Tag: over-the-rhine

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Arts & Entertainment News

PHOTOS: 2013 Bockfest Turned Out the Crowds on Busy Weekend

The Trojan Goat at the 2013 Bockfest Parade

Bockfest celebrated another great year of spring-time and beer celebrations over the past weekend. Record crowds reportedly turned out for the festival’s 21st year, and UrbanCincy was there to “cover” it all on your behalf.

For those not familiar with some of the otherwise peculiar traditions of Cincinnati’s lesser-known, seasonal beer festival, let us explain.

The lead goat is named Schnitzel, and the reason goats play such a prominent role in Bockfest activities is because Bock is the German word for goat, and those references to goats are what give bock beers their names.

The reason you see a bunch of monks, or people dressed as monks, walking around is because bock beers have historically been associated with special religious occasions, like  Lent, and Bavarian monks were known for brewing and consuming bock beers as a source of nutrition during times of fasting.

The following 36 photographs were taken by Jake Mecklenborg during the annual Bockfest Parade and at Grammer’s, Neons Unplugged and Bockfest Hall at the Christian Moerlein Brewery. Click on any of the images to view its full size. You can also click through the entire 2013 Bockfest photo gallery by clicking on the first image and scrolling through the collection.

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Development News Opinion

GUEST EDITORIAL: Horseshoe Casino Fails to Deliver on Urban Design

The completed Rock Gaming/Caesars joint venture boasts a list of features one would expect of a casino: 354,000 square feet, $400 million price tag, restaurants, bars, a 2,500-space parking garage, and space for business meetings and conventions. None of these features should come as a shock to anyone that’s ever been in a casino.

The touted difference between Horseshoes Cincinnati and Cleveland and casinos elsewhere, is that these have been deemed “truly urban” casinos. Well, if locating in a downtown is all that’s needed to make something urban, then mission accomplished. But since a downtown is a living collection of buildings and spaces, whether something is truly urban has more to do with how it contributes or detracts from its location. And since casinos are not known to be particularly friendly urban creatures, the most recent example being CityCenter, it’s worth looking at some of the concerns expressed to the unnamed Las Vegas starchitect Dan Gilbert imposed.

Cincinnati Casino
The only actual limestone you will find on the site is the wall coping around the lawn- note the whiteness of the caps compared to the synthetic stucco below.

The first thing I think of when I look at the new casino from any angle is tan. Why in the world is it so tan? Color wasn’t something that was a key talking point for the casino, though the Urban Design Review Board has now made that a priority at The Banks, but the tan-ness of the building really dominates all other exterior features. This domination lies with the use of synthetic stucco to emulate limestone. The issue here is not with modern building technology, but that it was misused in both color and implementation.

The implementation failure lies in the lack of any ornament within the stucco. One of the main reasons for using limestone is that it is one of the best stones for showing carved detailed, as can be seen just blocks away at 30 E. Central Parkway. Why try to emulate a limestone building if the only way you do that is by using fake alternate panels and stopping there?

These two issues with the exterior of the building can be summed up in one way: the Messer Pendleton Bid Package required $5,033,623 for exterior metal framing/stucco, and $6,967,980 for interior wall framing and drywall and $2,268,821 for painting and wall coverings. The casino allocated an amount for the interior walls almost twice that of the exterior walls.

30 E. Central Parkway

The second oddity that stands out is the number of offsets, particularly on Reading Road. Offsets are a common feature of large single-story buildings, like Wal-Mart and Kroger, to break up the mass of these behemoths. But what’s the goal here? To confuse the pedestrian or neighbor across Reading into thinking that these are multiple windowless buildings? Admit you’re a grand building like Music Hall or Union Terminal. Walking west down Reading is like passing by massive stone boulders. There’s no beauty or nuance to the walls save for two large brick panel insets and foundation plantings.

“With the strong support of this very active, urban-focused community, our team has been working for more than a year to ensure that our project does not prosper alone but also benefits the surrounding neighborhoods and region. The outward facing design and pedestrian accessibility will rejuvenate this part of town, while putting thousands of people into good-paying jobs.”- Dan Gilbert- Chairman, Rock Gaming.

“Outward facing design” is a catchphrase that was repeated throughout the design process. What does that mean? To this project it means having one main entrance and restaurants with windows and a patio, quite the accomplishment for typically fortress-like buildings. But to say the design of the project is outward facing because of the openness of only 360 feet of the entire building’s facade and at only one of the intersections surround the site is like saying a restaurant near the entrance of a mall is outward facing because it’s on the exterior of the building.

Reading Road Quarry
Richard Rosenthal was right about his concern over a “gully-like” feeling down Reading. In fact, it’s a quarry.

Urban design was really were there was the most input from local groups on how the casino will most likely affect the everyday life in the public realm around the casino.

Terminated vistas – views that focus on a deliberately chosen object or scene – is a historical design concept used to draw people towards a building and create the appearance that destinations are closer than they appear, encouraging pedestrians to walk.

In the case of the casino, the site’s prow-shaped western end at the corner of Central Parkway, Reading and Eggleston creates the opportunity to terminate the view looking east down Central at the casino entrance and the developer has taken that opportunity. Again, as with the offsets, there is a lack of grandness to the view as the casino is dwarfed by the height of the buildings leading to it down Central, rendering it almost insignificant.

Central Parkway Vista

The view down Pendleton towards the casino would sad if it wasn’t so tan. No pedestrian connectivity, no windows, not even roof treatment. Nothing.

While the focus of activity for the casino will be at its entrance and new lawn for the county jail, the opportunity for Pendleton lies in what happens north of and down Reading.

From the site’s layout, you can see that building coverage isn’t great on either side of Reading Road for certain spans. And oddly enough, the casino chose to build near the street for the span west of Pendleton where there are no buildings on the north side of Reading, and then chose to back away from the street for its loading docks for the span east of Pendleton where there are buildings on the north side of Reading. And since Rock Gaming owns the stretch on the south side of Reading, it’s extremely doubtful that organic infill development ever occurs in this area.

To end where the casino does, urban casinos are not uses that fail for any reason other than over taxation. When the casino opens and rightfully provides a local opportunity to keep the poor man’s tax from leaving for Indiana or Las Vegas, let’s be careful not to confuse its popularity with quality.

This guest editorial was authored by Eric Douglas, a native of Grand Rapids, MI who currently lives in Covington’s Roebling Point neighborhood. Eric is a member of the Congress for New Urbanism and earned a Bachelors of Science from Michigan State University. Since that time he has worked for Planning, Community Development and Public Works departments in Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Detroit. If you would like to have your thoughts published on UrbanCincy you can do so by submitting your guest editorial to urbancincy@gmail.com.

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Business Development News Politics

Inner-City Neighborhoods Center of Population, Economic Power in Cincinnati Region

The Cincinnati region has been one of the nation’s best economic performers over the past several years, and that has resulted in a 6.4% unemployment rate that is more than a point better the national average.

According to the U.S. Census, more than 968,000 jobs are scattered all over the region, but it is the City of Cincinnati that stands out as the dominant force for the 2.1 million person region.

As the numbers in the City of Cincinnati’s 2013/2014 Biennial Budget Report show, the financial standing of the central business district is critically important to the overall financial health of the entire city and county. According to the report, income taxes brought in $234 million last year – nearly 71% of the City’s total revenue in 2012.

Cincinnati Employment Density Cincinnati Employment/Population Share
While outlying suburban communities have seen an influx of jobs over the past 30 years, Downtown and Uptown remain the region’s preeminent job centers. Employment Density Map and Employment/Population Share Map by Nate Wessel for UrbanCincy.

In the Cincinnati Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), center city neighborhoods account for the highest concentration of jobs, with more than 22,000 jobs per square mile in Downtown’s 45202 zip code, and anywhere from 3,000 to 9,000 jobs per square mile in Uptown neighborhoods.

“Downtown and Uptown are the City’s largest employment centers and therefore they are very important to the City’s financial health,” said Lea Ericksen, Cincinnati’s Budget Director. “We want all our neighborhoods to improve tax earnings by increasing residents, jobs and overall economic vitality, but we are focused on the six GO Cincinnati strategy areas for redevelopment.”

Cincinnati’s 2.1% income tax largely goes to support the General Fund which pays for operating expenses like police officers and fire fighters. Smaller percentages also go to pay for public transit operated by the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) and capital investments in City buildings and infrastructure.

Ericksen projects that while income taxes will remain the same, they will grow in value by approximately 2.6% annually over the next six years.

Income & Property Tax Earnings (2004-2016)
The City of Cincinnati has experienced steady growth in income tax revenues since 2004, but it has struggled to recover from the previous decade’s housing crash. Chart produced by UrbanCincy.

Property taxes are the next largest revenue generator for City Hall – accounting for $23.9 million in 2012. City officials expect this number remain stable over the next four years following an initial $7.8 million annual bump should the current property tax rollback be eliminated and set at 6.1 mils.

Like the clustering of jobs in the city’s urban core, the most heavily populated neighborhoods are also located within the center of the region.

“People are very interested in center cities, and we have an exceptionally attractive center city,” David Ginsburg, President/CEO of Downtown Cincinnati Inc. told UrbanCincy. “The architecture here and the geography that we have being in the valley. We just have a compact, spectacular downtown, and I think we have barely touched the surface of what the market can bear.”

Some of the most valuable residences are located along the central riverfront and eastside neighborhoods, with recent growth in northern communities in Butler and Warren Counties.

Cincinnati Population Density
Several neighborhoods boast densities of 7,000 or more people per square mile, and those neighborhoods are all centrally located. Population Density Map by Nate Wessel for UrbanCincy.

Uptown neighborhoods surrounding the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University, Downtown/Over-the-Rhine, and close-in neighborhoods on the westside and along the Northern Kentucky riverfront are the most densely populated in the region.

“We’ve seen quite a bit of where we rehab a home, the neighbor decides to rehab their home,” Ken Smith, Executive Director of Price Hill Will, said about the development corporation’s Buy-Improve-Sell program which has rehabilitated 52 thus far in 30,000-person neighborhood, on episode 14 of The UrbanCincy Podcast. “People are very impressed with the housing stock in the neighborhood, and they are often quite impressed.”

Not all is well, though, for city leaders as they attempt to recover from the housing crash that took place between 2006 and 2010. Neighborhoods like East and West Price Hill are aggressively working to improve their residential housing stock by getting rid of vacant units even by taking advantage of hundreds of demolitions planned throughout the city.

“We are working with the Hamilton County Land Bank to get these empty lots into hands of those next door, but there are going to be a few houses that I wish we could save, and in better times maybe we would have the money to save it, but in better times they may not have gotten to that point,” explained Price Hill Will’s Matt Strauss, Director of Marketing & Neighborhood Promotion at Price Hill Will. “The goal is not only to bolster owner occupancy, but to increase property values in the neighborhood.”

Listen to episode 14 of The UrbanCincy Podcast with the leaders at Price Hill Will to hear more about the work being done on the westside to recover from the housing crash, and episode 15 with David Ginsburg to get the latest insight on the region’s economic engine. You can stream our podcasts online or subscribe to our bi-weekly podcast on iTunes for free.

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Business News Opinion

Free parking crusader strikes Over-the-Rhine, channels inner Cool Hand Luke

Vandalized Parking Meter in OTR

Slashed meters and broken meter tops liter the normally beautiful Orchard Street in Over-the-Rhine, and many other streets throughout the historic neighborhood.

The epidemic of destroyed or stolen parking meters is plaguing this beautifully dense city neighborhood where on-street parking is an ever-increasing concern for new residents.

Residents began to notice the meters being vandalized in November 2012 when the city initially announced its intentions to lease its parking system to a private entity. The city insists that the vandalism and parking privatization is not connected. However, UrbanCincy’s investigative sleuthing has found that although the meters are not connected to city sabotage, they are instead connected to a lone vigilante who wants nothing more than to park…for free!


Cincinnati has its very own Cool Hand Luke!

“You shouldn’t have to pay to park,” exclaimed the culprit from a shadowy street corner.

The vigilante who goes by the name Free Space Man, agreed to speak to UrbanCincy only after we agreed to pay for his two-hour metered spot on Liberty Street so that he would not harm the meter. The vigilante described his day-to-day activities, meticulously choosing the meters to be vandalized and deciding on the best time of day to strike.

He says he travels the country, setting out to rid the world of working parking meters so he can park his 2007 Range Rover at metered spots for free. He came to Cincinnati when he heard about the parking privatization.

“I didn’t even know you had meters and now the city is selling them off. Parking should be free…why do they even charge? That’s the real crime,” Free Space Man said as he sliced off another parking meter at the corner of Elm and Green Street.

Attempts at trying to inform the vigilante on the revenues parking brings in to the city and how it allows businesses to turnover spots for patrons seemed to fall on deaf ears with this eccentric individual.

The vandal disclosed that his most brazen act of social defiance was in San Francisco, where leaders there attempted to install smart parking meter technology. One day, shortly after the new meters installation, a parking meter head was found at the foot of the mayors’ bed with coins still rolling out from its receptacle.

“That man was a menace to our town,” disclosed Tom Delegado, the mayor of San Francisco City Hall on foursquare. “He’s a terror to parking enforcement everywhere!”

Officials who have dealt with the villain have described him as squirrely and demented, and warn that the only defense measure is to throw copies of Donald Shoup’s 763-page book, The High Cost of Free Parking, at the bandit until he finally flees to another town, hopefully never to return.

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Up To Speed

A decade later, Cincinnati still debating streetcar issue

A decade later, Cincinnati still debating streetcar issue.

More than a decade has passed since Cincinnati’s debate over building modern streetcars began. During that time Cincinnatians have consistently voted in a majority of City Council and a Mayor that support the idea of building a modern streetcar system, regional planning, Cincinnatians have cast their votes in favor of not one but two public votes on the project, national acclaim, completion of 100% designs, purchasing agreements, operation agreements, an official groundbreaking, and city officials have secured the necessary funding to build the first phase of the project from the central riverfront to the northern reaches of Over-the-Rhine.

After all of this, we think it is time to move on and focus on other issues facing our city. Issues like pension reform, public safety, bicycle infrastructure, zoning code reform, economic development in all 52 neighborhoods, the enhancement of public services Cincinnatians have grown to love, and many more. Mayoral candidate John Cranley (D), however, does not seem to agree. More from CityBeat:

The public spotlight is nothing new for Cincinnati’s $125 million streetcar project, but it’s a factor supporters are getting increasingly tired of dealing with. Facing new delays and political controversy, the streetcar is once again in the news — and, for better or worse, this year’s mayoral campaign will keep it there for much of the coming year.

Despite the streetcar’s momentum — which proponents admit was literally slowed by recent news of the project’s delay until 2016 — the project will serve as one of the main talking points for former council member John Cranley in his attempt to beat out current vice mayor and council member Roxanne Qualls, a streetcar supporter, for the mayor’s seat in November.

But should it? At this point, most of the funding for the first phase of the streetcar is set, and voters have approved the project twice through the 2009 and 2011 referendums.