Clifton residents are close to being able to shop at a newly remodeled grocery store that has taken the place of Keller’s IGA after its closure in 2011. Although work on reopening the neighborhood grocery store had been delayed, Steve Goessling, who purchased the struggling store after it closed, is close to winning approval of a crucial development loan package that will relaunch the store with an expanded food selection more tuned to the neighborhoods needs. More from the Cincinnati Enquirer:
If all goes as planned, Goessling will accomplish a feat far more amazing than simply opening a new neighborhood market. He’ll prove that big things can happen when a business, a city and its people give their time, energy and money to a common cause, even in the worst economy. In this case, Goessling will bring back the fresh fruits and vegetables, meats, wines and beers that neighborhood shoppers sorely miss. He’ll return a business district anchor, recreate the neighborhood’s chief gathering place and likely make a nice living for himself, too.
The residents and boosters have cause to celebrate. Downtown Cincinnati has added more than 5,000 residents over the past five years. Over the past decade, crime has also dropped approximately 25 percent, retail occupancy rates have improved to their best levels in five years, and overall employment is up.
Crave is one of dozens of new businesses to open downtown so far in 2012. Photograph by Randy Simes for UrbanCincy.
All of the progress has neighborhood advocates excited about the state of their slice of Americana, and they want the whole region to learn more about the progress.
“Live It Up Downtown is an opportunity to celebrate our vibrant residential community,” David Ginsburg, President and CEO of DCI, stated in a prepared release. “A lively group of residents will be on hand to meet and find out first-hand why they chose to live downtown.”
According to organizers, the event will run from 3pm to 11pm on Fountain Square, and will feature realtors and property managers on-hand to provide information about downtown living options. There will also be scheduled entertainment, live music, food and drink available for purchase, and more than 30 small businesses and organizations on-hand to discuss their involvement in the center city.
Those interested in checking out available residential units downtown will be treated to open houses at the American Building, Lofts at Fountain Square, The McAlpin, Glass House Lofts, 18 East Fourth, and Current at The Banks from 3pm to 6pm.
