dglenn

Speaking of Vine and Liberty... There are new updates in the effort to save 1500 Vine (Meiner Flats building) Checkout www.meinerflats.blogspot.com for the latest. This is now the official website for the 1500 Vine preservation effort. We are currently attempting to collect pledges from those who made them. This is a very critical time for the building. Your support and any other interest you can generate is much appreciated.

Checkout www.meinerflats.blogspot.com for the latest. This is now the official website for the 1500 Vine preservation effort. We are currently attempting to collect pledges from those who made them. This is a very critical time for the building. Your support and any other interest you can generate is much appreciated.

You can view Channel 9's news story here: http://www.wcpo.com/mediacenter/[email protected]&navCatId=23 Hopefully it generates some interest.

Channel 9 did a piece on the endangered Meiners Building (1500 Vine) this evening. You can view their story here: http://www.wcpo.com/mediacenter/[email protected]&navCatId=23

You can view Channel 9's news story here: http://www.wcpo.com/mediacenter/[email protected]&navCatId=23 Hopefully it generates some interest.

oakie and hemroid, in case you haven't seen the pledge sites here they are: www.pledgebank.com/Over-the-Rhine www.pledgebank.com/1500Vine

Uncle Rando, thanks also for your writeup. Succinct and well done. Much appreciated.

Yeah that's it. Better picture here: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,15846.new.html#new Important Update -- Channel 9 is doing a story on the building tonight. It will run between 5:30 and 6:00, and will be posted online after 9. Please check it out and refer as many folks as you can to it. Finally, if anyone is able to help connect us to additional forums/listservs with relevant viewership, that would be extremely helpful. There are innumerable preservation groups across the country that maintain ongoing dialogues and might be willing to make the smaller $10 pledge, but contact info is needed for these groups.

Thanks for all of your replies. BuildingCincinnati, thanks for your writeup. A couple of large pledges (i.e. rebate checks) are starting to come in, and the target is starting to look obtainable. All of your efforts at wider disemination, as well as your individual pledges, are critical to this effort and very much appreciated. Important Update -- Channel 9 is doing a story on the building tonight. It will run between 5:30 and 6:00, and will be posted online after 9. Please check it out and refer as many folks as you can to it. Finally, if anyone is able to help connect us to additional forums/listservs with relevant viewership, that would be extremely helpful. There are innumerable preservation groups across the country that maintain ongoing dialogues and might be willing to make the smaller $10 pledge, but contact info is needed for these groups.

I haven't posted on here in awhile but wanted to spread the word about efforts underway to save the Meiners Building at 1500 Vine. The building has been slated for emergency demolition, and, like so many others, will quietly be turned to rubble in the next two weeks unless something is done. I know there are diverging opinions about the importance of saving various buildings in OTR....but this one, I believe, is an easier sell on the preservation side. If you're unsure, drive by the intersection of 15th and Vine and observe the 5-storey building with the stone facade on the NE corner. What we're trying to do is raise money to demonstrate some level of private financial committment to saving the building. This financial committment is critical to leveraging $100,000 the City has available for restoration, and another $150,000 that 3CDC has for potential use on the building. If you're interested in helping, please check out www.pledgebank.com/Over-the-Rhine, or www.pledgebank.com/1500Vine (different pledge levels) There is much more detail about this that I can get into if people have specific questions. Thanks much, and please pass on the word.

jerome and kendall, thanks. can you guys pass this on to anyone else who might be willing to help? much appreciated

I haven't posted on here in awhile but wanted to spread the word about efforts underway to save the Meiners Building at 1500 Vine. The building has been slated for emergency demolition, and, like so many others, will quietly be turned to rubble in the next two weeks unless something is done. I know there are diverging opinions about the importance of saving various buildings in OTR....but this one, I believe, is an easier sell on the preservation side. If you're unsure, drive by the intersection of 15th and Vine and observe the 5-storey building with the stone facade on the NE corner. What we're trying to do is raise money to demonstrate some level of private financial committment to saving the building. This financial committment is critical to leveraging $100,000 the City has available for restoration, and another $150,000 that 3CDC has for potential use on the building. If you're interested in helping, please check out www.pledgebank.com/Over-the-Rhine, or www.pledgebank.com/1500Vine (different pledge levels) There is much more detail about this that I can get into if people have specific questions. Thanks much, and please pass on the word.

I haven't posted on here in awhile but wanted to spread the word about efforts underway to save the Meiners Building at 1500 Vine. The building has been slated for emergency demolition, and, like so many others, will quietly be turned to rubble in the next two weeks unless something is done. I know there are diverging opinions about the importance of saving various buildings in OTR....but this one, I believe, is an easier sell on the preservation side. If you're unsure, drive by the intersection of 15th and Vine and observe the 5-storey building with the stone facade on the NE corner. What we're trying to do is raise money to demonstrate some level of private financial committment to saving the building. This financial committment is critical to leveraging $100,000 the City has available for restoration, and another $150,000 that 3CDC has for potential use on the building. If you're interested in helping, please check out www.pledgebank.com/Over-the-Rhine, or www.pledgebank.com/1500Vine (different pledge levels) There is much more detail about this that I can get into if people have specific questions. Thanks much, and please pass on the word.

I would say Mount Adams. You're not looking for Hip-Hop or loud bar environments (Main Street), and you're looking for a nice, dense, walkable place where things are in close proximity. Mt. Adams is a really unique neighborhood with a lot of bars/lounges, laid back live music, restaurants/eateries, and the best view of the downtown skyline anywhere in the city. Honestly I would make that my base for your first time in Cincy. If the weather is nice (which it will be), you should definitely check out the Blind Lemon in Mt. Adams, and sit in the courtyard. It is a truly unique Cincinnati experience.

cool, thanks for compromising agreed, I didn't mean to sound like it was an easy proposition Couldn't agree with you more. Demolition by neglect is killing OTR, causing way more damage than insensitive new construction might. It deserves much more attention. This is one reason the National Trust just named OTR an 11 most endangered place. Disagree here. People forget that the subsidized housing began in the 60's-70's. The neighborhood had already undergone a long and protracted decline by then. The economic base of the community began eroding after the turn of the century with suburbanization, and by the 40's the population had been cut in half. Working class and poor appalachians, as you know, became the dominant demographic in the neighborhood. The glut of subsidized housing did not occur until later, and though you're right that it did have a negative effect, it was more of the nail in the coffin. OTR had been going downhill for years, and it was due largely to free market capitalism.

That's a great freaking pic of OTR

well said, I'm impressed. How did you determine hard costs? What per/SF numbers did you use? What contractor fee did you assume? I ask because once you add up all these assumptions, the definition of "too far gone" can be quite fluid.

Agreed. This is crucial in order to stimulate development. Don't agree here. Let's not forget that free market capitalism is what got OTR into this whole mess in the first place. And let's not forget that without the historic conservation board, all the demolition permits filed since 1993 (and there have been a LOT) by owners wanting to raze their buildings for surface parking would have been approved unconditionally. The free market alone is notoriously bad at creating the types of cities and communities we want. Although theoretically the market should guide new construction and ensure that it is of high quality, this does not happen in practice. A developer can go for mediocre design, knowing that it will still sell because of proximity to downtown and other amenities. Meanwhile, the externality imposed on other abutting structures by the inferior design is not taken into account. Some sort of regulatory mechanism is needed to ensure that the "character" of OTR is maintained and that property values are thus maximized. That being said, I totally agree that now is not the time. Development is difficult enough. I am only saying that some planning is needed for when land values reach a level where additional architectural fees and design review can be handled easily by developers. Otherwise we WILL fail to fully capitalize on OTR -- just look at Gateway, Brackett Village, and the new homes on Mulberry. This is a great idea. How are you publicizing it? You should write something up for iRhine. I can talk to Dyah/Ran and get something posted, if you're interested.

Weedrose, I will give you that there are a few structures that aren't really very valuable to the district, and should maybe come down. There's a frame structure in the 1600 block of elm; there are a couple on pleasant south of liberty that are so isolated and alone that they may need to be razed to make room for large scale infill; then there are several that have been altered so much that they have lost much of their original character, and are no longer considered "contributing" buildings. But beyond those examples, I would argue strongly against demolition of anything else. I, too, would be interested to know how you did your financial analysis and came to your conclusions -- especially what assumptions you used. Finally, I agree with you conceptually that the neighborhood could work with a mixture of old and new. But it would be nice to have an example of a community where that's worked successfully, without damaging the character of the historic environment. I have yet to come across such a community. I'd love to hear it if you know of one.

The economic argument is a good point...and I think you're right that now is not the time to be placing more restrictions on developers, when its already very difficult to get a return doing development in OTR. But as time passes, and land values go up, infill and new construction will happen, and it will be increasingly possible to regulate design without hampering a developer's profit. It might be 10 years from now, but it'll happen. Shouldn't we be learning from what's going on now (Gateway, SCPA, developments on Mulberry) and planning for what needs to be changed? Any designer will tell you that the new doesn't NECESSARILY accentuate the old. It CAN, but if it's poor design it doesn't. There are no guarantees. My point is simply that, in a district as historic and important as OTR, at some point we are going to need some sort of mechanism to ensure good quality design that does accentuate the old. Whether its traditional or contemporary, it needs to be good.

Uncle Rando, what if builders and architects a century or two ago had said, "well, we need to be really modern and contemporary and make sure we don't do anything that replicates the past?" We wouldn't have had gothic revival (Music Hall), Renaissance Revival (SCPA and Germania), Second French Empire, Queen Anne, Italianate, Greek Revival, etc. etc. All of those styles look to the past for their inspiration, without slavishly imitating it. This whole modern obsession with going for stuff that's totally new, with lots of shock value, is kinda scary to me....especially when 90% of passerby walk by and say "wow, that's a really ugly building" (and I hate to say it, David, but you're one of only 5% or 10% of people I've heard that actually LIKES Gateway...I do agree with you though that it was an important development as a stimulant of investment) I don't think anyone wants a homogeneous looking city...the existing architecture of OTR is anything but homogeneous, which is one of the things that makes it so great. Take a look around, every block has different styles, scales, materials, colors, features, etc.

Weedrose, what are you basing your opinion on? Have you done financial analyses of buildings in OTR which demonstrates that they cannot and should not be saved? And when you say we've already lost an entire neighborhood, what do you mean? More than half of the original fabric is still there, not to mention many of the critical pieces of the original German neighborhood: Music Hall (the oldest large Music Hall still in existence), Memorial Hall, the Germania Building, Goodfellows Hall, Cosmopolitan Hall, Moerlein's Bottling Plant, Hudepohl's Bottling Plant, the Jackson Brewery, the Sohn Brewery, Findlay Market, Wielert's Beer Garden, Heuck's Opera House Saloon, the Alms and Doepke building, Woodward High School, Rothenburg School, St. Johannes Church, St Paul's Cathedral, Old St. Mary's Church, St. Paulus Church, Nast Church (the first German Methodist Church in the country), 1st English Lutheran Church, St. Phillipus Church, St. Seraph's Church, the Evangelical Salem's Church, and a collection of 3-5 story tenements with a horizontal and vertical density not to be found anywhere else in the country, outside New York. Shall I go on? How about the fact that OTR had the first Turnverein in the country? And the fact that Levi Coffin had a house that was a station along the underground railroad? And the fact that Harriet Beecher Stowe lived in the neighborhood? Where else can you find a 19th century German immigrant community this large and this intact? Can you name me an example? You're right that OTR is not not quite up there with the places I named, but it could be a significant tourist draw nonetheless. After all, German is easily the most prevalent ethnic heritage among Americans. And it just so happens that Cincinnati was one of the 3 or 4 biggest targets for German immigration in the U.S., and that the most heavily concentrated German community in the City is largely preserved. And you're telling me it's not all that great?

I'm with you, PhattiNati, I don't see how this building is going to complement the existing architecture. Don't get me wrong, I'm supportive of the new school....I just don't like this design. Notice that there is no rendering of the new school in context, showing the impact that it might have on the St. John's Church, Memorial Hall, the Park, the First Lutheran Church, and Music Hall. To me it seems like an ultra-modern hallucination dreamed up by some suburban architect who has never lived close to downtown. Yes, it's "cool", but when you have a historic district of the national significance of OTR, shouldn't a little more attention be paid to how new stuff will fit in? I mean, would you ever see this in Charleston? Savannah? New Orleans? Beacon Hill? Greenwich Village? London? Paris? Cincinnatians don't seem to realize how unique OTR is nationally, and that it could actually be as successful and prosperous as other tourist destinations. Did anyone see the renderings back in 2003? At that time there was a different architect, and their design was the best contextual modern architecture I've probably ever seen. The building totally "fit in". Then something happened, they switched architects, and we're winding up with something WAY different. Plus we're losing 5 historic buildings -- for some reason the design team refused to even consider incorporating the old italianate buildings into the new structure.

ok cool, that's a relief...does $239,000 seem like a good price to you guys? seems a bit high to me for that area

Damn...didn't mean to put that second part in quotes....here it is again: Grasscat, I think you may have been mistaken about this building being demolished. You mentioned that demo permits were applied for, but it is highly unlikely that they were granted by the historic conservation board (unless you meant that they were in fact granted, and not just applied for). The board almost never grants a demo permit, and only does so when the building is so incredibly deteriorated that the owner can demonstrate convincingly that it can't be rehabbed. That's the good thing about our preservation ordinance -- buildings are not coming down at the whim of developers...rather, they're coming down from demolition by neglect (which still sucks, cause we lost about 8-10 a year that way). If the building you mentioned was in fact demolished, I REALLY hope that it wasn't actually the "Deutsche Gegenseitige Versicherungs Gesellschaft" building. This stands for "German Mutual Insurance Company", and can still be seen painted on the side of the building. Its one of OTR's quirks that signify its history. I don't think this was the building with those words. But please correct me if I'm wrong.