urbanpioneer

^Actually when it was first developed in the 1980s, it WAS an apartment building.

When smoking was banned indoors, a lot of restaurants and bars set up outdoor seating, even on already-narrow sidewalks. This isn't a problem per se or even at all in non-residential areas, but I live near a bar which eventually removed their outdoor seating because too many of their patrons routinely took their partying outdoors and got very loud up until closing hours, even on weeknights, and neighbors complained. With our narrow streets downtown, it doesn't take much volume to become bothersome, and intoxicated people are usually loud especially when in groups. If we want people to live downtown and enjoy it, we have to be very careful about maintaining the kind of environment in which they can expect to get a decent night's sleep. Those of us who live downtown already expect to tolerate more noise than a suburban cul-de-sac. Sirens, dumpster emptying, cars and buses create noise that we expect to hear. But none of those noises last long before it's relatively quiet again. When people are partying outdoors it's a totally different matter. It can last for hours. That's why I oppose open carry near residences.

It's too bad more people can't seem to comprehend this.

Bars can be nuisance enough for people who live nearby, and even more so if their patrons are encouraged to roam around outdoors. I know people who've moved away from Vine St. in OTR because of the nuisance the bar/restaurant patrons cause. Not everyone wants to walk out of their front door into a crowd of drunks. Haven't you noticed HS-aged kids hanging around there, especially in the summer, because it's a scene? Nothing wrong with that, but allow open carry and those kids will become underage drinkers much more easily. You're never going to convince me it's a good idea to allow open carry in the streets or near residential properties. I've lived downtown long enough to know better. It's my understanding that people who ride the pedal wagons aren't supposed to open carry, but I see them drinking all of the time. And they're often loud and obnoxious well into the wee hours. If it's illegal, why isn't it enforced? It would be a lot easier for cops to cite people on the pedal wagons than a huge area, yet they don't bother. It'll be the same with open carry. Too many people consider downtown a place to visit and trash. Open carry will just encourage it even more.

I don't care what "statistics" say in this instance. As a long-term downtown resident I know what I've seen. There's more inconsiderate behavior when people are drinking in the streets. How on earth are large open carry areas going to be policed, given all of the rules associated with them? Are cops going to go around and card people to make sure there are no underage drinkers? Are they going to watch to see if people carry drinks from bar to bar? Are they going to watch everyone to see if they're drinking out of bottles? Are they going to watch to see if people bring their own beverages? Are they going to interrupt people who piss on someone's building, planter or sidewalk? I don't think so. Have you seen how absolutely trashed Fifth Street is during Oktoberfest? Or smelled it? You don't live close enough to it to experience the nuisance it can cause the surrounding area. I don't care if open carry's permitted in parks -- it's tacky, inconsiderate and inappropriate near residential areas or in the middle of streets.

The .5 square mile is a maximum, but it is up to the cities to propose, maintain, and enforce the specific boundaries. So, I suspect most cities (including Cincinnati) will start with a much smaller, concentrated district at first to test the waters. Districts boundaries can always be revised later. Even though the new state law would allow Cincinnati to legally put much of the urban basin into a single district, it seems highly unlikely that'd happen. I know this open container issue is OT, but I have to say I think it's a very bad idea to allow it anywhere near residential areas. Noise, litter, urine, vomit, underage drinking, etc. are all very likely to occur and cause problems for people who live nearby. I mean, just look how downtown's trashed when these street parties are held. It's disgusting. I live downtown, blocks away from 5th Street and the noise, litter, urine and vomit nevertheless make their way to my sidewalks. Sheesh, there are more and more bars opening all of the time. Isn't that enough?

^So what are these, apartments or single family homes?

Jim, are you saying buyers prefer Formica/laminate to granite or some other kind of natural stone these days? If so, why - just to keep prices down? BTW it sounds like you're doing a great job on Elm St.

Yikes, it looks like it'll take a substantial investment to make the Bay Horse conform. Doesn't the Aronoff want it torn down so that trucks can turn into the alley easier? Yet the Aronoff didn't buy the Bay Horse, presumably because demolishing it wasn't possible due to its historic designation. However, even though that stretch of Main Street has been an historic district for decades, the Josephs (who own the big parking lot between 7th and 8th along Sycamore) got away with demolishing a building less than a block from the Bay Horse that used to stand at the NE corner of 7th and Main, which became a contiguous part of that big parking lot. It had a distinctive white terra cotta facade and it's always puzzled me by what criteria they were permitted to tear it down. It must not have been too difficult for them, which may be why they more-recently bought the old Dennison hotel next door to it. Evidently they haven't been granted permission to demolish that building though. Well, at least not yet anyway. There are a couple of landlords along Main Street who seem to be allowing their properties to deteriorate beyond the point where it may not be feasible to rehabilitate them. I don't know if this is a calculated strategy, extremely lax stewardship, or both.

IMO a bonus is it makes the Walgreen's apartment building look better - by distracting from it! When the site was a surface lot, the apartments were overexposed. I think Dunnhumby is a great addition to the CBD. It's starting to look downtown around there.

I'm not crazy about the natural concrete work (Smitherman's brother???). It's awfully mottled in places and detracts from the otherwise pleasant, spacious, light-filled interior. One would think in an application like this it would be made to look better. The roof deck may provide enough redemption though. Love it!

^WS preserved The Phelps Townhouse and turned it into a Residence Inn. It also preserved the Guilford School. And so far it hasn't torn down the Anna Louise Inn, so if it buys the Masonic temple it may also be preserved... although, while it's a stately building it's kind of an oddity. It's not the kind of structure that's easy to imagine an adaptive re-use for. And besides, the owners would likely want a fortune for it. We probably wouldn't have the Aronoff Center for the Performing Arts if the Scottish Rite weren't so cheap and greedy by refusing to air condition the Taft Theater (it's got A/C now though).

The company who bought it is horrible. They are Columbia Oldsmobile/the Joseph family and they are proud to own one of the largest parking lots in downtown. They would probably try to demolish it if 3CDC hadn't made it historic before selling it. That stretch of Main Street has been an historic district for decades.

^ What a Drama Queen. Somebody give him a tiara.

With every development on or near the alignment, Cranley and Smitherman lose credibility. A lot's happening and more and more people know it. I wonder if this is why Cranley's trying to insinuate himself in SORTA's selection process for hiring an operator? Opponents don't have many more chances to sabotage Phase 1a. Cranley staked his election on the streetcar's demise and it must be embarrassing for him to see so much enthusiasm and development, thanks in part to the streetcar, when it comes to repopulating our city. I live in the CBD and my census tract's population increased 33% last time. And there will be an increase again in 2020 because there's a lot going on around me. There are other options for extending the streetcar. If the major players in Uptown don't want to get on board, why not take it in a different direction? I'd really like to be able to take a streetcar to Rookwood, for example. There's plenty of room for improvement in Walnut Hills that a streetcar could help spur.

Without a doubt this town is primarily GERMAN, sometimes oppressively so. A roster of my HS class reads like a list of the Hitler Youth. I'm not German at all but I ended up with a German surname when I married. Germans pretty much rule here. The rest of us have to learn to tolerate lederhosen and [OMFG] oomp pah pah bands. I'd hate to see them dominate Bockfest though, and crowd out the quirkiness of it. I hope that doesn't happen. I had some bock beer at Arnold's waaay back when, in the early years of the festival, and it tasted awful. But last year I asked my husband to bring home a couple of bottles of beer (to marinate a pork roast with sauerkraut!) and he got some Triple Digit bock. I hated to use it for a marinade because it was so superior to that draft I'd had at Arnold's. It was really flavorful. Delectable really. And I'm not much of a beer drinker. The Triple Digit bottles were big. I only needed one for the pork so we drank the rest. Yummy!

Just because their lifestyle doesn't appeal to us, and some of them oppose the streetcar, I wouldn't presume they're necessarily leading lives of quiet desperation and harbor secret envy of urbanists. I could believe they're jealous of the money that's spent on transit and would want it spent on road repairs instead. Besides, there seem to be plenty of streetcar opponents living in neighborhoods like Hyde Park. They're not all in exurbia. The more the merrier but I'm glad not everybody wants to live in the urban core. To each his own.

IKWYM, although I wouldn't characterize him as a genius! He's a sophist. I finally realized that it only serves to edify his ego by engaging in dialogue with him. Who the eff is he anyway? He's a nobody, and only one of maybe 3 or so opponents who bother commenting anymore on The Enquirer's purposefully-inflammatory, hit-seeking streetcar articles. Streetcar supporters are the ones giving the paper the hits they crave -- there aren't enough opponents who still care enough to argue about it.

Do any of you live in buildings with windows as large, and have installed window treatments at your own expense? If so, were there any stipulations in your lease about what sort of window treatments were acceptable? Or did your landlords offer to pay for window treatments? Just wondering. I recently bought wooden mini blinds for 10 large windows (though not nearly as large as those at Seven on Broadway), got them on sale at 25% off, and they still cost $4000.

The apartments look very nice. The views are nice. But the trend towards huge, commercial-looking windows baffles me. I can appreciate the aesthetic but wouldn't want to live in a building with them. Is this such a narcissistic age that people don't need privacy in their own homes any longer? I can't imagine the cost for window treatments in a place like that. And the options would likely be limited to office-type vertical blinds or huge, heavy drapes -- if the landlord would even allow anything in the first place. The windows are a pervert's dream come true. At least this building is a bit out of the way. Similar windows at The Mercer are worse because of the scale and density of its surroundings. IMO these windows look great in an office building or empty residential building, but once they're filled with the clutter of peoples' things and any window treatments, the sleek look of the exterior is ruined unless the glazing is tinted or reflective. I don't know, maybe that's the case with Seven on Broadway, but it's not the case at The Mercer. When I walk past there the windows look kind of junky to me now that the building's filled up. I guess the residents don't care so much how it all looks from the outside, as such large windows are admittedly dramatic from the inside. Also, the apartment design coupled with the garage design lacks integrity. I don't know if it was even possible to integrate the look of the two or just too costly to do a better job, but the exterior taken as a whole is unattractive. Considering how high the rents are, I'd probably rather live at @580 which enjoys a much better location. In spite of my nitpicking I hope Seven at Broadway succeeds! It sounds like it's well on its way with 50% of the units already leased, which is great news.

I can appreciate your friend's experience. The local news media hyped the riots so much it was effing ridiculous. I've said this before on UO but to repeat myself, I kept seeing the same burning garbage can over and over on each WLWT news report I saw about the riots. It was a close-up shot and made it seem like a MAJOR conflagration had burned down OTR. No doubt it succeeded in frightening people who wouldn't know any better and probably did more to hurt downtown than the actual riots. I went to Globe Furniture at Findlay Market during those few days (it was still open at that point) and had absolutely no problems. Media can be downright shameful at times and that was one of them.

I'm so sick of the overblown accounts about the 2001 riots. The effect of those couple of days gets exaggerated more and more over time. Maybe Jake's correct but I seem to recall property damages were about $250,000. Perhaps a larger figure takes into consideration estimates of lost business revenue, looting or something. Still, 3-5 million dollars seems high. And I agree with The_Cincinnati_Kid that Fountain Square could hardly be characterized as deteriorated. I wonder who told the Times that falsehood? Probably someone from 3CDC if I had to bet. At any rate downtown did decline -- long before 2001. Retailing was changing all over the country and we weren't exempt. The demise of the downtown shopping hub model was helped along here in part due to Kenwood Towne Center and then Rookwood Commons. I-471 enabled the rapid residential growth of Anderson Township, which didn't help matters here in the city. Suburban sprawl to Mason and Westchester would've happened anyway, riots or no riots. Cincinnati Public Schools and high tuition for private schools in the city probably had more to do with white flight than anything else. The NYT article was okay. It's good to get some national attention. However, marketing-related businesses being located here is hardly news, they've been a presence as long as I can remember. The boom in downtown residential is definitely newsworthy but the ugly photo accompanying the article didn't come close to showing our city at its best. It seemed that the writer strained to make the story fit the narrative that incidences of cops killing young black men ruin cities.

It would be so great to have a movie theater in downtown again. When I moved to the CBD in the late 1970s there were still a few smaller ones left. I realize entertainment has changed a lot since then, but considering the demographics of the CBD and OTR it seems there'd be a captive market at least for a place that showed independent/art house films like The Movies did (it was at Race and Garfield where the Cincinnati Shakespeare Theater is now). The Emery Theater used to show classic/vintage films for a while, with a pre-show concert featuring the Mighty Wurlitzer organ! Both venues were great fun for cinephiles. It would be a nice amenity to be able to walk a shorter distance than all the way to Newport to see a film.

Also, I may be wrong but I think actual newspaper printing was performed during some period of the Enquirer Building's history. If so, there may have been some environmental issues to deal with (e.g., residues of inks, solvents used). I'm not sure though.

Obviously none of you have rehabbed an historic building. Even what one would think of as the simplest task can sometimes pose a tremendous challenge. It takes a lot of guts, fortitude, patience and money to preserve an old building, if it's done well.