JoeL

Wait ... so, McCain wants to essentially destroy the highway trust fund ... but Obama wants to give it a massive bailout that's even 3x larger than the Bush administration's ill-advised bailout? Sounds like a great reason for urban advocates to warm to McCain. Whether they intend it or not, McCain's action would greatly boost urban development, while Obama's plan just needlessly props up wasteful development for a little while longer.

I strongly disagree. The recent push against eminent domain will actually be the savior of inner ring neighborhoods in the long run. For every good project that can't happen, there will be 100 disasters averted. For every beautiful urban mixed-use center, there would have been 100 failed "urban renewal" schemes, strip malls, and outright suburbanization of old urban neighborhoods. I come from a city down South that had almost half of its downtown totally flattened by eminent domain. Hundreds of residents and businesses (an entire urban neighborhood) were pushed out for surface parking lots and suburban-style medical office parks. This didn't happen in the 60's ... it was the mid-1990s. I understand that it can be tempting to justify eminent domain - especially when you love the proposed project, and the holdouts are clearly annoying NIMBY's or profiteers. However, I urge everyone to focus beyond the merits of one particular development like Rookwood Exchange and remember the larger picture. I'd wager that Cincinnati has had plenty of people in power who would gladly flatten OTR for a nice lifestyle center, if only they had the ability. (Edit: By the way, I say all this as someone who now lives less than a mile from the Rookwood Exchange site, and would obviously benefit from this project, if it ever happens.)

Good luck with your move. This year, I made a similar move from a southern city to Cincinnati. There are plenty of nice neighborhoods within the city. Although, I caution you, that if you approach Cincinnati with a "Sun Belt" mindset, you might get a false impression about neighborhoods. Cincinnati is VERY gritty by Sun Belt standards. Even the stereotypical "nice" city neighborhoods like Mt Adams, Hyde Park, Mt Lookout, Oakley, Clifton, etc all have buildings and areas that a Sun Belter would consider very rundown and dilapidated. The same is true in Northern Kentucky. (Anyway, those are the neighborhoods I'd suggest for that "young and sociable" environment) So definitely don't write-off any neighborhood at first glance. It's not like the Sun Belt, where a rental house or poorly kept landscaping are sure signs of a declining neighborhood. Also, in response to your tax question... taxes are high. Very high. I think higher than in Georgia. Sorry :(

I can appreciate your enthusiasm - but these types of projects are almost never on schedule. Huge delays and time periods where nothing seems to happen are totally typical for projects of this type and scope. Just wait until they actually start the construction. The true foundation work always takes forever too. If you try to measure progress in weeks, you will drive yourself crazy. Sometimes even checking up on progress once a month could be frustrating.

As people have mentioned, the levee has no shopping anchor. Without a department store anchor, virtually 100% of the mall retail will eventually close (frankly, it looks like they are almost there). But that's not any indictment of the levee specifically. The failure of mall retail has been an almost universal problem for urban "festival marketplaces" around the country. Malls survive on rich women shoppers. Festival marketplaces draw families and young people on dates. The concept was just a big demographic hiccup. They open - usually on the waterfront of a downtown - with a few touristy destinations, restaurants, and a complement of mall retail. Almost invariably, the mall stores struggle and die, and they are slowly replaced with more restaurants and entertainment venues. This is clearly the Levee's fate with the current structure. But it's not really Newport's fault. It's a nation-wide failure, because the concept was bad.

I'll admit to not fully understanding the distinction between jobs and shopping when discussing localism. But I'm a bit sheepish about totally hijacking this thread with my anti-localism arguments. I don't want to piss people off too much. So I'll make one more example, and I'll make it about Oakley just to keep it kinda on-topic. ;) Just South of the Millworks site, on Paxton & Isabella there are two mexican fast-food restaurants right next door to eachother. Taco Casa and Chipotle. Taco Casa is (I presume) a local Cincinnati place. Chipotle is an evil national chain, that was even owned by McDonalds at one point. But, Chipotle is so much better than Taco Casa in every possible way, that Chipotle is totally slammed at all hours of the day. Taco Casa is lucky to have more than a handful of customers at a time, even on lunch hour. Chipotle is completely killing Taco Casa (at least at that location) and it's not even subtle. But is any of that a bad thing? Chipotle really is better. It's cheaper, faster, cleaner, fresher, tastier, and more pleasant. Obviously, thousands of people in the neighborhood agree. Is it the death of a local tradition, or a great improvement in quality of life because a GOOD mexican fast food restaurant now services the neighborhood? So anyway... um ... how about those renderings for the Millworks! I hope they actually go through with these plans!

I strongly disagree. Job location is just as relevant to shopping location. It fact, from a tax standpoint, job location has a much stronger impact on the tax base than shopping location. But regardless, ALL those companies employ people locally. Do the Cincinnatians who work at Biggs deserve your money less than the Cincinnatians who work at Kroger? Working-class people work at all of these stores. The biggest difference is that Kroger, 5/3, Federated, P&G etc all have their headquarters here - I understand that. But do you really think that all the upper management actually lives within city limits? The majority live in Mason, Montgomery, Kentucky, etc. By shopping at Kroger over Biggs, you're just supporting "Cincinnati" office workers who by-and-large don't even live in city limits. You wouldn't want to live in a Cincinnati where people chose the "local" option over the "best deal" option. There is only ONE person on my entire block who is a Cincinnati native. The rest of us all came from Florida, Mass, Illinios, Kentucky, California, etc. We are only here because we could get a slightly "better deal" by working in Cincy over working in our hometowns. If we all thought "locally" we would have stayed in our home states, and taken a slightly worse deal to be closer to home. Then all of our spending, property taxes, and city income taxes would never exist. Indeed, many of us know that we probably won't spend the rest of our lives here. If we were localists, should we even spend our money at Cincinnati stores? Perhaps my wife should do all her clothing shopping at Steinmart instead of Macys because Steinmart is based in our true hometown?

^ I appreciate the clear and polite response UncleRando, although I would argue that the kind of localism you describe is very misguided. The city of Cincinnati is populated by a tremendous number of people who are "tax-losses" because they take more in city services than they pay in taxes. Consequently the city of Cincinnati is kept alive through revenue generated by "outsiders." The non-residential property that fuels the city's income is sustained through people who live outside the city limits yet choose to work, shop, and play within city limits. For example, the management at downtown's major corporations rarely live within city limits. Imagine what would happen if they moved their opperations to support their local community. Thankfully, they are more regionally minded than locally minded. If everyone in the metro region chose to support their particular community above all others, the City of Cincinnati would clearly be the first to wither and die. Maybe in 50 years changing trends will cause all the tax-generating people to move within city limits, and all the tax-taking people to flee to suburban ghettos. But until then, true localism is actually the biggest possible threat to a city like this one. Anyway, I'm sorry, because this is all horribly off-topic. I won't post any more about localism in this thread. But I'm always up for friendly debates :)

But it seems like a Millworks movie theater would be quite similar to the Newport theater. It would be a lifestyle center type theater that would serve hordes of teenie-boppers. Why would Newport be unacceptable but this one be okay? (Plus Newport is more "in the city" than the Millworks site anyway)

I live really really close to this project. If anyone is interested, I'd be happy to post construction progress photos. Just let me know. I'm pretty excited about this project. Although I hate the design (EVERYONE I've spoken to in the neighborhood hates the design btw) I like the more "urban" feel of the project. Plus, as long as it isn't too ugly, the high price point will boost my own property value. :) Also, I must belatedly respond to the posts from last year about Hyde Park being too "yuppie" and not having enough income diversity. Personally, as a Cincinnati transplant, I find that to be totally untrue. I think Cincinnati's general affordability has caused a loss of some perspective. Just because you can't buy a freaking 3 bedroom house for under $200,000 doesn't mean that a neighborhood is unaffordable or exclusive. For example, within just a couple blocks of this project you have a massive variety of housing types. You have million dollar condos, multi-million dollar mansions, and houses at virtually every single price point from $250,000 to $1,000,000. Then, you have rental houses, duplexes, and apartment units at some very affordable prices. Some of those apartments have such low rents, I frankly find it kind of absurd given the posh reputation of the neighborhood. I just saw one of the buildings on the same street as 2801 asking around $500/month.

That, and the huge electrical substation just south of the church doesn't help either. It's certainly not the prettiest area. Normally, I think streescaping projects are highly overrated. However, this section of Oakley could really use the investment in some more landscaping, street trees, and a few decorative walls.

I agree with the commentary on the first post ... these jokes seem to be about New Englanders more than white people in general. All the stereotypes fit them perfectly, but not necessarily whites in other parts of the country.

They DON'T sound American. When singing properly, all English speakers should sound the same, regardless of what country they are from. The vowel sounds are standardized. You just think it sounds "American" because that's what you're used to hearing. When British bands sound very "British" it's because they aren't singing using the proper/strict diction. The same is true for the US ... just listen to the heavy accents in country music.

It is what it is. Hardcore suburbanites are going to think its a scam because they know they are never going to reap the rewards of the investment. They already know that, no matter how nice OTR becomes, they are never going to live, work, or play there. So, as far as they are concerned, it's just another subsidy for all those poor people in OTR. (Of course, ironically, lots of the poor people in OTR also consider the streetcar a "scam" because they don't think they'll reap the rewards either. They see it as a ploy for all the rich white suburbanites to come in and steal their neighborhood.)

^ Idiots like that lady aside, the legacy of crime in any downtown is very hard to overcome. It doesn't really matter that downtown has very little serious crime. All it takes is for a suburban visitor to see some graffiti, a few broken bottles, or a boarded up window. Then, as far as that person is concerned, downtown is a hive of murder and mayhem. The whole "broken windows" theory is extremely relevant. Having a clean pretty downtown is just as crucial to the perception of safety ... as actual safety.

It needs little wings, and maybe a water feature coming out of its snout ;) But anyway, I'm originally from a city that once decorated its downtown with dozens of manatee statues (one dressed as a "elvis" manatee if I recall) so my tolerance for the absurd is rather high.

^ I'm guessing that the giant pig fountain suggestion was meant in jest. However it's not a bad idea. A city shouldn't be scared of making a whimsical, or even self-effacing, statement with its public art. Heck, look at the "maniquin piss" in Brusslels.

I hope the city is already aware of this EPA program? http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/2008_sgia_rfa.htm They are offering to provide free technical assistance to a limited number of smart growth programs. The streetcar seems to perfectly fit their goal. They could certainly make planning this new uptown connector a lot easier (or at least cheaper).

So what does everyone think the odds are that a Streetcar will be built to OTR (at least more-or-less resembling the current route) sometime in the next few years? Pardon the very basic question - but reading this thread, it seems like some people are somewhat confident this will happen, while others still consider it a bit of a pipedream.

I looked into buying one of the completed houses. The interiors are top notch, even though the exteriors are a bit silly looking. Unfortunately, the project has some otherbig negatives that are hard to overlook. The cul-de-sac looks totally out of place. Past the cul-de-sac is a view of a giant bilboard and tons of power lines. Across the street is a hill with an ugly apartment building on top. The whole street was just a huge turn-off at that price-point. It's such a shame because the interiors were very very nice compared to other $400,000 houses in the area.

Obviously there is considerable neglect and fire damage, but why is it slated for emergency demolition? I'm assuming there are massive structural problems? Also, who is the owner of the building? Was it the owner or the city that initiated the demolition process? Edit: Nevermind - the blog link answered my questions. Quite a shame.

This is very true. While the realtors are professionally obligated to be somewhat neutral, the other P&G employees who speak with new hires are quite blunt. We were basically told to not even consider neighborhoods west of I-71. The existence of OTR has never once been mentioned to us in our house-hunting process (although people were rather positive about downtown).

Williams and Sonoma Home is like the anti-IKEA. Everything is classic and gorgeous, with the most absurd prices you've ever seen. When we got to that store, we had a "race" to see who could find a $100+ throw pillow. We both succeeded in less than 30 seconds.

My wife is threatening to furnish our house with Ikea when we move to Cincinnati this summer. (I like the prices, but tend to dislike the Ikea style.) Does anyone have good suggestions for an Ikea alternative in Cincinnati? Some place that sells quasi-reasonably priced furniture made out of something better than particle board? That being said, one way or another, I'm sure I will become very familiar with the Ikea store in the next few months. Plastic lampshades here I come!!

^ Thanks again guys. A 30% materials increase + yearly inflation + a 15% overrun factored into the budget mostly accounts for the massive price difference. So my question has certainly been answered. That being said, there's clearly still potential for value engineering, and I hope that the costs eventually come in under budget!