Tag: Politics

Categories
Business Development News

Group Health moves into new $27 million tower in Clifton

Group Health Associates is celebrating the opening of their new $27 million medical office building in Clifton today. The eight-story tower is connected to Good Samaritan Hospital at Clifton Avenue and Dixmyth Avenue. The existing building, located approximately a half-mile down the street at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Clifton Avenue, is scheduled to be imploded this September.

Both Group Health Associates and Good Samaritan Hospital are divisions of TriHealth, and TriHealth President and CEO, John Prout, reiterated the company’s’ commitment to servicing the urban core and contributing to Uptown’s vibrancy.

“This investment is part of TriHealth’s ongoing commitment to Uptown as a vibrant community, business center, education center, and medical hub for the region,” Prout told UrbanCincy. “And I add my thanks to all the private and public partners who helped make this a reality.”


Group Health’s new Clifton facility sits next to Good Samaritan Hospital along Dixmyth Avenue. Photograph by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.

The 67,000-square-foot facility had been under construction since early 2011, and is considered to be state of the art. Individuals passing on the street will notice that the medical tower sits atop a five-story parking garage, but individuals using the facility will reportedly experience better access to physician specialists, a full service pharmacy and more integrated services as a result of being located on the Good Samaritan campus.

According to Group Health officials, the medical group will also begin offering neurology as a specialty and plans to add ten more physicians to round out the facilities services in September.

Construction of the new medical facility was made possible by low-cost financing from the Uptown Consortium through its Uptown Partners’ Loan Pool.

The land, however, was not readily available until the $4 million realignment of Dixmyth Avenue in 2006. Previously, the street had been located further south, with homes along its northern side. The street’s realignment made Good Samaritan Hospital’s recent expansion possible, along with the construction of the new Group Health facility.

The controversial road realignment eventually took 28 residential properties through the use of eminent domain, and was upheld in court against one hold out, Emma Dimasi. The project was seen as controversial at the time because while city officials claimed the realignment was for safety purposes, others speculated that it was to free up additional land next to the then constrained Good Samaritan Hospital site.

Just one year after the realignment of Dixmyth Avenue, in 2007, Good Samaritan commenced construction on a ten-story patient care tower.

Health care professionals say that the rapid expansion of health facilities is a response to the growing demand placed on the region’s health care system by an aging population. The issue of aging and expanding health care has been the subject of numerous studies highlighting this trend on the national and global scale. Regionally, it has justified the expansion of the hospitals in Uptown’s “Pill Hill”, including expansions at Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center and University Hospital in Corryville, and Christ Hospital in Mount Auburn.

The expanding local hospital system is offering improvements in health care services for the region’s aging population, and creating thousands of new high-paying jobs. At the same time, however, it is coming at the expense of historic neighborhoods and entire blocks of residential housing.

Such a tradeoff might be good for city coffers, but it will certainly do nothing to directly help Cincinnati’s ongoing struggle with population loss.

Categories
Up To Speed

Will Cincinnati be left behind in the latest passenger rail station boom?

Will Cincinnati be left behind in the latest passenger rail station boom?.

Inter-city rail is also booming as Amtrak experiences record ridership numbers, and is beginning to implement the first phases of the nation’s planned high-speed rail network. Cincinnati’s Union Terminal, however, sits waiting investment to allow additional passenger rail service. Meanwhile, throughout the rest of the nation, cities are investing to support this growth with new and improved central train stations. More from Denver Urbanism:

Los Angeles Union Station opened in 1939 and is often referred to as “last of the great railway stations in America.” And for the past 3/4 of a century that superlative has been largely correct. As rail travel declined, so did rail station design. During the latter half of the 20th Century, many cities replaced their grand historic depots with so-called “amshaks”, cheap and awful buildings that have more in common with utility sheds than anything else. But now that’s all changing, and soon Los Angeles will have to give up its title.

Categories
Up To Speed

The cost of America’s inefficient sprawl

The cost of America’s inefficient sprawl.

American metropolises have sprawled outward for several decades now, and we all know the narrative. Cities lost population while their suburban counterparts grew. While many viewed these boom times as progress, it is now becoming evident that the decision to sprawl outward was a short-sighted policy decision, and is costing American taxpayers dearly. More from CNN:

Every time a new, spread-out subdivision is built far away from existing infrastructure, somebody has to pay for a bunch of roads that serve a small number of residents. And sewer and water lines too. And fire trucks that must travel farther to serve fewer people. And police cars. And ambulances. And school buses. And dial-a-ride buses. And – in many parts of the country – snowplows.

The cost is enormous…Cities can sometimes stay in the black temporarily by approving new development and getting new revenue to pay for the costs. But that’s really just a Ponzi scheme…Balanced budgets don’t just happen. They happen because someone took the time upfront to check the costs and to evaluate what we can afford and what will add the most value.

Categories
Business Development News Politics

Blue Ash City Council spurns COAST during airport vote

The Blue Ash Municipal & Safety Center was the scene of high political drama Thursday night. After 90 minutes of public comment, with zero Blue Ash or Cincinnati residents speaking in favor of Blue Ash rescinding its 2006 agreement to purchase 130 acres of the Blue Ash Airport from the City of Cincinnati, by a 6-1 vote Blue Ash City Council did just that.

Ordinance 2012-41 authorizes Blue Ash’s city manager to rescind the 2006 transfer of title of the Blue Ash Airport from the City of Cincinnati. On August 29, that title will be briefly transferred back to the City of Cincinnati and Cincinnati will return approximately $6 million in payments it has received to date from Blue Ash. After appropriate paperwork is signed, Blue Ash will immediately return the $6 million to Cincinnati and title will be returned to the City of Blue Ash. After the airport operations cease on September 1, Blue Ash will gain full possession of the property and can commence construction of a long-planned park.


COAST leader Chris Finney takes notes as the City of Blue Ash voted against his personal wishes. Photograph by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.

This unusual procedural step is necessary because after the cities of Blue Ash and Cincinnati signed their 2006 agreement, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) restricted Cincinnati’s use of the proceeds. Specifically, the FAA prohibited Cincinnati from using any of the $37.5 million for non-airport capital improvements. Since 2007, Cincinnati has planned to use $11 million of the Blue Ash Airport sale to fund construction of the Cincinnati Streetcar, with the remainder programmed for roadwork and other capital improvements.

At Thursday’s meeting, Blue Ash City Council scolded the local media for not having informed the public that it was the FAA who suggested that Blue Ash rescind the sale as a way for both parties to achieve their goals on schedule. The paperwork to be filed on August 29 allows for the avoidance of an estimated two years of litigation in federal court, meaning Blue Ash’s annual payments to the City of Cincinnati can continue uninterrupted. Cincinnati can use those capital funds however it sees fit, and Blue Ash can proceed with converting 130 acres of the Blue Ash Airport into a park.

The planned park was promised to Blue Ash voters who approved a .25% city earnings tax in 2006. Revenue from this tax has already paid for construction of a new city recreation center and the new Cooper Creek Event Center adjacent to the municipally owned Blue Ash Golf Course.
The facts of the situation as described above were entirely absent from the 90 minutes of emotional citizen comments that proceeded council’s action.  Speaker after speaker, led by Mary Kuhl of Westwood Concern and various members of COAST, incited the crowd into raucous clapping and heckling of Blue Ash City Council.

Chris Finney, COAST’s central figure, threatened Blue Ash with a ballot referendum that would rescind the rescinding of the 2006 sale of the airport to Cincinnati, creating a legal mess his law firm would no doubt attempt to be hired to untangle.

After public comments, five of the seven city council members explained their rationale for voting to approve Ordinance 2012-41. All voiced frustration with the local media’s inability to factually report the situation and called out Chris Finney and COAST for unethical behavior. Several Blue Ash council members reported that Finney had called them at home, and described his actions as an effort to extort Blue Ash. One council member went as far to sarcastically call Finney “The World’s Greatest Lawyer”, while another simply referred to him as a coward.

After city council presented the facts and context that Chris Finney had distorted or omitted in his week-long media blitz, there was no heckling to be heard as Ordinance 2012-41 was approved.

As council returned to its routine business after the nearly two-hour episode concocted by same man who has brought so much chaos to Cincinnati’s municipal affairs since the early 1990s, the crowd that had been calling for Blue Ash Council’s heads earlier in the evening quietly shuffled out of the building.

The misled public, however, had no opportunity to redirect their ire at Finney since he had left the building more than an hour earlier.

Categories
Up To Speed

Consultant says Covington focusing resources in wrong places

Consultant says Covington focusing resources in wrong places.

MJB Consulting had sobering news for Covington officials when it delivered its report to city officials about how to breathe new life into Covington’s center city. The report stated that there is too much retail and that the existing retail is targeting high-end shoppers that just aren’t there. MJB Consulting also suggested that Covington not focus its energies on the Roebling Point area, and that MainStrasse should continue as a bar destination. More from the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Berne strongly recommended Madison Avenue be the focus of storefront-filling activity because it has historic retail advantages over other streets, such as Pike Street, Martin Luther King Boulevard and Scott Boulevard. With resources at City Hall so limited, it’s important for the city to “triage” which areas are helped to rebuild, he said. Both mayoral candidates, Sherry Carran and Steve Casper, said they agree with Berne’s report. So did three city commission candidates.