Tag: public policy

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Business Development News Opinion

Downtown Cincinnati to get another new office tower, but is it an opportunity missed?

On Monday dunnhumbyUSA announced that they had found a location for their new expanded headquarters. The consumer analytics company will build a new office tower at Fifth and Race in downtown Cincinnati.

The embattled property had long been seen as a site for a tower by city leaders. Development plans, at some point or another, had called for a department store, theater, condo tower, office tower, or some combination thereof. Both Eagle Realty and Towne Properties had failed at developing the site beyond the surface parking lot currently located there.

As one of the most ardent supporters of Cincinnati’s urban core, I am here to say that I am disappointed by this news. Yes, it is exciting that Cincinnati will be getting yet another tower built in its urban core as so much other investment takes place. And yes, it is terrific that a young company is flourishing in Cincinnati. The problem, however, is more complex.


A new office tower will soon rise from the center-left of this vantage point as dunnhumbyUSA builds its new headquarters in downtown Cincinnati. Photograph by Randy A. Simes for UrbanCincy.

As the renaissance continues to progress in Cincinnati’s urban core, the city must seize every opportunity to inject life where life has long since been vacant. The activity that follows should be thought about in a logical manner. What kinds of activities are found in what parts of the center city, and what is needed?

In the case of the notorious Fifth and Race location, what is needed is after-hours street life. It is currently an area vibrant during the business day, but struggles to support businesses and street activity into the evenings and weekends. The development of a new office tower there does not address either of those issues.

Yes, the new dunnhumbyUSA tower will be a boon for city coffers and develop a long underutilized piece of property just a block from Fountain Square. But the central business district needs more residents if it ever wants to support the likes of a grocery store, theater or other service retail. And there are very few sites well-suited for a high-rise residential tower beyond the Fifth and Race location that will now be occupied by a shiny new office tower.

The alternate location for dunnhumbyUSA’s new tower would have been at The Banks where an office tower has been proposed at the corner of Second and Walnut streets. This is an area that is, infact, in need of daytime activity. Unlike the rest of the central business district, The Banks is primarily made up of high density residential and other entertainment that fills the streets into the evenings. What The Banks does not have is daytime business activity, and dunnhumbyUSA would have provided just that.

Furthermore, a location at The Banks would guarantee increased parking revenues at the county-owned garages sitting beneath the development. This, in turn, would help to pay off the stadium debt that is crippling Hamilton County.

If you are to look at things in order of sparking additional development, The Banks location also comes out on top. As most industry insiders are aware, it is difficult to make money on residential development, but office development makes money hand over fist if you can lease it. Such a tower at The Banks would have almost assuredly helped either pay off debts on the first phase, or finance the second phase of development there.

Unless the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) uses the profits to leverage additional development in Over-the-Rhine or in the central business district, the Fifth and Race location will not have the same ripple effect that would have been seen at The Banks.

In my opinion, city officials should have been patient and sat on the Fifth and Race site until a deal came to pass that would have developed the site into a 20 to 30-story residential tower. Cincinnati may only have one or two sites well-suited to accommodate such a tower in its central business district now, but it could probably use three times that many to achieve the vibrancy that is needed.

Let’s hope that the development plan for the Fifth and Race site includes some residential component to help offset this situation. Until then, chalk this one up as good news, but an opportunity missed.

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Business News Politics

Cincinnati may soon be powered by 100% renewable energy

Cincinnati is working on a new power aggregation deal right now that could lead to the entire city being powered from 100 percent renewable energy sources. The deal, city officials say, could be finalized within the coming months and be in place for consumers by summer 2012.

Such a move would make Cincinnati the largest city in the United States to have its energy supply come from 100 percent renewable sources, and it might be accomplished without any significant cost difference for ratepayers.

The way it would work, city officials tell UrbanCincy, is by requiring power providers to include quotes for both the cheapest electricity available and 100 percent renewable electricity. In Oak Park, IL, for example, the bids came back so competitive that city officials decided to go with the 100 percent renewable solution.


Cincinnati businesses and homeowners may be supplied by 100% renewable energy as soon as this summer.

“There is no guarantee that our bids will come in the same as Oak Park’s, but the question may be whether we are willing to pay an additional one percent to pay for renewable energy,” explained Office of Environment Quality (OEQ) director Larry Falkin.

The movement towards sustainability has evidently picked up steam in Cincinnati as of late. At the first of two required public hearings, approximately 70 people came out to speak in favor of using completely renewable energy sources, and the environmental advocacy group Greenpeace flew a hot air ship over Cincinnati last week advocating for such change.

“The biggest thing impacting our carbon footprint is how we get our electricity,” said Falkin who explained that Cincinnati currently gets approximately 85 percent of its energy from coal. “This is probably the biggest opportunity we’ll have over the next several years to dramatically reduce Cincinnati’s carbon footprint.”

After a positive first hearing at City Council’s Budget & Finance Committee, officials expect that the effort will move forward and receive approval from the full council on Wednesday. Should that take place, the request for proposals (RFP) would then go out within the next two to three weeks.

Even if the response to the city’s RFP does not come back as favorable as Oak Park’s, city officials may be able to structure the deal to offer consumers a choice between the cheapest electricity option and a 100 percent renewable electricity option.

“There are a lot of things Cincinnati is doing to position itself as a leader in sustainability and going green – both in the public and private sectors,” Falkin concluded. “This is a significant part of that total package in terms of branding Cincinnati as a progressive city, and cities across the country may start to look to adopt the Cincinnati solution for energy.”

The final Budget & Finance Committee meeting scheduled to discuss power aggregation will take place today at 1pm at City Hall (map).

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News Politics Transportation

Cincinnati moves on from failed parking kiosk experiment

Court Street Parking Kiosk - Photograph by Randy Simes for UrbanCincy.

Approximately one decade ago, then City Manager John Shirey engaged in a real-world experiment with the way people use parking meters. The idea was that consolidated solar-powered parking kiosks could make the process more cost effective and beneficial for users and business owners. The reality, however, has been different.

The first kiosks made their way onto Third Street in downtown Cincinnati. Those two, $8,000-a-piece, kiosks were then followed by an additional ten kiosks on Court Street and Third Street. Early on it was touted that the maintenance costs would be less for these kiosks as opposed to the many individual parking meters they replaced. What seemed to spell the end of these kiosks, however, may have been the lack of maintenance they received.

Almost from the first year they were installed, users complained of problems with pay-and-display parking kiosks. Money would jam, credit card readers did not work, or the whole kiosk was for some reason malfunctioning.

These early and ongoing problems eliminated the possibility for users to see any potential benefit from the new form of paying for on-street parking. The early problems also eliminated virtually any and all possibility of the system growing into what was envisioned for it.

Originally, city leaders discussed the idea of allowing downtown visitors to purchase monthly parking passes for the pay-and-display kiosks. They also mentioned the idea of allowing a user on Court Street to take their extra time and use it somewhere else downtown without having to pay a second time. Both ideas were well intentioned, but both ideas never happened.

Maintenance issues aside, individuals around the country have complained about the lack of an individual parking meter at their space. The personal relationship between a person, their car, and their assigned meter is obviously stronger than what city officials thought.

The city appears to now have abandoned this experiment gone wrong. The pay-and-display parking kiosks on Court Street have been shut off and replaced by new individual electronic parking meters that are solar powered. Those meters are part of a larger $1.7 million effort to replace all 1,400 parking meters downtown with the new technology.

In cities where space on the sidewalk is a big concern, the initiative to reduce street furniture like parking meters should continue to remain a priority. In Cincinnati, however, most streets do not suffer from this severe lack of space, and therefore it is probably a better approach to use individual parking meters with these technological upgrades rather than completely overhauling the system.

While the parking kiosks originally envisioned by City Manager Shirey did not pan out, he should be commended for his leadership, because without that Cincinnati may not be where it is now in terms of upgraded the rest of its on-street parking payment technologies.

City officials should continue to explore creative options for its parking assets. In 2010 UrbanCincy estimated that a public-private parking partnership could result in an additional $3.06 million in revenues annually. The possibilities of leveraging these assets are intriguing, and nothing should be left off the discussion table during this time of limited resources.

Categories
Business Development News Transportation

Massive funding cuts at ODOT pose threat for Cincinnati-area projects

The tentative project list released last week by the Ohio Department of Transportation’s (ODOT) Transportation Review Advisory Committee (TRAC) will delay many major highway construction projects throughout the Cincinnati region.

Some of the Cincinnati-area projects to be impacted by ODOT’s budget crisis include the Oasis commuter rail line which had its funding erased, the highway portion of the Eastern Corridor Project which has now been delayed, and start dates on future phases of I-75 reconstruction work have been pushed beyond 2020.

ODOT’s cuts have also affected the City of Cincinnati’s West MLK Drive Access Improvement, since that project was coordinated with phase four of the I-75 Millcreek Expressway project. Some of that prep work has begun with ODOT demolishing the old Interstate Motel and several apartment buildings near McMicken Street in 2011 in preparation for reconstruction of the Hopple Street interchange in 2013.


Martin Luther King Drive works its way uptown [LEFT]. An aerial view of the Hopple Street Interchange [RIGHT]. Photographs by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.

With $109 million in Millcreek Expressway phase four funds now delayed until after 2020, Michael Moore, Director of the Department of Transportation & Engineering (DOTE), told UrbanCincy that the city will continue to proceed with work planned for MLK Drive between Dixmyth Avenue and McMicken Street in 2012.

“We will have to modify the west end of the project, since our design ties into the ODOT work,” explained Moore. “Then ODOT will have to modify their eastern end to tie into our work. At issue will be how the shared bike/hike path terminates, but there is really little that can be done at this time with our project to connect to Central Parkway without the reconstruction of the Hopple Street bridge.”

Two miles east of the West MLK Drive Access Improvement, preliminary planning will continue for an interchange between East MLK and I-71. TRAC has programmed $3 million to fund environmental studies, select a preferred alternative, and perform preliminary design work.


Construction work progresses on the Waldvogel Viaduct in Lower Price Hill. Photograph by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.

“No timetable had been set for construction, since this preliminary work had not been funded, but this TRAC infusion is good news and allows us to move ahead to prepare plans,” Moore detailed. “ODOT is also working out a plan of action for changing this project to the new Plan Development Process. This should help streamline the project development a bit.”

Elsewhere, phase one reconstruction work on I-75 will continue near Mitchell Avenue, and work on phase three, the reconstruction of the I-74 Beekman/Colerain interchange, has been fully funded and will commence later this year. However, funding for reconstruction of the I-75/I-74 interchange and all work south of that point has been delayed, as has all planned work between the Norwood Lateral and I-275.

When asked about the ongoing work on the Waldvogel Viaduct, DOTE’s director informed UrbanCincy that the reconstruction project has been fully funded, and will not be affected by ODOT’s cuts. A second phase of that project, which involves upgrades to the Sixth Street Expressway, has also been fully funded and will proceed as planned.

Download a PDF of TRAC’s entire project list.

Categories
Development News Opinion

Vancouver’s approach to urbanism serves as North American model

By all accounts Vancouver is a modern metropolis. The eyes of the world were directed squarely at the picturesque Canadian city when it hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics, but Vancouver has been making noteworthy progress within its urban core for many years.

One of the most striking elements of Vancouver’s urban landscape is the sheer number of glass high-rises throughout the city. The design approach is more characteristic of a modern Asian city than it is of a North American city. The existence of this might make sense given the large Asian population found in Vancouver, but the tower typology is slightly different than what is found in Hong Kong, Shanghai or Seoul, for example.


Residential high-rises define the modern Vancouver metropolis. Photograph by Randy A. Simes in January 2012.

The Vancouver model of urbanism places a focus on diversity and truly embodies the Jane Jacobs concept that downtowns are for people.

Most of the high-rise towers you find in Vancouver are residential, not commercial as is the case in most North American cities. The towers are almost always glass and slender – a design approach almost assuredly meant to open Vancouver’s residents up to the breathtaking natural landscape surrounding them.

What is not immediately evident when viewing these towers from a distance is that their street-level engagement is completely different from most other residential tower designs you will find elsewhere throughout the world.


Townhouses and a corner grocery store create a human scale for the high-rise residential towers rising behind them. Photograph by Randy A. Simes in January 2012.

The brilliance of the Vancouver model is that it incorporates two- to three-story townhouses at the street, while the slender glass tower sets off of the street. This accomplishes three very important urbanist goals.

  1. The townhouses at street-level allow for a pleasant human scale, and are often designed with more expensive, natural materials that also are more pleasant to the human experience.
  2. The set back of the towers allows for natural light to permeate throughout the urban streetscape without jeopardizing its vibrancy with a blank area between the tower and the street.
  3. The towers allow for the always coveted young professional and empty nesters to find a place to live, but the townhouses allow for a desired housing typology for young families with children – thus offering a unique diversity of people within Vancouver’s urban core.

Vibrant schools and playgrounds, exciting nightlife and dining, an urban landscape that embraces its natural counterpart, and vibrant streetscapes are the result of this approach to urbanism.

While other North American cities continue to look for a way to embrace Jacobs’ concept, they should first look to what Vancouver has been so successfully able to implement.