Ram23

That would make sense from an operations standpoint; Kroger would be able to remain open while construction took place, then they could just move over the course of maybe one week. That would be in their best interest, as I'm sure the store is fairly profitable, and they'd be able to maintain their staff. It would also nix any hopes of realigning Vine St, not that it was going to happen, anyway. It would be nice to have the Kroger up against the street though, so long as the architects treat it as a street frontage and not the back of a store.

^ Where are the meetings held? I live on the south side of Liberty but I'd like to help out.

Have you looked inside the Banks retail shells? There are no walls, no floors, no ceilings, no bathrooms, no oven vents. That is infrastructure. That's finish out and equipment, not infrastructure; the shell is the infrastructure. If the restaurant at hand were to fail and someone new took over the space, they'd likely gut the entire interior and start from scratch. It's even more likely if a national chain were to take over, since it's more efficient on their end to gut and apply their standards then to survey what is existing and decide what to keep and what to demo. Not to mention kitchen equipment, which is extremely specialized to what types of food are prepared. My point is, this gift pays for finish out that only this restaurant will ever be able to use. That debate should only come up if Mahogany's fails, anyway, which I hope it doesn't - handout or no handout.

The Holy Grail is doing fine without cash gifts, and is local. There are plenty of restaurants and businesses up in the Gateway Quarter that are excelling without gifts, and the ownership there is extremely diverse. As for that second paragraph, what's bizarre to me is how some people are so immersed in white guilt that they support the other side of debate, but that is neither here nor there because it's not the reason I am against this handout, nor do I think (hopefully) it is the reason the gift was proposed in the first place. The city has supplied plenty of infrastructure at the Banks, they shouldn't be buying fryers and ovens. Calling kitchen equipment an infrastructure investment is a joke.

They were in the building yesterday. I think he meant the confusion will be between "Anchor" and "Anchor Grill." If someone were to say "Let's meet at Anchor at 8:00," I'd find myself in Covington just like Jimmy_James.

So the debate here isn't whether or not the city is giving a handout to a business because it is black owned, it's whether or not that's okay? I'm at least glad we're all in agreement on the first part, I felt that was the case but couldn't think of a PC way to say it. It's still absurd to make a gift like that. Loans are understandable, be it national chains or local places (Holy Grail is doing excellent, as will Moerlein, I'm sure). A gift, no matter how you paint it, is wrong, and the fact that race is the motivator behind it is going to upset a lot of people.

I like seafood places, but this place will have to be spectacular to usurp Alabama Fish as the best in OTR.

Grant/Gift money on this deal is way out of line. I don't mind the $300,000 loan, because there is some collateral there. The grant is absurd. Hopefully when the full council votes on it on Thursday they realize that. Loans are fine, even with low interest, but that large of a gift to a private business is a waste. I can name a dozen new restaurants that have opened in Cincinnati in the past year that are wildly successful without handouts.

I wouldn't mind a few more super cheap places downtown. There are only a handful of places where lunch can be had for less than about $6.

^I live around the corner from and shop at that Kroger all the time. I don't mind the selection at all. If I want higher end stuff, I go to Findlay Market. I go to Kroger precisely for cheap stuff.

The Enquirer article seems to imply that the Freedom Center will stay at the Banks, unfortunately. With any hope, the Museum Center will have some temporary exhibits at the Freedom Center to attract a larger crowd.

^ 3CDC owns pretty much every major property along Vine south of Liberty, though. They recently made a big purchase back along 15th Street between Walnut and Vine, a well. They may not have fully renovated everything up to Liberty, but it is definitely on the books for the coming year or so. They will be up to the Kroger by June (5 years from the post above).

Ahh, the real reason. The defendable perimeter is just a rouse. The real reason is their employees are close to the desirable living in Blue Ash and Montgomery without the hassle of going downtown every day. Why can't they simply state that rather than some BS about a defendable perimeter? BTW are the additional office tower and hotel for Kenwood Green under construction or on hold? I think you misunderstood. I used to work designing medical research facilities that housed some nasty stuff (infectious diseases, animal testing, etc.) and the requirements for a secure perimeter are absolutely real. The places I worked on were in New York City and always located out on Long Island on a secure campus rather than in the city. The type of facility that prefers a secure access campus needs to be in a semi suburban area, but they don't want to be too far from the urban center that they know their employees are rapidly preferring to live in, hence Kenwood.

So do you believe a fortress style building can be better disquised in Kenwood than downtown? Where do you stick out like a sore thumb? Bury it downtown, as it is much more likely to get lost there. I don't think it's about disguising or hiding the building, it's about having a secure perimeter. They wanted a more expansive site so there was a clear defensible boundary around the building. That is very expensive to pull off in an urban environment. For comparison, look at the US embassy being built in London. In order to be secure in a downtown area, it's going to be the most expensive embassy ever built, anywhere. The FBI building in Kenwood is akin to the CIA being in Langley. It's easier to design a secure building in open surroundings.

^ On a side note, I shop at the Macy's, Saks, and Brooks Brothers downtown fairly often. If I drive, I usually park at a meter less than 50' away from their respective front doors. When I go to Kenwood or Rookwood, it seems like I walk 10 times as far.

Duke is not legally allowed to charge customers higher rates because they live near the proposed streetcar line. If you want to make the argument that they should be able to do so, you open a box of worms. By that argument, suburban and rural customers should be paying much higher rates since they require several more miles of transmission lines for their service than urban customers do. While we’re on that topic, what makes it obvious that Duke is simply playing hardball against a streetcar they don’t support is that they will gladly build miles and miles of underground utilities to service exurban residential developments, but won’t move a small amount of utilities for the streetcar.

Yeah, some rail lines failed and consolidated because that's what companies do. The first major decline was clearly due to the rise of the automobile and the government investment in roads and highways, and the final straw was the proliferation of air travel and the huge government investment in airports. Those are all fairly direct correlations.

This would be the ORC section to read, I think: Chapter 745: STREET RAILWAYS, if anyone is up for the challenge. The Cincinnati charter may govern some of the issues, as well. Edit: This section may be better: http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/4951

This has always seemed like the simplest answer to me, both now and when MSD was causing a stir. Build the streetcar on top of the utilities, and the utilities can work around the streetcar later on when they need to. It'll likely cost more money down the road on their side, but that's their prerogative.

This should be a non issue; leave the utilities where they are. If Duke needs to service them, they will need to do it around the streetcars schedule. Duke's estimate also seems to be very high. Utilities are above ground over most of the proposed line, the overhead wire should fit underneath it. It won't be 8' underneath it, but there should be ample clearance. As for underground utilities, servicing seems to be the only actual conflict, and that would just be a scheduling issue for Duke to work out.

Oakley is a suburban area. A place like Mason is more of an exurb. That said, as I pointed out, the developments in Oakley are horrible, because they are built at an exurban scale. The parking is easily double what it needs to be, for instance. It was built because a suburban developer was able to get financing based upon the status quo; that doesn’t mean it’s a proper solution. There are better solutions that could have been more profitable but current institutions are set up to maintain the status quo because that is what they are comfortable with. I don’t really understand your last paragraphs. I live in OTR, but the farthest I go to shop is Hyde Park, maybe once or twice a month. Everything that is a necessity is less than 5 minutes away, and that includes my job downtown, a Kroger, Findlay Market, and most of the bars/events I go to. I’ve never needed to buy many refrigerators, but if I did it’d probably come with free delivery (I'm not carrying it up four flights of stairs) so why would it matter if I can get it downtown? I grew up in the suburbs, I get why some people prefer that, but some prefer to live in the city. I don’t understand your animosity towards that concept.

Bingo. The original design concepts for the Center of Cincinnati development were much more interesting that what we're getting. I do hold out high hopes for Phase II of Rookwood, however. Even if it comes down to money, people making the decisions aren't doing a very good job. Since it's been built, I don't think I've ever seen the 'Center of Cincinnati' parking lot any more than about half-full. Even on a Sunday afternoon when the stores are somewhat crowded, the lot is half full. That means someone is paying almost double in property tax and maintenance on a paved lot that is way too big. They could have easily fit a few more restaurants and/or smaller stores along the entrance drive. You think that someone would have learned, but the plan for the Milicron site is even more absurd when it comes to the parking. I do agree that I have higher hopes for Rookwood. They at least manage to allot the right amount of parking there.

This is just a guess, but I could see the retail portion covering the entire block above the underground parking, with a Dunnhumby tower above the southern half. The retail on the northern half would stand as a base until a (hopefully) residential tower was feasible to build atop it.

It won't be a parking garage with a tower on top, I can almost guarantee that. 3CDC has had some big site studies done, some of which you can find in the previous pages of this thread. They all call for underground parking and retail. They almost all call for two towers, as well, with a third on top of Macy's. That has always been the plan for this spot, and I doubt the city would have pursued this tenant so adamantly unless everyone were on board. Dunnhumby also is not the type of company to want a parking garage as the first few stories of their building.

Dunnhumby USA picks Fifth and Race Dunnhumby USA will build its new headquarters at Fifth and Race, a prime slice of city-owned real estate long eyed for redevelopment.