Tag: over-the-rhine

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Business News Politics Transportation

Special Streetcar Meeting Called by Roxanne Qualls in Light of Funding Issues

On Tuesday, City Manager Milton Dohoney sent a memo to council members that said after a thorough review of the bid process, construction of the streetcar tracks, electrical equipment, and maintenance facility will cost $17 million more than the city had budgeted. This news raises the total cost of the project from $110 million to approximately $127 million.

As a result Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls (C), Chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, has called a special meeting April 29 at 6pm. Dohoney will report on the costs of cancelling Cincinnati’s streetcar project, which broke ground in 2012.

Utility relocation work has been underway for more than a year, and fabrication of five streetcars began at CAF’s facility in Zaragoza, Spain in early 2013. The City of Cincinnati reports that $20.3 million has been spent on the streetcar project to date.

Ohio TRAC
Two failed ballot initiatives meant to kill the Cincinnati Streetcar, and the revocation of $51.8M from TRAC have delayed temporarily set back the project for years. Photograph by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.

So far Cincinnati’s streetcar has been the recipient of three federal grants totaling $39.9 million dollars. If the project is cancelled, the city will likely have to reimburse the federal government for whatever grant funds have been spent. Additionally, it will either need to cancel its contract with CAF or sell the five streetcars to another city after they are completed in 2014.

Planning for the streetcar project began in late 2006. A study was completed in 2007 and funding was assembled in 2008. On the cusp of groundbreaking, COAST, the notorious local anti-tax group, mounted a petition drive that saw an anti-streetcar charter amendment placed on the November 2009 ballot. Issue 9 was defeated, but it succeeded in delaying the project by a year.

During that same election, John Kasich (R) was elected governor of Ohio. He immediately cancelled Ohio’s 3C Passenger Rail project, scuttled state funding for new express Metro routes funded under outgoing Governor Ted Strickland (D), and appointed Jerry Wray chair of the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT).

In April 2011, the Transit Review Advisory Committee (TRAC), also chaired by Wray, cancelled $51.8 million in state for Cincinnati’s streetcar project and directed the funds to railroad overpass projects in rural Ohio.

Without its largest grant, a connection to the University of Cincinnati was removed from the project’s first phase.

Sensing weakness, COAST mounted another petition drive and again succeeded in placing an anti-streetcar charter amendment on the ballot. Issue 48 was defeated but succeeded in delaying the project for another full year.

In that same election, all incumbent Republicans, with the exception of Charlie Winburn, were swept from council and replaced by a 6-3 pro-streetcar majority. The project broke ground in February 2012 but the track, electrical, and car barn contract was delayed by litigation between the City and Duke Energy.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) ruled in the city’s favor in late 2012 and the project was put out to bid in February 2013.

Bids came in significantly higher than the city budgeted, and on April 29 council will hear the cost of cancelling the project verses continuing with the project as planned, presumably after voting to sell $17 million more in bonds.

After this rise in the project’s cost from $110 million to $127 million, annual debt service paid from the city’s capital fund will be approximately $4 million. Operations costs, paid from the operations general fund, will be about $3 million.

The $7 million annual cost to operate the streetcar system will consume less than 2% of the city’s annual $400 million budget.

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Up To Speed

Parking Requirement Removal Makes Housing More Affordable

Parking Requirement Removal Makes Housing More Affordable

Hot on the heels of Cincinnati’s move to begin eliminating parking requirements in the urban core, UCLA has released a study that highlights how excess parking from parking requirements contribute to the increase in rent or mortgage payment for developments that may not need as much parking as a city’s code requires. The study highlights how parking spots, costing between $30,000 to $50,000 a space can raise rents by as much as $140 a month. More from Streetsblog:

Minimum parking requirements result in more space being dedicated to parking than is really needed; in a world of height limits, floor-area ratios, and endless other development regulations this necessarily leaves less space for actual housing. What really struck me, though, was the straightforward assertion that housing marketed toward non-drivers sells for less than housing with parking spaces. It’s powerful, but it’s also obvious: parking costs money to build, so of course buildings with less parking are cheaper. But to have research-driven data behind it adds force to the conclusion.

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Business Development News Transportation

Cincinnati Proposes Eliminating Parking Requirements in Downtown and Over-the-Rhine

The City of Cincinnati will hold a public conference this evening about proposed amendment to the zoning code that would deregulate parking requirements throughout the center city.

According to city officials, the amendment would create new ‘Urban Parking Districts’ and remove the current regulations that mandate how many parking spaces must be provided for any new development or for any project that is modifying the use of an existing structure.

The efforts to get rid of the parking requirements throughout the center city have been ongoing for years.

In June 2010, city officials moved forward with new legislation that allowed for a 50% parking reduction for residences located within 600 feet of a streetcar stop. Then in March 2012, Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls (C) introduced a motion, which was co-sponsored by six other council members, to eliminate all parking requirements throughout the Central Business District and Over-the-Rhine.

Over-the-Rhine
Over-the-Rhine’s existing historic fabric is at risk of further demolitions, due to current parking requirements, as investment continues to pour into the neighborhood. Photograph by Randy Simes for UrbanCincy.

Last March, UrbanCincy examined just how these off-street parking mandates are stifling growth and investment in the center city, which was largely built before the advent of the automobile. The requirements have led to not only increased costs for small businesses, but they have also led to an excess of parking in these neighborhoods.

The parking regulations also make it particularly difficult to redevelop smaller historic buildings like the ones found throughout Over-the-Rhine.

“Requiring parking for historic structures that have never had parking is incentivizing their demolition. This puts the property owner in a really difficult position; he must either find parking for the building, demolish it or let it languish in perpetuity.” Nashville city planner, Joni Priest, told UrbanCincy last March. “If a property owner wants to rehab an historic building – a building that marks the character of a neighborhood and contributes to the fabric of the city – all incentives, including the elimination of parking requirements, should be considered.”

Parking requirements have also contributed to the increased costs of redevelopment in these historic neighborhoods.

Last April, Chad Munitz, Executive Vice President of Development and Operations of the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC), estimated that existing parking mandates cost developers, on average, $5,000 for one surface parking space and $25,000 for a structured parking space. The increased cost associated with that parking, Munitz says, is then passed on to the consumer and raises the price of a residential unit by as much as $25,000.

The City of Cincinnati’s Planning & Buildings Department will host the public conference this evening at 5:30pm at Two Centennial Plaza, which is located at 805 Central Avenue downtown, and is well-served by a number of Metro bus routes (plan your trip). City officials say that the meeting will take place on the 7th floor, Suite 720 in the Martin Griesel Room A.

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Up To Speed

Rhinegeist Brewing to open in OTR’s Brewery District

Rhinegeist Brewing to open in OTR’s Brewery District.

Another brewing operation will join Christian Moerlein in Over-the-Rhine’s historic Brewery District. The new brewery, called Rhinegeist Brewing, will renovate and operate out of the second floor of the former Christian Moerlein bottling plant on Elm Street. More from the Cincinnati Enquirer:

A building that could never be recreated comes back to life. A diverse group of angel investors provides financing, drawn by the potential return and promise of adventure. And the revitalization of the urban core, where entrepreneurs are already bouncing off each other like pinballs, takes another step forward.

Bob Bonder, president of the Tazza Mia chain of coffee houses, and business partner Bryant Goulding are renovating the second floor of the Christian Moerlein bottling plant, work that will advance the revitalization of a growing Brewery District that made Cincinnati a Midwest Brewing hub at the turn of the 20th century. Bonder and Goulding plan to turn part of the 250,000-square-foot complex on Elm Street just north of Findlay Market into a craft brewery called Rhinegeist Brewing.

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Up To Speed

MOTR ownership team to renovate Woodward Theater into 600-person music venue

MOTR ownership team to renovate Woodward Theater into 600-person music venue.

MOTR Pub has become an Over-the-Rhine destination with seven days a week of live music. The success at the small music venue has encouraged the owners to embark on a new venture, and they will acquire the vacant Woodward Theater building across the street and open a second venue. More from the Cincinnati Business Courier:

The new renovations will be extensive. McCabe plans to eliminate a staircase in the center, add a new staircase to one side, install bathrooms and bars, and build a stage that juts out into the crowd.

For bands, the Woodward would provide the bridge between smaller bars like MOTR and larger area venues such as the Taft Theatre and Bogart’s. It would also give Cincinnati a leg up in attracting musicians, McCabe said. When a band is making its way from Chicago to Nashville, it doesn’t make stops at Indianapolis, Columbus and then Cincinnati; it just picks one.