Tag: downtown

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Up To Speed

Bunbury Music Festival impresses in year one

Bunbury Festival: 2012 Wrap Up | Each Note Secure.

Cincinnati has been left without a noteworthy summer rock festival since Desdemona ended and never returned in 2006. That was until Bunbury entered the scene July 13-15. The music festival went up against an impressive array of local events and two well-established rock festivals nearby in Louisville and Chicago. More from Each Note Secure:

Regardless of Bunbury’s minor hiccups, I was blown away by the size, organization, and turnout of the festival. The festival pulled in 55,000 people in its first year, which is mighty impressive considering it shared dates with two other musical festivals that have been around since 2002 and 2005 respectively…Bunbury haters will continue to balk over the lineup (there’s always Midpoint!), but I was impressed that the festival was able to draw a wide range of folks, from older fans of GBV and Jane’s Addiction to the younger fans who came out for Neon Trees.

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Up To Speed

With World Choir Games finished, Cincinnati eyes next major event

With World Choir Games finished, Cincinnati eyes next major event.

The 2012 World Choir Games exceeded all expectations, and city officials are being praised for their ability to execute the international event flawlessly. With the two-week event now over, Cincinnati leaders are eyeing what might be the next major event for the Queen City. More from the Cincinnati Enquirer:

As the Games’ concerts and contests unfolded, as medals were won and lost, as choirs from around the world roamed the streets of Cincinnati giving this old river city a vibrant international feel thanks to midday traffic jams, conversations flavored with a multitude of accents and scenes sweetened by sidewalks teaming with smiling faces, the city’s party planners made a wish list. The events discussed included: Cincinnati’s 225th birthday, a World Choir Games-sanctioned Games of the Americas – starring choirs from the tip of North America to the toes of South America – and a new Tall Stacks Music, Arts & Heritage Festival, all in 2013; Baseball’s 2015 All-Star Game, and the University of Cincinnati’s bicentennial in 2019.

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Up To Speed

What happened to Cincinnati’s once proud Sixth Street Market?

What happened to Cincinnati’s once proud Sixth Street Market?.

Everyone in Cincinnati knows about Findlay Market, Ohio’s oldest farmers market, but the Queen City once boasted six such markets throughout the urban core. The last to go was the Sixth Street Market which was torn down in 1960. More from the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Two market houses stood in the middle of Sixth Street. One sold meat, eggs and dairy; the other was a popular flower market. Along the curbs, the city leased 111 stands to sell fruits and vegetables of every kind. Young girls sold baskets and pretzels…Their end could be seen coming for a while. Downtown was undergoing urban renewal. Traffic needed an entrance to the Mill Creek Expressway, now known as Interstate 75.

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Business Development News

Second phase of construction looms for The Banks

With the phase 1A of The Banks development now at capacity, the development team is gearing up to start construction on the next wave of vertical construction.

Project officials now say that there is a 60-person waiting list for the 300 apartments and 92 percent of the 96,000 square feet of retail space at The Banks are occupied. At the same time, the City of Cincinnati and Hamilton County have finished work on the public infrastructure that will lift future phases of The Banks out of the Ohio River’s 100-year flood plain.

Developers are optimistic that work can soon begin on phases 1B and 1C which include an office tower at Second Street and Walnut Street, and a hotel at Freedom Way and Main Street.


Phase 1A of The Banks development is already at capacity, and investors are gearing up for construction of the next wave of buildings. Photograph by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.

“We are in active discussions with potential hotel developers, and we’ve been out there trying to sell that office pad site,” explained Libby Korosec, Public Relations Representative for The Banks development team. “The office market is tough in downtown Cincinnati right now with the Great American Tower coming online.”

Korosec says it will more than likely take a 60 to 70 percent pre-sale on the office building to make it a reality, but that they are moving forward with plans for phase two which will include another 300 apartments and ground level retail.

The second phase of work will take place along Vine Street in between Second Street and Freedom Way, and work is expected to break ground in December 2012. In addition to phase two work, passerbys will most likely see work begin on the second restaurant building pad in front of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in the near future.

“The Freedom Center pads are part of phase one work, and we are in active discussions for the other pad site to compliment Yard House,” Korosec told UrbanCincy.

While phase 1A retail is nearly fully leased, all of it is occupied by bars and restaurants. In early 2012, the project’s commercial leasing agent said that has been the target tenant thus far, but the development team is now saying there may be some flexibility to that leasing strategy.

“Phase two will be mixed with retail of some type, but we’re not sure if it will be the same mix as phase one, or more of a service retail mix to service The Banks and Downtown,” Korosec clarified. “We’re out there right now taking a look at what that mix is, and what kind of density we want to build.”

Once complete, The Banks will be the region’s largest mixed-use development and will house more than 3,000 new residents. The economic impact of phase 1A work is already estimated at more than $91 million annually – a number that will grow to $276 million once the office tower and hotel are complete.

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News Opinion Politics

Steve Chabot Attempts to Overturn the Will of Cincinnati Voters

There they go again. After two failed initiatives (Issue 9 and Issue 48) to defeat fixed rail public transportation at the ballot boxes, enemies of the Cincinnati Streetcar project are once again moving to bar the city from completing what has been billed as crucial to the economic development of Over-the-Rhine and downtown. This time they found an ally at the congressional level.

Last week, Representative Steve Chabot (R), Ohio’s District One representative, and native of the west side of Cincinnati coyly inserted an amendment into the Transportation Housing and Urban Development (THUD) bill that would bar the use of federal dollars in funding any project in Cincinnati that is on a “fixed guideway” system. The bill is currently in the Senate where it will be voted on and forwarded to the President for his signature should it pass.

The amendment, which reads, “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to design, construct, or operate a fixed guideway project located in Cincinnati, Ohio,” is designed as an attempt to stop the Cincinnati Streetcar project. The amendment’s language mirrors that of both Issue’s 9 & 48 but has even broader and more far reaching consequences than either of the two failed ballot initiatives.

According to the Federal government, a fixed guideway is defined as:

Any transit service that uses exclusive or controlled rights-of-way or rails, entirely or in part. The term includes heavy rail, commuter rail, light rail, monorail, trolleybus, aerial tramway, inclined plane, cable car, automated guideway transit, ferryboats, that portion of motor bus service operated on exclusive or controlled rights-of-way, and high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lanes.

This broad definition means that not only would the amendment preclude that no federal funding go towards the streetcar project but that federal funds would also be barred from being used towards any improvement of the following city projects:

  • Upgrading the city’s overcrowded freight rail system: The city has previously asked for state and federal funding to add a “fourth main” freight rail line expanding the regions freight rail capacity and reducing the impact of an existing freight rail bottleneck along the three main freight lines adjacent to the Mill Creek. The City can’t even ask for this solution if the amendment goes forward.
  • Development of the city’s Bus Rapid Transit system: SORTA and the City have been conducting studies on implementing BRT on several streets in Cincinnati including Reading Road and Montgomery Road. This amendment will make it impossible for the project to utilize much needed federal funds to buy buses and construct stops and street improvements.
  • Development of the Eastern Corridor and Wasson Line for light or commuter rail: Both of these rail lines would connect downtown to the east side of the city. Without federal funds neither project can even be studied. This includes any study on the possibility of a “Rails and trails” combined bicycle path on the Wasson Line.

This amendment is a poison pill meant to punish the progress of Cincinnati and its revitalizing urban core and overrules and ignores the will of the city electorate. It serves only the shortsighted will of vocal minority and threatens to leave our entire metropolitan region at a competitive disadvantage against other regions as we move towards a 21st century economy.

We strongly urge supporters of transportation infrastructure to write Ohio Senators Sherrod Brown (D) and Rob Portman (R) to remove this overly restrictive language from the THUD bill. Additionally, we encourage supporters of transportation infrastructure in Ohio’s First Congressional District to give Representative Chabot an earful over this callous disregard towards voters in his home district.

Happy Independence Day!